THE CONSCRIPT

By Cale Young Rice

The camel at the old sakiyeh

Toils around and round.

Aweary is he of the Nile

And of the wailing sound

Of the slow wheel he turns all day

To lift the water on its way

Over the fields of Ahmed Bey,

That with green grain abound.

Aweary is he, too, of fellàheen

Who compel him on,

With thick-voiced chanting till the day

Over the West has gone.

For the bold Desert was he made,

The Bedouin, his lord, to aid,

Not for this peasant wheel of trade

That ever must be drawn.

But on he toils while dahabiyeh

And dark felucca glide

Below him on the glassy flow

Of the gray river's tide.

Then when the night has come lies down,

In sleep the servile day to drown —

Like all whom Life turns with a frown

From their true fate aside.