Arab Love-Song

The hunched camels of the night
Trouble the bright
And silver waters of the moon.
The maiden of the morn will soon
Through heaven stray and sing,
Star gathering

Now while the dark about our loves is strewn,
Light of my dark, blood of my heart, O Come!
And night will catch her breath up and be dumb.

Leave thy father, leave thy mother
And thy brother!
Leave the black tents of thy tribe apart!
Am I not thy father and thy brother,
And thy mother?
And thou – what needest with thy tribe’s black tents
Who hast the red pavilion of my heart?

Francis Thompson 1899

You get the sense of the camels as moving shapes disturbing moonlight and I do like the idea of the sun drawing up the stars in heavenly song.

The great need of the lover for another expressed so strongly in terms of heart, blood and light – marrying in the words of the heavenly sun-rise from the first stanza.

I don’t know about the scenario of one person’s needs being completely encompassed in the life of another though! … the lover who will do everything for you … but perhaps we can forget realities, it is a love song after all … a song to woo or entice another.

Lovers and poets have a tendency to exaggerate don’t you think?

Francis Thompson … chiefly known for his poem … ‘The hound of heaven’