Desert Of Arabia

By Robert Southey

How beautiful is night!
A dewy freshness fills the silent air;
No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,
Breaks the serene of heaven:
In full orbed glory yonder moon divine
Rolls through the dark blue depths
Beneath her steady ray
The desert circle spreads
Like the round ocean girdled with the sky
How beautiful is night
Who at this untimely hour
Wanders o’er the desert sands?
No station is in view,
Nor palm-grove, islanded amid the waste.
The mother and her child,
The widowed mother and the fatherless boy,
They at this untimely hour
Wander o’er the desert sands.
She cast her eyes around,
Alas! no tents were there
Beside the bending sands,
No palm-tree rose to spot the wilderness;
The dark blue sky closed round,
And rested like a dome
Upon the circling waste.
She cast her eyes around,
Famine and Thirst were there;
And then the wretched mother bowed her head,
And wept upon her child.

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