Harriet Monroe

From “Poems of Travel”

THE CACTUS in the desert stands

Like time’s inviolate sentinel,

Watching the sun-washed waste of sands

Lest they their ancient secrets tell.

And the lost love of mournful lands

It knows alone and guards too well.

Wiser than Sphynx or pyramid,

It points a stark hand at the sky,

And all the stars alight or hid

It counts as they go rolling by;

And mysteries the gods forbid

Darken its heavy memory.

I asked how old the world was—yea,

And why yon ruddy mountain grew

Out of hell’s fire. By night nor day

It answered not, though all it knew,

But lifted, as it stopped my way,

Its wrinkled fingers toward the blue.

Inscrutable and stern and still

It waits the everlasting doom.

Races and years may do their will—

Lo, it will rise above their tomb,

Till the drugged earth has drunk her fill

Of sun, and falls asleep in gloom.