Ambergris

110 AMBERGRIS FROM GARGOYLES Said The spears of the night at her onset Are lords of the day for a while, The magical green of the sunset, The magical blue of the Nile. Afloat are the gales In our slumberous sails On the beautiful breast of the Nile. We have swooned through the midday, ex-hausted By the lips—they are whips—of the sun, The horizon befogged and befrosted By the haze and the greys and the dun Of the whirlings of sand Let loose on the land By the wind that is born of the sun. On the water we stand as a shadow, A skeleton sombre and thin Erect on the watery meadow, As a giant, a lord of the Jinn Set sentinel over Some queen and her lover Beloved of the Gods and the Jinn. We saw the moon shudder and sink In the furnace of tremulous blue ; We stood on the mystical brink Of the day as it sprang to us through The veil of the night, And the babe of the light Was begotten in the caves of the dew.