Departed suns their trails of splendor drew Across departed summers: whispers came From voices, long ago resolved again Into the primeval Silence, and we twain, Ghosts of our present selves, yet still the same, As in a spectral mirror wandered there.
Although Damascus is considered the oldest city in the world, the date of its foundation going beyond tradition, there are very few relics of antiquity in or near it.
The aquilegia sprinkled on the rocks A scarlet rain; the yellow violet Sat in the chariot of its leaves, the phlox Held spikes of purple flame in meadows wet, And all the streams with vernal-scented reed Were fringed, and streaky bellow of miskodeed.
The nearest approach I have ever seen to the symmetry of ancient sculpture was among the Arab tribes of Ethiopia. Our Saxon race can supply the athlete, but not the Apollo.
It is an agreeable and yet a painful sense of novelty to stand for the first time in the midst of a people whose language and manners are different from one’s own.
