"Earth bare me in Mazanderan, Where, breaking her dead level plan, Steep foliage opens like a fan To hide her virgin blush; And singing, caravan, like you Brooks dance towards the Caspian blue Past coolth wherein mauve turtles coo To panthers in the rush, That turn hill-pools to amethyst. Here bucks drink deep and tigers tryst Neck-deep in grasses lush. "And there the stainless peaks are kissed By heaven whose crowning mercy, mist, With cloud-lands white as Allah's fist Anoints their heads with rain. We never dreamed, where nature pours, That life could run as thin as yours-- A waif thirst-stricken to all fours-- Or verdure, but a vein In sandscapes wincing from the sun That burns your flesh and visions dun, Crawl throbbing through the plain. "I grew. My shadow weighed a ton; I held a countless garrison; My boughs were roads for apes to run Around the white owl's niche. The hum of bees, the blue jay's scream.... The forest came to love and teem In me beside the vivid stream Shot through with speckled fish; Till, weary of my sheltered glen, I craved a human denizen Fate granted me my wish. "Yea, I had longed (if slope and fen Can love like this, the love of men Must live above our nature's ken) To see and shade the room, To shield far-leaning the abode, Wherein the souls of lovers glowed To songs that dimmed the bulbul's ode ... And man became my doom. He dragged me through the dew-drenched brake, And took the heart of me to make A tavern-door at Kum." The pilgrims sat erect, engrossed, Or searched the crannies for a ghost. "Ah, heed it not," implored the host; "This hell-burnt father's son Moans ever like a soul oppressed, And takes the fancy of a guest, And makes my house no house of rest: I would its voice were gone. Yet be indulgent, sirs! 'Tis old. Next week it shall be burnt or sold. A new--" The voice went on: "Here have I stood while life unrolled But not the tale my breezes told. Moonlight alone conceals the cold Drab city's lack of heart. Here have I watched an hundred years Bespatter me with blood and tears, Yet leave man ever in arrears Of where my monkeys start. No more, dog-rose and meadow-sweet! The harlot's musk and rotten meat Blow at me from the mart. "No more, clear streams and fairy feet! But through my mouth the striving street Drains in brown spate the men who eat And drink and curse and die; And out of me the whole night long Reel revellers--O God, their song!... Are there no mortals clean and strong, Or do they pass me by? I little thought that I should leave For this the groves where turtles grieve Far closer to the sky.