A lingering freshness touched the air From palm-trees, clustered around a spring, The great, grim Desert lay vast and bare, But youth is ever a careless thing. The Raiders threw her upon the sand, Men of the Wilderness know no laws, They tore the Amethysts off her hand, And rent the folds of her veiling gauze. Her scarlet mouth and her onyx eyes, Her braided hair in its silken sheen, Were surely meet for a Lover's prize, But fate dissented, and stepped between. Cruel of beak and heavy of wing. Thus it was written that she should die.
Death is a transient thing.
Laurence Hope Poets' Corner .