from The Bijou Literary Annual, 1828
author: By Charles Lamb, Esq.
source date: 1828
edition published: 20170606
availability: Freely available via a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

The Bijou;
or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser
William Pickering London
1828

Lines Written in the Vale of Zoar, Coast of Arabia

By Charles Lamb, Esq.

A SCENE of Araby! — but not the blest; —
Behold a multitude of mountains wild
And bare and cloudless to the skies up- piled
In forky peaks, and shapes uncouth, possest
Of grandeur stern indeed, but beauty none;
Their sterile sides, by herb, or blade undrest,
Burning and whitening in the ardent sun.
Amid the crags — her undisputed reign —
Pale Desolation sits, and sadly smiles,
And half the horror of her state beguiles,
To see her empire spreading to the plain;
For there even wandering Arabs seldom stray,
Or, coming, do but eye the drear domain,
And haste, as from the vale of Death, away!