3.
Of ragged chimneys martins make
Huge pipes of music; twittering here
Build, breed, and roost.—My footfalls wake
Strange stealing echoes, till I fear
I'll meet my pale self coming near;
My phantom face as in a glass;
Or one men murdered, buried—where?
Dim in gray, stealthy glimmer, pass
With lips that seem to moan "Alas."
LAST DAYS.
Aye! heartbreak of the tattered hills,
And mourning of the raining sky!
Heartbreak and mourning, since God wills,
Are mine, and God knows why!
The brutal wind that herds the storm
In hail-big clouds that freeze along,
As this gray heart are doubly warm
With thrice the joy of song.
I held one dearer than each day
Of life God sets in limpid gold—
What thief hath stole that gem away
To leave me poor and old!
The heartbreak of the hills be mine,
Of trampled twig and mired leaf,
Of rain that sobs through thorn and pine
An unavailing grief!
The sorrow of the childless skies'
Good-nights, long said, yet never said,
As when I kissed my child's blue eyes
And lips ice-dumb and dead.
THE ROMANZA.
In a kingdom of mist and moonlight,
Or ever the world was known,
Past leagues of unsailed water,
There reigned a king with a daughter
That shone like a starry stone.
The day grew out o' the moonlight;
But never a day was there.
The king was wise as hoary,
And his daughter, like the glory
Of seven kingdoms, fair.
And the night dimmed over the moonlight,—
And ever the mist was gray,—
With slips of dull stars, bluer
Where the princess met her wooer,
A page like the month o' May.
In her eyes the mist, and the moonlight
In hair of a crumpled gold;
By day they wooed a-hawking,
A-hawking laughed, a-mocking
The good, white king and old.
On the sea the mist, and the moonlight
Poured pale to the lilies' tips;—
At eve, when the hawks were feeding,
In courts to the kennels leading,
He kissed her mouth and lips.
On towers the mist, and the moonlight
On a dead face staring up;—
His kingly couch was ready,
But and her hand was steady
Giving the poisoned cup.
MY ROMANCE.
If it so befalls that the midnight hovers
In mist no moonlight breaks,
The leagues of years my spirit covers,
And myself myself forsakes.
And I live in a land of stars and flowers,
White cliffs by a silver sea;
And the pearly points of her opal towers
From the mountains beckon me.
And I think that I know that I hear her calling
From a casement bathed with light—
The music of waters in waters falling
To palms from a rocky height.
And I feel that I think my love's awaited
By the romance of her charms;
That her feet are early and mine belated
In a world that chains my arms.
But I break my chains and the rest is easy—
In the shadow of the rose
Snow-white, that blooms in her garden breezy,
We meet and no one knows.
To dream sweet dreams and kiss sweet kisses;
The world—it may live or die;
The world that forgets, the soul that misses
The life that has long gone by.
We speak old vows that have long been spoken,
And weep a long-gone woe,—
For you must know our hearts were broken
Hundreds of years ago.
THE EPIC.
"To arms!" the battle bugles blew.
The daughter of their Earl was she,
Lord of a thousand swords and true;
He but a squire of low degree.
The horns of war blew up to horse:
He kissed her mouth; her face was white;
"God grant they bear thee back no corse!"—
"God give I win my spurs to-night!"
Each watch-tower's blazing beacon scarred
A blood-blot in the wounded dark:
She heard knights gallop battleward,
And from the turret leaned to mark.
"My God, deliver me and mine!
My child! my God!" all night she prayed:
She saw the battle beacons shine;
She saw the battle beacons fade.
They brought him on a bier of spears.—
For him—the death-won spurs and name;
For her—the sting of secret tears,
And convent walls to hide her shame.
THE BLIND HARPER.
And thus it came my feet were led
To wizard walls that hairy hung
Old as their rock the moss made dead;
And, like a ditch of fire flung
Around it, uncouth flowers red
Thrust spur and fang and tongue.
And here I harped. Did dead men list?
Or was it hollow hinges gnarred
Huge, iron scorn in donjon-twist?
And when I thought a face sword-scarred
Would curse me, lo! a woman kissed
At me hands ringed and starred.
And so I sang; for she had leaned
Rare beauty to me, dark and tall;
I sang of Love, whose Court is queened
Of Aliénor the virginal,
Nor saw how rolled on me a fiend
Wolf-eyeballs from the wall.
