3.
When the fight at Arabella
Had been won, great Alexander
Placed Darius’ land and people,
Court and harem, horses, women,
Elephants, and daric coins,
Crown and sceptre, golden lumber—
Placed them all inside his spacious
Macedonian pantaloons.
In the tent of great Darius,
Who himself had fled, because he
Fear’d he also might be placed there,
The young hero found a casket.
’Twas a little golden box,
Richly ornamented over
With incrusted stones and cameos,
And with miniature devices.
Now this casket, in itself
Of inestimable value,
Served to hold the priceless treasures
Of the monarch’s body-jewels.
All the latter Alexander
On his brave commanders lavish’d,
Smiling at the thought of men
Childlike loving colour’d pebbles.
One fair valuable gem he
To his mother dear presented;
’Twas the signet ring of Cyrus,
Turn’d into a brooch henceforward.
To his famous old preceptor
Aristotle he presented
A fine onyx for his splendid
Cabinet of natural history.
In the casket were some pearls too,
Forming quite a wondrous string,
Which were once to Queen Atossa
Given by the false knave Smerdis;
But the pearls were all quite real,
And the merry victor gave them
To a pretty dancer whom he
Brought from Corinth, named Miss Thais.
In her hair the latter wore them,
In bacchantic fashion streaming,
On that night when she was dancing
At Persepolis, and wildly
In the regal castle hurl’d her
Impious torch, till, loudly crackling,
Soon the flames obtain’d the mastery,
And the fortress laid in ruins.
On the death of beauteous Thais
Who of some bad Babylonian
Illness died at Babylon,
All her pearls were sold by auction
At the public auction-rooms there;
Purchased by a priest from Memphis,
He to Egypt took them with him,
Where they on the toilet table
Of fair Cleopatra glisten’d;
She the finest pearl amongst them
Crush’d and mix’d with wine and swallow’d,
Her friend Antony to banter.
With the final Ommiad monarch
Came the string of pearls to Spain,
And they twined around the turban
Worn at Cord’va, by the Caliph.
Abderam the Third he wore them
As his breast-knot at the tourney
Where he pierced through thirty golden
Rings, and fair Zuleima’s bosom.
When the Moorish race was vanquish’d,
Then the Christians gain’d possession
Of the pearls, which rank’d thenceforward
As crown-jewels of Castile.
Their most Cath’lic Majesties,
Queens of Spain, were wont to wear them
On all court and state occasions,
At all bullfights, grand processions,
And at each auto da fé,
When they took their pleasure, sitting
At the balcony, in sniffing
Up the smell of burnt old Jews.
Later still, old Mendizabel,
Satan’s grandson, pawn’d these jewels,
Vainly hoping thus to meet the
Deficit in the finances.
At the Tuileries the jewels
Finally appear’d again,
Glittering on the neck of Madame
Salomon, the Baroness.
With the fair pearls thus it happened.—
Less adventurous the fortune
Of the casket, Alexander
Keeping it for his own use.
He the songs enclosed within it
Of ambrosia-scented Homer,
His great fav’rite, and the casket
All night long was wont to stand
At his bed’s head; when the monarch
Slept, the heroes’ airy figures
Came from out it, o’er his visions
Creeping in fantastic fashion.
Other times and other birds too—
I myself have erst delighted
In the stories of the actions
Of Pelides, of Odysseus.
All then seem’d so sunny-golden
And so purple to my spirit,
Vine-leaves twined around my forehead,
And the trumpets flourish’d loudly.
Hush, no more! All broken lieth
Now my haughty victor-chariot,
And the panthers, who once drew it,
Now are dead, as are the women
Who, to sound of drum and cymbal,
Danced around, and I myself
Writhe upon the ground in anguish.
Weak and crippled—hush, no more!
