He swore her laughter had the lilt
Of chiming waters that are spilt
In sprays of spurted melody
From founts of carven porphyry,
And in the billowy turbulence
Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense—
Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!
Perchance unto her day belongs
His poem called the Song of Songs,
Each little lyric interval
Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;—
Or when he cried out wearily
That all things end in vanity
Did he mean that Sabean girl?
The bright barbaric opulence,
The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,—
How many a careless caravan
'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan,
Within these forty centuries,
Has flung their dust to many a breeze,
With dust that was King Solomon!
But still the lesson holds as true,
O King, as when she lessoned you:
That very wise men are not wise
Until they read in Folly's eyes
The wisdom that escapes the schools,
That bids the sage revise his rules
By light of some Sabean girl!
NEWS FROM BABYLON
"Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins
of Babylon." —Newspaper report.
The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old,
A little tale—a simple tale—a tale that's easy told:
"There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a
maid!"
The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it
unafraid,
A little song—a foolish song—the only song it hath:
"There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in
Gath!"
Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece and
Persia knew!—
Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd,
and Jew—
Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed
the dream;
Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the
gleam—
Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry
hours,
Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's
towers!
Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes
wet with dew,
When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho
knew;
Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last,
are hid
Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's
pyramid—
Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic
doubt,
Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout;
Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of
breath,
Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto
death!