'For everything created
In the bounds of earth and sky,
Hath such longing to be mated,
It must couple, or must die.
The wind of heaven beguiles the leaf,
The rose invites the bee;
The sickle hugs the barley-sheaf,
And I love thee.
By night and day, in joy and grief,
Do thou love me?'
The palm was bending to her mate,
I marked her meaning well;
And pass'd within the city gate,
The fond old tale to tell."
When he ceased, she rose on him like a ghost, from behind the parapet. In another moment her veil was up, her sweet lips parted in a greeting that was rather breathed than spoken, and both hands were abandoned to the caresses of her lover.
"Ishtar," he murmured, "queen of my heart! I scarcely dared to hope, and yet I knew I should find you here."
"I thought not you would come," she whispered, for a girl's modesty thinks no shame to veil with ingenuous falsehood the truth of which she is really proud. "But I could not sleep—I could not rest under a roof—the war is over—my own dear father has returned safe. O Sarchedon! this has been such a happy day."
It was the first time she had called him by his name, and the endearing syllables dropped like honey from her lips. It was no more to be "noble damsel," "my lord's handmaiden," but "Ishtar," and "Sarchedon," because they knew they loved each other with all the rich warmth, the stormy passion of their race and climate.
"A happy day!" he repeated, rather bitterly; "and a day of victory for the fairest maiden in the land of Shinar! Think you it was such a happy moment for me, Ishtar, when I saw the love-gift hurled from our prince's chariot to your feet?"
She had not been a woman, could she have quite suppressed a double sense of triumph—of vanity gratified by the homage of a prince, and, sweeter far, of pride in his own avowal that she could excite the jealousy of him she loved. Very tender was her smile, very soft and kind her glance, while she replied:
"You may judge how I value the gift when I tell you the handmaidens are shredding herbs in it even now. Yet is he a goodly youth, our young lord, and a comely—fair he must surely seem in your eyes, Sarchedon, for is he not the very picture of his mother? and you of all men would be loath to dispute the beauty of the Great Queen."
It was a feminine thrust, and planted fairly home; but here in Ishtar's presence it rather roused in him a feeling of alarm, lest he should lose the blossom in his hand, than any wish to reach the riper and costlier fruit hanging above his head.