Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, BORASAN, by FRANK ERNEST HILL


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

BORASAN, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: In the desert near khotan
Last Line: Grope thy people, borasan?


In the desert near Khotan
Lie the bones of Borasan.
Once its roofs were red and blue
Where the pear and poplar grew;
Once where river barges rode
Rainbow stuffs of barter glowed, --
Peacock plumes and scarlet wool,
Silver fish from Kara-Kul,
Apricots and carven jades,
Mills for prayer, beaten blades.
Mounded now are sands above
Buried barter, buried love,
Only winds that burrow deep
Tumble sunward from their sleep
Rings engreened upon the bone,
Buddhas smiling in blue stone,
Coins, combs, toys, the dust of vases,
Walls the restless sand effaces.

Men with sword and torch and shout
Did not blot that city out.
Men were sand to pass and pass,
Gleam and shadow, through her glass.

Buddha begging with a bowl
Spread the white peace of his soul.

Eyes beneath a shading hand,
Gazing eastward over sand,
Alexander, desert-burned,
Dreamed, and looked his fill, and turned.

Westward riding Ghengis Khan
Stopped to ask of Borasan
Seven asses heaped with pearls,
Meat and millet, fifty girls.
These he got, and did not stay. . . .
Marco Polo went this way . . .

Over tundras, God-enticed,
Friars crept to preach their Christ. . . .

Still the camels through the gates
Coughed beneath their swaying freights;
Brown-legged boatmen from the stream
Made the palace parrots scream,
Till the peach and melon land
Shrank between the seas of sand,
Till the sand was drifted, drifted,
Slowly through the poplars sifted,
Reached at last the river's edge,
Slowly builded bar and ledge,
Till the crystal ribbon dried
To a crystal thread, and died,
And the green of melon plots
And the gold of apricots
Sank like sunlight into sand --
Till the wind upheaved the land,
And the earth, that mothered man,
Whelmed him there in Borasan.

Northward still the river runs
Unsubdued by sand or suns,
Northward still the poplars press
On its living loveliness.
Here the reeds are tall in spring,
Wild geese mate and finches sing,
Here the shepherds drive their sheep, --
Build themselves for shade and sleep
Huts of woven reeds, and make
Out of maize a simple cake.
How to bake and herd and shear, --
That is all of knowledge here.
Once perhaps their fathers knew
Pointed roofs of red and blue,
Once with millstones crushed their maize,
Baked them tiles to pave their ways,
Ate from silver, drank from glass --
All is lost in sand, alas!

Is it so? Did thousands die
When the buran lifted high
Desert dunes to storm their doors,
Slaying through the streets and floors?
Crept a few at length to light
Through those days the sand made night,
Wild with wind, and beasts that ran
Screaming out of Borasan?
Did they crawl they knew not where,
Wear away from what they were,
Rudely learn to live again,
Rived from trade and art and men?
All they gathered, all they knew,
Did it die as raindrops do,
Leaving only maize and sheep,
Toil and huts of reed and sleep?
Back again where life began
Grope thy people, Borasan?





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