from The Bijou Literary Annual, 1828 - Lines Written in the Vale of Zoar, Coast of Arabia, By Charles Lamb, Esq.

The Bijou

The Bijou;

or Annual of Literature and the Arts

compiled by William Fraser

London: William Pickering,

1828

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

from The Bijou, 1828

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