Creatures of Another Country
I
THE BIRD OF PARADISE
Answer my riddle, will you? Nay,
Do not toss your head that way,
With such a ruffle of passion.
I merely asked you who was fleeced
To pay the jeweller and modiste
For this last word in fashion.
I have a right, if you only knew,
To put this delicate point to you—
Those sapphires dancing on your crest,
That cluster of rubies on your breast,
That necklace there, those pearls! The price?
Who paid it? Bird of Paradise!
And the only kind of reply that came
Out of that vision of tropical flame
Was that little ruffle of passion.
A tango of color from scarlet to green
Evolved as I watched the beauty preen
Her plumes in that maddening fashion.
So I left the Bird of the Garden to call,
This time, upon the Bird of the Hall;
For my temples beat with the throb of fire,
And I could not find in that land of Desire
A cooling wind, or water, or ice
To quench a fever in Paradise.
And the only answer I got in the Hall
Was a glance of repulse from the belle of the Ball,
With a little ruffle of passion;
Though I had a right to ask, I am sure,
Who sent that tiara for her coiffure,
And that latest corsage of fashion.
Not those the jewels I gave her to wear,
Not those the drops that hung from her ear;
And my fever burned like a thirst in Sahara,
When that osprey swung above the tiara,
And I knew no wind, nor water, nor ice
Might cool this hell in Paradise.
II
THE EPIGRAPHER
His head was like his lore—antique,
His face was thin and sallow-sick,
With god-like accent he could speak
Of Egypt's reeds or Babylon's brick
Or sheep-skin codes in Arabic.
To justify the ways divine,
He had travelled Southern Asia through—
Gezir down in Palestine,
Lagash, Ur and Eridu,
The banks of Nile and Tigris too.
And every occult Hebrew tale
He could expound with learned ease,
From Aaron's rod to Jonah's whale.
He had held the skull of Rameses—
The one who died from boils and fleas.
Could tell how—saving Israel's peace—
The mighty Gabriel of the Lord
Put sand within the axle-grease
Of Pharaoh's chariots; and his horde
O'erwhelmed with water, fire and sword.
And he had tried Behistun Rock,
That Persian peak, and nearly clomb it;
His head had suffered from the shock
Of somersaulting from its summit—
Nor had he quite recovered from it.
From that time onward to the end,
His mind had had a touch of gloom;
His hours with jars and coins he'd spend,
And ashes looted from a tomb,—
Within his spare and narrow room.
His day's work done, with the last rune
Of a Hammurabi fragment read,
He took some water spiced with prune
And soda, which imbibed, he said
A Syrian prayer, and went to bed.
* * * * * * * *
And thus he trod life's narrow way,—
His soul as peaceful as a river—
His understanding heart all day
Kept faithful to a stagnant liver.
L'ENVOI.
When at last his stomach went by default,
His graduate students bore him afar
To the East where the Dead Sea waters are,
And pickled his bones in Eternal Salt.