THE CACTUS LAND
Land of strange, unearthly beauty,
Tawny Desert, over me
Thou hast cast the deep enchantment
Of some subtile sorcery!
These thine endless barren reaches
Where no fruitful harvests grow,
Unto some bring nameless heartache;
But to me thou dost not so!
Here, where all the air seems newly
From the springs of life distilled,
Every breath is like a beaker
With rare, sparkling rapture filled!
And my heart exults and glories
In the strange, compelling power
Of enchanting, changeful color,
That is thy supremest dower.
Joy to me thine ever cloudless
Sky of purest turquoise hue,
And thy rosy mountain ranges
Wrapped in pale, translucent blue.
Beautiful the rainbow ether
Shifting, shimmering evermore,
In diaphanous, dazzling splendors
Over all thy boundless floor,
Where the low-boughed silver sage-bush
Softly tufts the tawny land,
And the tropic Spanish bayonet
Clusters tall on every hand.
While for leagues and leagues the cactus,
Child of sun and sand and bare
Rainless regions, lifts its columns
Through the rare, transparent air.
Wild and splendid in thy freedom,
Unsubdued as is the sea,
From the first, O lordly Desert,
Thou hast drawn my heart to thee!
Desolate thou art, and silent,
Barren both of fruit and flower;
Yet I love thine arid grandeur
That defies man’s utmost power!