Must I still live in Timbuctoo,
Midst burning and shifting sands,
In a small straw hut, near a foul morass,—
When the earth has sweet green lands?
No breath of air, no song of a bird,
And scarcely the voice of man,
Save the water-carrier’s wailful cry,
As he plods to fill calabash-can.
No fruit, no tree, no herbage, nor soil
Where a plant or root might grow,
Save the desert-shrub full of wounding thorns,
As the lips of the camels know.
The main street steams with the caravans,
Tired oxen and camels kneel down;
Box, package, and bales, are sold or exchanged,—
And the train leaves our silent town.
The white man comes, and the white man goes,
But his looks and his words remain;
They show me my heart can put forth green leaves,
And my withering thoughts find rain.
O, why was I born in Timbuctoo?—
For now that I hear the roar
Of distant lands, with large acts in men’s hands,
I can rest in my hut no more.
New life! new hope! and change!
Your echoes are in my brain;
Farewell to my thirsty home,
I must traverse the land and main!
And can I, then, leave thee, poor Timbuctoo,
Where I first beheld the sky?
Where my own loved maid now sleeps in the shade,
Where the bones of my parents lie!