Oh, how I sang! until she laughed
Red lips that made lute harmony;
I sang of knights who fought and quaffed
To Love's own paragon, Marie—
Nor saw the suzerain whose shaft
Was bowed and bent on me.
And I had harped until she wept;
But when I sang of Ermengarde
Of Anjou,—where her Court is kept
By brave, by beauty, and by bard,—
She turned a raven there and swept
Me, like a fury, 'ward.
A bleeding beak had pierced my sight;
A crimson claw each cheek had lined;
One glimpse: wild walls of threatening night
Heaped raven battlements behind
A moat of blazing serpents bright—
And then I wandered blind.
ELPHIN.
The eve was a burning copper,
The night was a boundless black
Where wells of the lightning crumbled
And boiled with blazing rack,
When I came to the coal-black castle
With the wild rain on my back.
Thrice under its goblin towers,
Where the causey of rock was laid,
Thrice, there at its spider portal,
My scornful bugle brayed,
But never a warder questioned,—
An owl's was the answer made.
When the heaven above was blistered
One scald of blinding storm,
And the blackness clanged like a cavern
Of iron where demons swarm,
I rode in the court of the castle
With the shield upon my arm.
My sword unsheathed and certain
Of the visor of my casque,
My steel steps challenged the donjon
My gauntlet should unmask;
But never a knight or varlet
To stay or slay or ask.
My heels on the stone ground iron,
My fists on the bolts clashed steel;—
In the hall, the roar of the torrent,
In the turret, the thunder's peal;—
And I found her there in the turret
Alone by her spinning-wheel.
She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I wondered on her face;
She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I marvelled on her grace;
She spun the flax of a spindle,
And I watched a little space.
But nerves of my manhood weakened;
The heart in my breast was wax;
Myself but the hide of an image
Out-stuffed with the hards of flax:—
She spun and she smiled a-spinning
A spindle of blood-red flax.
She spun and she laughed a-spinning
The blood of my veins in a skein;
But I knew how the charm was mastered,
And snapped in the hissing vein;
So she wove but a fiery scorpion
That writhed from her hands again....
Fleeing in rain and in tempest,
Saw by the cataract's bed,—
Cancers of ulcerous fire,
Wounds of a bloody red,—
Its windows glare in the darkness
Eyes of a dragon's head.
PRE-ORDINATION.
She bewitched me in my childhood,
And the witch's charm is hidden—
Far beyond the wicked wildwood
I shall find it, I am bidden.
She commands me, she who bound me
With soft sorcery to follow;
In a golden snare who wound me
To her bosom's snowy hollow....
Comes a night-dark stallion sired
Of the wind; a mare his mother
Whom Thessalian madness fired,
And the hurricane his brother.
Then my soul delays no longer:
Though the night around is scowling,
Keenly mount him blacker, stronger
Than the tempest that is howling.
At our ears wild shadows whistle;
Brazen forks the lightning o'er us
Flames; and huge the thunder's missile
Bursts behind us, drags before us.
Over fire-scorched fields of stubble;
Iron forests dark with wonder;
Evil marshes black with trouble;
Nightmare torrents thundering under:
In the thorn that past us races,
Harelipped hags like crows are rocking;
Stunted oaks have dwarf-like faces
Gnarled that leer an impish mocking:
Rocks, in which the storm is hooting,
Thrust a humpbacked murder over;
Bristling heaths, dead thistles shooting,
Raven-haunted gibbets cover:
Each and all are passed, like water
Under-rolled into a cavern,
Till we see the Devil's daughter
Waiting at the Devil's tavern.
And we stay; I drain the beaker
In her hand; the draught is fire;
World-remembrances grow weaker,
And my spirit, one desire.
Course it! course it! Darkness passes
Like an uprolled banner tattered;
Walled before us mountain masses
Rise like centuries unscattered.
And the storm flies ragged. Slowly
Comes a moon of copper-color,
And the evil night grows holy,
Mists the wild ride growing duller.
In the round moon's angry scanning,
Demon-swift cross spider arches
Of the web-thick bridges spanning
Chasms of her kingdom's marches.
We have reached her kingdom, olden
As the sea that sighs its sadness;
Rocks and trees and sands are golden,
And the air a golden gladness.
Shapely ingots are the flowers,
And the waters, amber brightness;
Gold-bright, song-birds in the bowers
Sing with eyes of diamond whiteness.
And she meets me with a chalice
Like the Giamschid ruby burning,
And I drain it without malice,
To her towers of topaz turning.
