My road is fenced with the bleached, white bones <br />And strewn with the blind, white sand, <br />Beside me a suffering, dumb world moans <br />On the breast of a lonely land. <br />On the rim of the world the lightnings play, <br />The heat-waves quiver and dance, <br />And the breath of the wind is a sword to slay <br />And the sunbeams each a lance. <br /> <br />I have withered the grass where my hot hoofs tread, <br />I have whitened the sapless trees, <br />I have driven the faint-heart rains ahead <br />To hide in their soft green seas. <br /> <br />I have bound the plains with an iron band, <br />I have stricken the slow streams dumb! <br />To the charge of my vanguards who shall stand? <br />Who stay when my cohorts come? <br /> <br />The dust-storms follow and wrap me round; <br />The hot winds ride as a guard; <br />Before me the fret of the swamps is bound <br />And the way of the wild-fowl barred. <br /> <br />I drop the whips on the loose-flanked steers; <br />I burnt their necks with the bow; <br />And the green-hide rips and the iron sears <br />Where the staggering, lean beasts go. <br /> <br />I lure the swagman out of the road <br />To the gleam of a phantom lake; <br />I have laid him down, I have taken his load, <br />And he sleeps till the dead men wake. <br /> <br />My hurrying hoofs in the night go by, <br />And the great flocks bleat their fear <br />And follow the curve of the creeks burnt dry <br />And the plains scorched brown and sere. <br /> <br />The worn men start from their sleepless rest <br />With faces haggard and drawn; <br />They cursed the red Sun into the west <br />And they curse him out of the dawn. <br /> <br />They have carried their outposts far, far out, <br />But - blade of my sword for a sign! - <br />I am the Master, the dread King Drought, <br />And the great West Land is mine!<br /><br />William Henry Ogilvie<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/drought/
