It comes, the blast of death! that sudden glare
Tinges with purple hues the stagnant air
Fearful in silence, o'er the heaving strand
Sweeps the wild gale, and licks the curling sand,
While o'er the vast Sahara from afar
Rushes the tempest in his winged car:
Swift from their bed the flame-like billows rise,
Whirling and surging to the copper skies,
As when Briareus lifts his hundred arms,
Grasps at high heaven, and fills it with alarms;
In eddying chaos madly mixt on high
Gigantic pillars dance along the sky,
Or stalk in awful slowness through the gloom,
Or track the coursers of the dread simoom,
Or clashing in mid air, to ruin hurl'd,
Fall as the fragments of a shatter'd world!
Hush'd is the tempest—desolate the plain,
Still'd are the billows of that troubled main;
As if the voice of death had check'd the storm,
Each sandy wave retains its sculptured form:
And all is silence—save the distant blast
That howl'd, and mock'd the desert as it pass'd;
And all is solitude—for where are they
That o'er Sahara wound their toilsome way?
Ask of the heav'ns above, that smile serene,
Ask that burnt spot, no more of lovely green,
Ask of the whirlwind in its purple cloud,
The desert is their grave, the sand their shroud.