Many hundred years forgetting
All that's earth: within her power
I possess her: naught regretting
Since each year is as an hour.
AT THE STILE.
Young Harry leapt over the stile and kissed her,
Over the stile the stars a-winking;
He thought it was Mary—'t was Mary's sister—
And love hath a way of thinking.
"Thy pail, sweetheart, I will take and carry."—
Over the stile the stars hang yellow.—
"Just to the spring, my sweetheart Harry."—
And love is a heartless fellow.
"Thou saidst me yea when the frost did shower
Over the stile from stars a-shiver."—
"I say thee nay now the cherry-trees flower,
And love is taker and giver."
"O false! thou art false to me, sweetheart!"—
Over the stile the stars a-glister.
"To thee, the stars, and myself, sweetheart,
I never was aught save Mary's sister.
"Sweet Mary's sister and thou my Harry,
Her Harry and mine, but mine the weeping:
In a month or twain you two will marry—
And I in my grave be sleeping."
Alone among the meadows of millet,
Over the stile the stars pursuing,
Some tears in her pail as she stoops to fill it—
And love hath a way of doing.
THE ALCALDE'S DAUGHTER.
The times they had kissed and parted
That night were over a score;
Each time that the cavalier started,
Each time she would swear him o'er,
"Thou art going to Barcelona!—
To make Naxera thy bride!
Seduce the Lady Yöna!—
And thy lips have lied! have lied!
"I love thee! I love thee, thou knowest!
And thou shalt not give away
The love to my life thou owest;
And my heart commands thee stay!—
"I say thou hast lied and liest!—
For where is there war in the state?—
Thou goest, by Heaven the highest!
To choose thee a fairer mate.
"Wilt thou go to Barcelona
When thy queen in Toledo is?
To wait on the haughty Yöna,
When thou hast these lips to kiss?"
And they stood in the balcony over
The old Toledo square:
And weeping she took for her lover
A red rose out of her hair.
And they kissed farewell; and higher
The moon made amber the air:
And she drew for the traitor and liar
A stiletto out of her hair....
When the night-watch lounged through the quiet
With the stir of halberds and swords,
Not a bravo was there to defy it,
Not a gallant to brave with words.
One man, at the corner's turning,
Quite dead. And they stoop or stand—
In his heart a dagger burning,
And a red rose crushed in his hand.
AT THE CORREGIDOR'S.
To Don Odora says Donna De Vine:
"I yield to thy long endeavor!—
At my balcony be on the stroke of nine,
And, Signor, am thine forever!"
This beauty but once had the Don descried
As she quit the confessional; followed;
"What a foot for silk! a face for a bride—
Hem—!" the rest Odora swallowed.
And with vows as soft as his oaths were sweet
Her heart he barricaded;
And pressed this point with a present meet,
And that point serenaded.
What else could the enemy do but yield
To a handsome importuning!
A gallant blade with a lute for shield
All night at her lattice mooning!
"Que es estrella! O lily of girls!
Here's that for thy fierce duenna:
A purse of pistoles and a rosary o' pearls
And gold as yellow as henna.
"She will drop from thy balcony's rail, my sweet!
My seraph! this silken ladder;
And then—sweet then!—my soul at thy feet
No lover of lovers gladder!"
And the end of it was!—But I will not say
How he won to the room of the lady:—
Ah! to love is life and to live is gay,
For the rest—a maravedi!
Now comes her betrothed from the wars, and he,
A Count of the Court Castilian,
A Don Diabolus, sword at knee,
And moustaches—uncivilian.
And his is a jealous love; and—for
He marks that this marriage makes sadder—
He watches, and sees a robber to her,
Or gallant, ascend a ladder.
So he pushes inquiry unto her room,
With his naked sword demanding—
An Alquazil with the face of Doom,
Sure of a stout withstanding.
And weapon to weapon they foined and fought;
Diabolus' thrusts were vicious;
Three thrusts to the floor Odora had brought,
A fourth was more malicious,
Through the offered bosom of Donna De Vine—
And this is the Count's condition ...
Was he right, was he wrong? the question is mine,
To judge—for the Inquisition.
THE PORTRAIT.
