Laughing Lions Will come
The prophet from his desert cave
Listens to the sound of water
Lapping with tongues the fringes of the sand.
Young flowers open for the bees;
A roadway for the yellow sun
Climbs from the hills into the fallow sea.
The scented bells hold golden sound;
And the strong lion drinks the salted waves,
Cooling his mane within the sudden foam.
The bee skirts tremblingly the shining dew
Looking for honey in the golden dells,
While the lion shakes the loud hills again.
This early morning there may lie some gold
Forgotten when the light was fled;
To-day the great beams may shine
On opened caves where run swift rivers,
Shooting their arrows at the swordless sea,
And blind to the sun whose shining armour
Shows in the sky among the clouds he charges—
Driving them across a wind-walled field
Into the shelter of the towering hills.
Honey may be biding in the waking flowers;
The man in armour hides behind the gold,
The strongest waves, far off, are snow.
[ . . . ]
Sacheverell Sitwell's poem "Laughing Lions Will Come" was published in the fifth "cycle" of Wheels in 1920. To read this poem in full in a digitized version of this publication, follow the links below: