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From The Bibliophile Library of Literature, Art, & Rare Manuscripts, Volume I, compiled and arranged by Nathan Haskell Dole, Forrest Morgan, and Caroline Ticknor; The International Bibliophile Society, New York-London; 1904; p. 69.



[69]

THE MIRAGE IN EGYPT.*


BY THEODORE WATTS-DUNTON.





BENEATH the sand-storm, John the Pilgrim prays;
     But when he rises, lo! an Eden smiles,
     Green cedarn slopes, meadows of camomiles,
Claspt in a silvery river’s winding maze.
“Water, water! Blessed be God!” he says,
     And totters gasping toward those happy isles.
     Then all is fled! Over the sandy piles
The bald-eyed vultures come and stand and gaze.
“God heard me not,” says he; “blessed be God,”
     And dies. But as he nears the Pearly Strand,
     Heav’n’s outer coast where waiting angels stand,
He looks below. “Farewell, thou hooded clod,
     Brown corpse the vultures tear on bloody sand,
God heard my prayer for life — blessed be God!”



Finis

NOTES

*  By permission of the publisher, Mr. John Lane.





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