In some quaint Nürnberg maler-atelier
Uprummaged. When and where was never clear,
Nor yet how he obtained it. When, by whom
'T was painted—who shall say? itself a gloom
Resisting inquisition. I opine
It is a Dürer. Humph?—that touch, this line
Are not deniable; distinguished grace
In the pure oval of the noble face;
The color badly tarnished. Half in light
Extend it, so; incline; the exquisite
Expression leaps abruptly: piercing scorn,
Imperial beauty; icy, each a thorn
Of light—disdainful eyes and ... well! no use!
Effaced and but beheld, a sad abuse
Of patience. Often, vaguely visible,
The portrait fills each feature, making swell
The soul with hope: avoiding face and hair
Alive with lively warmth; astonished there
"Occult substantial!" you exult, when, ho!
You hold a blur; an undetermined glow
Dislimns a daub.—Restore?—ah, I have tried
Our best restorers, all! it has defied ...
Storied, mysterious, say, mayhap a ghost
Lives in the canvas; hers, some artist lost,
A duchess', haply. Her he worshipped; dared
Not tell he worshipped; from his window stared
Of Nuremburg one sunny morn when she
Passed paged to court. Her cold nobility
Loved, lived for like a purpose; seized and plied
A feverish brush—her face! despaired and died.
The narrow Judengasse; gables frown
Around a skinny usurer's, where brown
And dirty in a corner long it lay,
Heaped in a pile of riff-raff, such as—say,
Retables done in tempora and old
Panels by Wohlgemuth; stiff paintings cold
Of martyrs and apostles, names forgot;
Holbeins and Dürers, say, a haloed lot
Of praying saints, madonnas: such, perchance,
Mid wine-stained purples mothed; a whole romance
Of crucifixes, rosaries; inlaid
Arms Saracen-elaborate; a strayed
Niello of Byzantium; rich work
In bronze, of Florence; here a delicate dirk,
There holy patens.
So, my ancestor,
The first De Herancour, esteemed by far
This piece most precious, most desirable;
Purchased and brought to Paris. It looked well
In the dark panelling above the old
Hearth of his room. The head's religious gold,
The soft severity of the nun face,
Made of the room an apostolic place
Revered and feared.—
Like some lived scene I see
That Gothic room; its Flemish tapestry:
Embossed above the aged lintel, shield—
Deep Or-enthistled, in an Argent field
Three Sable mallets—arms De Herancour,
Carved with the torso of the crest that bore,
Outstretched, two mallets. Lozenge-paned, embayed,
Its slender casements; on a lectern laid,
A vellum volume of black-lettered text;
Near by a blinking taper—as if vexed
With silken gusts a nervous curtain sends,
Behind which, maybe, daggered Murder bends;—
Waxed floors of rosy oak, whereon the red
Torchlight of Medicean wrath is shed,
Down knightly corridors; a carven couch
Sword-slashed; dark velvets of the chairs that crouch,
It seems, with fright; clear-clashing near, more near,
The stir of searching steel.
What find they here?—
'T is St. Bartholomew's—a Huguenot
Dead in his chair?—dead! violently shot
With horror, eyes glued on a portrait there,
Coiling his neck one blood line, like a hair
Of finest fire; the portrait, like a fiend,—
Looking exalted visitation,—leaned
From its black panel; in its eyes a hate
Demonic; hair—a glowing auburn, late
A dim, enduring golden.
"Just one thread
Of the fierce hair around his throat," they said,
"Twisting a burning ray, he—staring-dead."
ISMAEL.
Ismael, the Sultan, in the Ramazan,
Girdled with guards and many a yataghan,
Pachas and amins, viziers wisdom-gray,
And holy marabouts, betook his way
Through Mekinez.—Written the angel's word,
Of Eden's Kauther, reads, "Slay! praying the Lord!
Pray! slaying the victims!" so the Sultan went,
The Cruel Sultan, with this good intent,
In white bournouse and sea-green caftan clad
First to the mosque. Long each muezzin had
Summoned the faithful unto prayer and let
The "Allah Akbar!" from each minaret,
Call to their thousand lamps of blazing gold.
Prostrated prayed the Sultan. On the old
Mosaics of the mosque—whose hollow steamed
With aloes-incense—lean ecstatics dreamed
On Allah and his Prophet, and how great
Is God, and how unstable man's estate.
Conviction on him, in this chanting low
Of Koran texts, the Caliph's passion so
Exalted rose,—lamps of religious awe,
Loud smitings of the everlasting law
On unbelievers,—trebly manifest
The Faith's anointed sword he feels confessed.
