Yuma

Weary, weary, desolate,
Sand-swept, parched, and cursed of fate;
Burning, but how passionless!
Barren, bald, and pitiless!

Through all ages baleful moons
Glared upon thy whited dunes;

And malignant, wrathful suns
Fiercely drank thy streamless runs;

So that Nature’s only tune
Is the blare of the simoon,
Piercing burnt unweeping skies
With its awful monodies.

Not a flower lifts its head
Where the emigrant lies dead;

Not a living creature calls
Where the Gila Monster crawls,
Hot and hideous as the sun,
To the dead man’s skeleton;

But the desert and the dead,
And the hot hell overhead,
And the blazing, seething air,
And the dread mirage are there.