As easily as, with unruffled brows,

And limber, upright bodies,

The village-daughters carry

At eve the brimming pitchers,

Poised upon their heads.

And when, above us, the wide-looming walls

Shut out the Western stars;

Beneath their shade, at midnight, we encamped,

To await till dawn should open

The city gates for us.

That night we did not sleep,

But, crouched upon the ground,

We watched the moon rise over Babylon,

Till, far behind us, o'er the glittering waste,

Was flung the wall's huge shadow,

And the moving shades of sentries,

Who, unseen above our heads,

Paced through the night incessantly.

Thus long we sat, hushed with awed expectation,

And gazing o'er the plain that we had travelled,

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