So from the mosque, whose arabesques above—
The marvellous work of Oriental love—
Seen with new splendors of Heaven's blue and gold,
Applauding all, he, as the gates are rolled
Ogival back to let the many forth,
Cries war to all the unbelieving North.
Soon have they passed the tight bazaar; along
Close, crooked streets, too narrow for the throng;
The place of owls and tombs; the merloned wall,
Camel and steed and ass. Projecting all
Its towering battlements, his palace gray,
Seraglios and courts, against the day
Lifts, vanishes. And now, soul-set on hate,
From Mekinez they pass the scolloped gate.
Two dozing beggars, baking each a sore,
Sprawl in the sun the city gate before;
A leprous cripple and a thief, whose eyes—
Burnt out with burning iron,—as supplies
The law for thieves,—two fly-thick wounds blood-raw,
Lifted shrill voices as they heard or saw;
Praised God, and flung into the dust each face
With words of "victory and Allah's grace
Attend our Caliph, Mouley-Ismael!
Even at the cost of ours his days be well!"
And grimly smiling as he grimly passed,
"While God most merciful, who is, shall last,—
Now by Es Sirat!—will a liar's word
And thief's prevail or prosper?—Pray the Lord!—
What! at your lives' cost?—my devout intent!
Even as 't is bidden let their necks be bent!
Though words be pious, evil at the soul
Naught is the prayer!—So let their prayer be whole.
Nay! give them gold; but when the sequins cease
From the slaves' hands, by these my Soudanese
They die!" he said; and even as he said
Rolled in the dust each writhing, withered head.
And frowning westward, as the day grew late,
Four bleeding heads stared from the city gate
'Neath this inscription, for the passer-by,
"There is no virtue but in God the High."
A PRE-EXISTENCE.
An intimation of some previous life,
Or dark dream, in the present dim-divined,
Of some uncertain sleep—or lived or dreamed
In some dead life—between a dusk and dawn;
From heathen battles to Toledo's gates,
Far off defined, his corselet and camail,
Damascened armet, shattered; in an eve's
Anger of brass a galloping glitter, one
Rode arrow-wounded. And the city caught
A cry before him and a wail behind,
Of walls beleaguered; battles; conquered kings;
Triumphant Taric; broken Spain and slaves.
And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's,
Housed near the Tagus—squalid and alone
Save for his slave, held dear—to beat and starve—
Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon,
A burning beacon, westerns; and my bones
A visible hunger; famished with the fear,
Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him—I, who held
Him soul and self, more hated than his God,
Stood silent; fools had laughed; I saw my way.
War-time crops weapons; and the blade I bought
Was subtly pointed. For, I knew his ways:
The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems
And bags of doublas—oh, I knew his ways.
A shadow, woven in the hangings, hid
Till time said now; gaunt from the hangings stole
Behind him; humped and stooping so, his heart
Clove through the faded tunic, murrey-dyed;
Grinned exultation while the grim, slow blood
Drenched black and darkened round the oblong wound,
And his old face thinned grayer than morn's moon.
Rubies from Badakhshân in rose lights dripped
Slim tears of poppy-purple crystal; dull,
Red, ember-pregnant, carbuncles wherein
Fevered a captive crimson; bugles wan
Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds
With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains
Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts;
Fire-opals savage and mesmeric with
Voluptuous flame, long, sweet, and sensuous as
Soft eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed
With talismanic violet, from tombs,
Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans;
Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of
Golconda—This, a sandaled dervise bare
Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun,
Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon,
Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held
Of some wild tribe.... Bleached in the perishing waste
A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones,
A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull
One blazing eye—the diamond. At Aleppo
Bartered—a bauble for his desert love.—
Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem jolting gem,
Flashed, rutilating in the irised light,
A rain of splintered fire; and his head,
Long-haired, white-sunk among them.
Yet I took
All—though his eyes burned in them; though, meseemed,
Each several jewel glared a separate curse....
Well! dead men work us mischief from the grave.
Richer than all Castile and yet not dare
Drink but from cups of Roman murra, spar
Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold! spar sensitive
Of poison! I, no slave, yet all a slave
To fear a dead fool's malice!—Still, how else!
Feasting within the music of my halls,
While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes,
Diaphanous, more silken than those famed
Of loomed Amorgos or of classic Kos,
Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed,
Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolfsbane-slain!
BEHRAM AND EDDETMA.
