Six grandsons of the Great Amìr
Wed brides of princely rank,
Nine times the brides their dresses change,
Nine times their handmaids thank.
Each time each bride is fresh arrayed,
Fall to the ground in showers
Rubies and diamonds, which the maid
Keeps as her bridal flowers!
I see Timùr, one boot, one glove,
And with his lint-white hair,
Delighted on his chess-board move
Fifty-six pieces fair.
The blood-red ruby in his ear
Trembles before my view,
But when his rage the stone shakes there,
’Fore God! the world shakes too.
At last the Mogul Emperor
Invades far-off Cathay,
He starts, the tired conqueror,
Marching ten miles a day,
Crosses Syr-Dária’s solid stream,
And stops at Otrár, when
He sees the blade of Àzrael gleam
At three-score years and ten.
Come with me to the Gùr-Amir,
Within whose simple walls
Over a six-foot block of jade
A horsehair standard falls.
Beneath the dark and polished stone
Descends a bare brick stair,
Leading to Tamerlane’s own tomb,
Nor pomp nor state is there.
Beneath the fluted, darkened dome,
Where dimly seen in gloom,
Surrounded by an Arab text,
Hangs Timùr’s tattered plume,
Outside the simple marble rail
Engraved with Timùr’s name,
The passing pilgrim cannot fail
To muse on Timùr’s fame.
At Santa Sophia, Constantinople.
(A Fragment.)
There is the altar, there is the wall,
Disfigured by Méhemet’s hand:
We should raise the Cross of Christ in the hall
Where the Turkish banners stand;
And the tones of “Te Deum,” quenched in blood,
Should resound again in the land.
The Hill Cities.
All along the line of mountains
That begin at Narni’s towers,
Stand the grey and brown hill cities,
’Midst the sunshine and the showers.
Each a tower of strength itself,
Well walled and machicolated,
Or for Ghibelline or Guelph,
Each ’twixt each interpolated;
Now for Kaiser, now for Pope,
Narni, Terni, and Spoleto.
From its crag or hilly slope
Tremi faces Montefalco,
By Topino sits Foligno,
Assisi of the stony street,
Almost at its base is Spello
Where the chalk and limestone meet.
Here the rain-clouds veil the mountain,
Here the sunbeams chase the sleet,
And the rivers fill the fountain
Grey in proud Perugia’s street.
Perugia, April, 1912.