That answered his bidding as meekly as all his wild animal kingdom,
The beasts and the birds and the fishes. Yet the world was as pitch on his face.
"Now it chanced that the ruler of Saba had news by a merchant of peacocks
From this king like a hawk-god of Egypt, whose beak was set deep in the gloom
Of his grape-purple beard, and she said: 'We shall see how his vanities stead him
When from under the arch of his eyebrows he sees my feet enter his room.'
"For her feet were far whiter than manna. Her body was white as the cry
Of a child when the chords of hosanna draw the beauty of holiness nigh.
The droop of her eyelids would fan a revolt from Baghdad to Lake Tsana,
Her fingers were veined alabaster. The sprites of her escort would sigh,