Against each prince now she had held her own,
An easy victor for the seven years
O'er kings and sons of kings; Eddetma, she
Who, when much sought in marriage, hating men,
Espoused their ways to win beyond their worth
Through martial exercise and hero deeds:
She, who accomplished in all warlike arts,
Let cry through every kingdom of the kings:—
"Eddetma weds with none but him who proves
Himself her master in the push of arms,
Her suitor's foeman she. And he who fails,
So overcome of woman, woman-scorned,
Disarmed, dishonored, yet shall he depart,
Brow-bearing, forehead-stigmatized with fire,
'Behold, a freedman of Eddetma this.'
Let cry, and many princes put to shame,
Pretentious courtiers small in thew and thigh,
Proud-palanquined from principalities
Of Irak and of Hind and farther Sind.
Though she was queenly as that Empress of
The proud Amalekites, Tedmureh, and
More beautiful, yet she had held her own.
To Behram of the Territories, one
Son of a Persian monarch swaying kings,
Came bruit of her and her noised victories,
Her maiden beauty and her warrior strength;
Eastward he journeyed from his father's court,
With men and steeds and store of wealth and arms,
To the rich city where her father reigned,
Its seven citadels by Seven Seas.
And messengered the monarch with a gift
Of savage vessels wroughten out of gold,
Of foreign fabrics stiff with gems and gold.
Vizier-ambassadored the old king gave
His answer to the suitor:—"I, my son,
What grace have I above the grace of God?
What power is mine but a material?
What rule have I unto the substanceless?
Me, than the shadow of the Prophet's shade
Less, God invests with power but of man;
Man! and the right beyond man's right is God's;
His the dominion of the secret soul—
And His her soul! Now hath my daughter sworn,
By all her vestal soul, that none shall know
Her but her better in the listed field,
Determining spear and sword.—Grant Fate thy trust;
She hangs her hand upon to-morrow's joust,
A prize to win.—My greeting and farewell."
Informed Eddetma and the lists arose.
Armored and keen with a Chorasmian mace,
Davidean hauberk came she. Her the prince,
Harnessed in scaly gold Arabian, met;
So clanged the prologue of the battle. As
Closer it waxed, Prince Behram, who a while
Withheld his valor,—in that she he loved
Opposed him and beset him, woman whom
He had not scathed for the Chosroës' wealth,—
Beheld his madness; how he were undone
With shining shame unless he strove withal,
Whirled fiery sword and smote; the bassinet
Rushed from the haughty face that long had scorned
The wide world's vanquished royalty, and so
Rushed on his own defeat. For like unto
A moon gray clouds have caverned all the eve,
The thunder splits and, virgin triumph, there
She sails a silver aspect, vanquished so
Was Behram by his blow. A wavering strength
Swerved in its purpose; with no final stroke
Stunned stood he and surrendered; stared and stared,
All his strong life absorbed into her face,
All the wild warrior, arrowed by her eyes,
Tamed, and obedient to lip and look.
Then she on him, as condor on a kite,
Plunged pitiless and beautiful and fierce,
One trophy more to added victories;
Haled off his arms, amazement dazing him;
Seized steed and garb, confusion filling him;
And scoffed him forth brow-branded with his shame.
Dazzled, six days he sat, a staring trance;
But on the seventh, casting stupor off,
Rose, and the straitness of the case that held
Him as with manacles of knitted fire,
Considered, and decided on a way....
Once when Eddetma with a houri band
Of high-born damsels, under eunuch guard,
In the walled palace pleasaunce took her ease,
Under a myrrh-bush by a fountain side,
Where Afrits' nostrils snorted diamond rain
In scooped cornelian, one, a dim, hoar head,—
A patriarch mid gardener underlings,—
Bent spreading gems and priceless ornaments
Of jewelled amulets of hollow gold
Sweet with imprisoned ambergris and musk;
Symbolic stones in sorcerous carcanets,
Gem-talismans in cabalistic gold.
Whereon the princess marvelled and bade ask,
What did the elder with his riches there?
Who, questioned, mumbled in his bushy beard,
"To buy a wife withal"; whereat they laughed
As oafs when wisdom stumbles. Quoth a maid,
With orient midnight in her starry eyes,
And tropic music on her languid tongue,
"And what if I should wed with thee, O beard
Grayer than my great-grandfather's, what then?"
"One kiss, no more, and, child, thou wert divorced,"
He; and the humor took them till the birds,
That listened in the spice-tree and the plane,
Sang gayly of the gray-beard and his kiss.
