Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882). Complete Poetical Works. 1893.
The Seaside and the FiresideBy the Fireside. Sand of the Desert in an Hour-Glass
A
Of Arab deserts brought,
Within this glass becomes the spy of Time,
The minister of Thought.
About those deserts blown!
How many strange vicissitudes has seen,
How many histories known!
Trampled and passed it o’er,
When into Egypt from the patriarch’s sight
His favorite son they bore.
Crushed it beneath their tread,
Or Pharaoh’s flashing wheels into the air
Scattered it as they sped;
Held close in her caress,
Whose pilgrimage of hope and love and faith
Illumed the wilderness;
Pacing the Dead Sea beach,
And singing slow their old Armenian psalms
In half-articulate speech;
With westward steps depart;
Or Mecca’s pilgrims, confident of Fate,
And resolute in heart!
Now in this crystal tower
Imprisoned by some curious hand at last,
It counts the passing hour.
Before my dreamy eye
Stretches the desert with its shifting sand,
Its unimpeded sky.
This little golden thread
Dilates into a column high and vast,
A form of fear and dread.
Across the boundless plain,
The column and its broader shadow run,
Till thought pursues in vain.
Shut out the lurid sun,
Shut out the hot, immeasurable plain;
The half-hour’s sand is run!