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....