Then quoth the princess, "Thou wilt wed with him
Ansada?" mirth in her two eyes' gazelles,
And gravity bird-nestled in her speech;
And took Ansada's hand and laid it in
The old man's staggering hand, and he unbent
Thin, wrinkled brows and on his staff arose,
Weighed with the weight of many heavy years,
And kissed her leaning on his shaking staff,
And heaped her bosom with an Amir's wealth,
And left them laughing at his foolish beard.
Now on the next day, as she took her ease
With her glad troop of girlhood,—maidens who
So many royal tulips seemed,—behold,
Bowed with white years, upon a flowery sward
The ancient with new jewelry and gems,
Wherefrom the sun coaxed wizard fires and lit
Glimmers in glowing green and pendent pearl,
Ultramarine and beaded, vivid rose;
And so they stood to wonder, and one asked
As yesternoon wherefore the father there
Displayed his Sheikh locks and the genie gems?
—"Another marriage and another kiss?—
What! doth the tomb-ripe court his youth again?
O aged, libertine in wish not deed!
O prodigal of wives as well as wealth!
Here stands thy damsel"; trilled the Peri-tall
Diarra with the raven in her hair,
Two lemon-flowers blowing in her cheeks,
And took the dotard's jewels with the kiss
In merry mockery.
Ere the morrow's dawn,
Bethought Eddetma: "Shall my handmaidens,
Teasing a gray-beard's whim to wrinkled smiles,
For withered kisses still divide his wealth?
While I stand idle, lose the caravan
Whose least is notable?—My right and mine—
Betide me what betides."...
And with the morn
Before the man,—for privily she came,
Stood habited as of her tire-maids
In humble raiment. Now the ancient saw
And knew her for the princess that she was,
And kindling gladness of the knowledge made
Two sparkling forges of his deep dark eyes
Beneath the ashes of his priestly brows.
Not timidly she came; but coy approach
Became the maiden of Eddetma's suite;
And humbly answered he, "All my old heart!"—
Responsive to her quavering request—
"The daughter of the king did give thee leave?
And thou wouldst well?—Then wed with me forth-right.
Thy hand, thy lips." So he arose and gave
Her of barbaric jewelry and gems,
And seized her hand and from her lips the kiss,
When from his age, behold, the dotage fell,
And from the man all palsied hoariness;
Victorious-eyed and amorous with youth,
A god in ardent capabilities
Resistless held her; and she, swooning, saw
Gloating the branded brow of Prince Behram.
THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB.
A Transcript.
Among the tales, wherein it hath been told,
In golden letters in a book of gold,
Of Hatim Taï's hospitality,
Who, substanceless in death and shadowy,
Made men his guests upon that mountain top
Whereon his tomb grayed from a thistle crop;—
A tomb of rock where women hewn of stone,
Rude figures, spread dishevelled hair; whose moan
From dark to daybreak made the silence cry;
The camel drivers, being tented nigh,
"Ghouls or hyenas," shuddering would say
But only girls of granite find at day:—
And of that city, Sheddad son of Aad
Built mid the Sebaa sands.—A king who had
Dominion of the world and many kings.—
Builded in pride and power out of things
Unstable of the earth. For he had read
Of Paradise, and to his soul had said,
"Now in this life the like of Paradise
I 'll build me and the Prophet's may despise,
Knowing no need of that he promises."
So for this city taxed the lands and seas,
And Columned Irem, on a blinding height,
Blazed in the desert like a chrysolite;
The manner of its building, it is told,
Alternate bricks of silver and of gold:
How Sheddad with his women and his slaves,
His thousand viziers, armored troops as waves
Of ocean countless, God with awful flame—
Shot sheer in thunder on him—God, his shame
Confounded and abolished, ere his eyes
Had glimpsed bright follies of that Paradise;
Lay blotted to a wilderness the land
Accurséd, and the city lost in sand:
Among such tales—who questions of their sooth?—
One is recorded of an Arab youth:
The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik
Hunting one day, by some unwonted freak
Rode parted from his retinue and gave
Chase to an antelope. Without or slave,
Amir or vizier to a pasture place
Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace,
Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came
The antelope drew off, with mouth of flame
And tongue of fire to the youth he turned
Shouting, "Ho! fellow! in what school hast learned!
Seest not the buck escapes me? worthless one!
O desert dullard!"
