Quite done, and drunk with cold, I'ld soon have dropped
Dead in a ditch; when suddenly a lantern
Dazzled my eyes. I smelt a queer warm smell;
And felt a hot puff in my face; and blundered
Out of the flurry of snow and raking wind
Dizzily into a glowing Arabian night
Of elephants and camels having supper.
I thought that I'd gone mad, stark, staring mad;
But I was much too sleepy to mind just then--
Dropped dead asleep upon a truss of hay;
And lay, a log, till--well, I cannot tell
How long I lay unconscious. I but know
I slept, and wakened, and that 'twas no dream.
I heard a rustle in the hay beside me,
And opening sleepy eyes, scarce marvelling,
I saw her, standing naked in the lamplight,
Beneath the huge tent's cavernous canopy,
Against the throng of elephants and camels
That champed unwondering in the golden dusk,
Moon-white Diana, mettled Artemis--
Her body, quick and tense as her own bowstring,
Her spirit, an arrow barbed and strung for flight--
White snowflakes melting on her night-black hair,
And on her glistening breasts and supple thighs:
Her red lips parted, her keen eyes alive
With fierce, far-ranging hungers of the chase
Over the hills of morn--The lantern guttered
And I was left alone in the outer darkness
Among the champing elephants and camels.
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