Hush, no more! we now are speaking
Of the casket of Darius,
And within myself thus thought I:
Should I e’er possess the casket,
And not be obliged to change it
Into cash, for want of money,
I would then enclose within it
All the poems of our Rabbi,—
All Jehuda ben Halevy’s
Festal songs and lamentations,
And Ghaselas, the description
Of his pilgrimage—the whole I
Would have written on the cleanest
Parchment by the best of scribes,
And the manuscript deposit
In the little golden casket.
This should stand upon the table
Near my bed, and then, whenever
Friends appear’d and were astonish’d
At the beauty of the trinket,—
At the wondrous bas-reliefs,
Small in size, and yet so perfect
Notwithstanding,—at the jewels
Of such size incrusted on it,—
I should smilingly address them:
That is but the vulgar covering
That contains a nobler treasure—
In this casket there are lying
Diamonds, whose light doth mirror
And reflect the light of heaven,
Rubies glowing as the heart’s blood,
Turquoises of spotless beauty,
And fair emeralds of promise,
Likewise pearls of greater value
Than the pearls to Queen Atossa
Given by the false knave Smerdis,
And that afterwards were worn by
All the notabilities
Who this mundane earth have dwelt in,
Thais first, then Cleopatra,
Priests of Isis, Moorish princes,
And the queens of old Hispania,
And at last the worthy Madame
Salomon, the Baroness.—
For those pearls of world-wide glory
After all are but the mucus
Of a poor unhappy oyster
Lying sickly in the ocean;
But the pearls within this casket
Are the offspring of a beauteous
Human spirit, far far deeper
Than the ocean’s deepest depths,—
For they are the pearly tears
Of Jehuda ben Halevy,
That he over the destruction
Of Jerusalem let fall.
Pearly tears, which, join’d together
By the golden threads of rhythm,
As a song from poesy’s
Golden smithy have proceeded.
And this song of pearly tears
Is the famous lamentation
That is sung in all the scatter’d
And far-distant tents of Jacob
On the ninth day of the month Ab,
That sad anniversary
Of Jerusalem’s destruction
By the Emperor Vespasian.
Yes, it is the song of Zion
That Jehuda ben Halevy
Sang when dying on the holy
Ruins of Jerusalem.
Barefoot and in lowly garments
Sat he there upon the fragment
Of a pillar that had fallen,
Till upon his breast there fell
Like a gray old wood his hair,
Shading over in strange fashion
His afflicted pallid features,
With his eyes so like a spectre’s.
In this manner sat he, singing,
In appearance like a minstrel
From the times of old, like ancient
Jeremiah, grave-arisen.
Soon the birds around the ruins
By his numbers’ mournful cadence
All were tamed, and e’en the vulture
Drew near list’ning, almost pitying,—
But an impious Saracen
Came one day in that direction,
On his charger in his stirrups
Balancing, his bright lance wielding.
And the breast of our poor singer
With this deadly spear transfix’d he,
And then gallop’d off instanter
Wing’d as though a shadowy figure.
Calmly flow’d the Rabbi’s life-blood,
Calmly to its termination
Sang he his sweet song,—his dying
Sigh was still—Jerusalem!
It is said in olden legend
That the Saracen was really
Not a wicked cruel mortal,
But an angel in disguise,
Sent from the bright realms of heaven
To remove God’s favourite
From the earth, and to advance him
Painlessly to those blest regions.
There, ’tis said, there waited for him
A reception highly flatt’ring
In its nature to the poet,
Quite a heavenly surprise.
Solemnly with strains of music
Came the’ angelic choir to meet him,
And instead of hymns, he heard them
Singing his own lovely verses,
Synagoguish Wedding-Carmen,
Hymeneal Sabbath numbers,
With their well-known and exulting
Melodies—what notes enthralling!
While some angels play’d the hautboy,
Others play’d upon the fiddle;
Others handled the bass-viol,
Others beat the drum and cymbal.
Sweetly all the music sounded.
Sweetly through the far-extending
Vaults of heaven these strains re-echoed
Lecho Daudi Likras Kalle!