John Brett. Portrait of Christina Rossetti. 1857.
The Bijou

The Bijou;

or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser

London: William Pickering,

1828

pp.
Lines Written in the Vale of Zoar, Coast of Arabia
By Charles Lamb, Esq.
A SCENE of Araby! — but not the blest; — 1
Behold a multitude of mountains wild 2
And bare and cloudless to the skies up- piled 3
In forky peaks, and shapes uncouth, possest 4
Of grandeur stern indeed, but beauty none; 5
Their sterile sides, by herb, or blade undrest, 6
Burning and whitening in the ardent sun. 7
Amid the crags — her undisputed reign — 8
Pale Desolation sits, and sadly smiles, 9
And half the horror of her state beguiles, 10
To see her empire spreading to the plain; 11
For there even wandering Arabs seldom stray, 12
Or, coming, do but eye the drear domain, 13
And haste, as from the vale of Death, away! 14