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!