A Desert Memory

Bertrand N. O. Walker

    Lonely, open, vast and free,

    The dark'ning desert lies;

    The wind sweeps o'er it fiercely,

    And the yellow sand flies.

    The tortuous trail is hidden,

    Ere the sand-storm has passed

    With all its wild, mad shriekings,

    Borne shrilly on its blast.

    Are they fiends or are they demons

    That wail weirdly as they go,

    Those hoarse and dismal cadences,

    From out their depths of woe?

    Will they linger and enfold

    The lone trav'ler in their spell,

    Weave ‘round him incantations,

    Brewed and bro't forth from their hell?

    Bewilder him and turn him

    From the rugged, hidden trail,

    Make him wander far and falter,

    And trembling quail

    At the desert and the loneliness

    So fearful and so grim,

    That to his fervid fancy,

    Wraps in darkness only him?

    The wind has spent its fierce wild wail,

             The dark storm-pall has shifted,

    Forth on his sight the stars gleam pale

             In the purpling haze uplifted.

    And down the steep trail, as he lists,

             He hears soft music stealing;

    It trembling falls through filmy mists,

             From rock-walls faint echoes pealing.

    Whence comes this mystic night-song

    With its rhythm wild and free,

    With is pleading and entreaty

    Pouring forth upon the sea

    Of darkness, vast and silent,

    Like a tiny ray of hope

    That oft-times comes to comfort

    When in sorrow's depths we grope?

    'Tis the An-gu, the Kat-ci-na,

    'Tis the Hopi's song of prayer,

    That in darkness wards off danger,

    When 'tis breathed in the air;

    Over desert, butte, and mesa,

    It is borne out on the night,

    Dispelling fear and danger,

    Driving evil swift a-flight.