Rising in the sun,
"O ignorant," he said, "of that just worth
Of those the worthy of our Muslim earth!
In that thou look'st upon me—what thou art!—
As one fit for contempt, thou lack'st no part
Of my disdain?—Allah! I would not own
A dog of thine for friend no other known—
Of speech a tyrant, manners of an ass!"
And flung him, rags and rage, into the grass.
Provoked, astonished, wrinkled angrily,
Hissed Hisham, "Slave! thou know'st me not I see!"
Calmly the youth, "Aye, verily I know,
O mannerless! thy tongue hath told me so,
Thy tongue commanding ere it spake me peace—
Soon art thou known, nor late may knowledge cease."
"O dog! I am thy Khalif! by a hair
Thy life hangs rav'ling."
"May it dangle there
Till thou art rotted!—Whiles, upon thy head
Misfortunes shower!—Of his dwelling place,
Allah, be thou forgetful!—What! his grace
Hisham ben Merwan, king of many words—
Few generosities!"...
A flash of swords
In drifts of dust and lo! the Khalif's troops
Surrounding ride. As when a merlin stoops
Some stranger quarry, prey that swims the wind,
Heron or eagle; kenning not its kind
There whence 'tis cast until it, towering, feels
An eagle's tearing talons, falling reels
In broken circles downward—so the youth,
An Arab fearless as the face of Truth
Of all that made him instant of his death,
Waited with eyes indifferent, equal breath.
The palace reached, "Bring in the prisoner
Before the Khalif," and he came as were
He in no wise concerned: unquestioning went
Chin bowed on breast, and on his feet a bent
Dark gaze of scornful freedom unafraid,
Till at the Khalif's throne his steps were staid;
And unsaluting, standing head held down,
An armed attendant blazed him with a frown,
"Dog of the Bedouins! thy eyes rot out!
Insulter! must the whole big world needs shout
'Commander of the Faithful,' so thou see?"
To him the Arab sneering, "Verily,
Packsaddle of an ass."
The Khalif's rage
Exceeded now, and, "By my realm and rage!
Arab, thy hour is come, thy very last;
Thy hope is vanished and thy life is past."
The shepherd answered, "Aye?—by Allah, then,
O Hisham, if my time be stretched again,
Unscissored of what Destiny ordain,
Little or great, thy words give little pain."
Then the chief Chamberlain, "O vilest one
Of all the Arabs! wilt thou not be done
Bandying thy baseness with the Ruler of
The Faithful?" spat upon his face. A scoff
Fiery made answer:
"There be some have heard
The nonsense of our God, the text absurd,
'One day each soul whatever shall be prompt
To bow before me and to give accompt.'"
Then wroth indeed was Hisham; hotly said,
"He braves us!—headsman, ho! his peevish head!
See; canst thou medicine its speech anew,
Doctor its multiplying words to few;
Divorce them well." So, where the Arab stood,
Bound him; made kneel upon the cloth of blood:
With curving sword the headsman leaned at pause,
And, even as 'tis custom made of laws,
To the descendant of the Prophet quoth,
"O Khalif, shall I strike?"
"By Iblis' oath!
Strike!" answered Hisham; but again the slave
Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave
His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then
He asked—and knowing neither men nor Jinn
Might save him if the Khalif spake assent,
Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent
Laughed—till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared,
Laughed—as with scorn the King of kings he 'd beard,
Insulting death. So, with redoubled spleen
Roared Hisham rising, "It is truly seen
That thou art mad who mockest Azrael!"
The Arab answered: "Listen!—Once befell,
Commander of the Faithful, that a hawk,
A hungry hawk, pounced on a sparrow-cock;
And winging nestward with his meal in claw,
To him the sparrow, for the creature saw
The hawk's conceit, addressed this slyly, 'Oh,
Most great, most royal, there is not, I know,
That in me which will stay thy stomach's stress,
I am too paltry for thy mightiness';
With which the hawk was pleased, and flattered so
In his self-praise, he let the sparrow go."
Then smiled the Khalif Hisham; and a sign
Staying the scimitar, that hung malign
A threatening crescent, said, "God bless, preserve
The Prophet whom all true believers serve!—
Now by my kinship to the Prophet, and
Had he at first but spake us thus this hand
Had ne'er been reckless, and instead of hate
He had had all—except the Khalifate."
Bade stuff his mouth with jewels and entreat
Him courteously, then from the palace beat.
THE END.