The Upas Tree

Deep in the desert's misery,far in the fury of the sand,there stands the awesome Upas Treelone watchman of a lifeless land.

The wilderness, a world of thirst,in wrath engendered it and filledits every root, every accursedgrey leafstalk with a sap that killed.

Dissolving in the midday sunthe poison oozes through its bark,and freezing when the day is donegleams thick and gem-like in the dark.

No bird flies near, no tiger creeps;alone the whirlwind, wild and black,assails the tree of death and sweepsaway with death upon its back.

And though some roving cloud may stainwith glancing drops those leaden leaves,the dripping of a poisoned rainis all the burning sand receives.

But man sent man with one proud looktowards the tree, and he was gone,the humble one, and there he tookthe poison and returned at dawn.

He brought the deadly gum; with ithe brought some leaves, a withered bough,while rivulets of icy sweatran slowly down his livid brow.

He came, he fell upon a mat,and reaping a poor slave's reward,died near the painted hut where sathis now unconquerable lord.

The king, he soaked his arrows truein poison, and beyond the plainsdispatched those messengers and slewhis neighbors in their own domains.