My rug lies under the candle-light,

Flame-red, sea-blue, leaf-brown, gold-bright,

Born of the shifting ancient sand

Of a far-away desert land.

There in Haroun al Raschid's day

A carpet enchanted, their wise men say,

Was woven for princes, in realms apart—

And so is this rug of my heart!

Here is a leaf like the heart of a rose,

And here the shift in the pattern shows

How another weft in the tireless loom

Set the gold of the skies a-bloom.

Old songs, old legends and ancient words

They weave in the web as they pasture their herds

On the barren slopes of a mountain height

In the dusk of the lonely night.

Prayers and memories and wordless dreams,

Changeful shadows and lancet gleams,—

The Eden Tree in its folding wall

Knows them and guards them all.

To Moussoul market the rug they brought

With all its treasure of woven thought,

And thus over half a world of sea

Came the Wishing Rug to me.