A 
 
 A 
 
 V^ 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 HESPERUS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 I Vol. i2mo. 276 pages 
 Cloth, beveled edges, uncut, $1.50 
 
THE 
 
 VISION OF NIMROD 
 
 CHARLES DE KAY 
 
 y^rr 
 
 u. J n 1 / n 
 
 i h i^ I ^ 
 
 i^lH 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON & CO 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON 
 
 1881 
 
 ^ 
 

 CoPYEtGHT 
 1881 
 
 By CHARLES de KAY. 
 All Rights Reserved. 
 
 PHESS OF 4. J. LITTLE & CO., 
 NOS. 10 TO 20 ASTOR PLACE, NEW YORK. 
 
THE PROLOGUE 
 
THE PROLOGUE. 
 
 No bard of those who stirred the old glorious time, 
 Firdausi, Saadi, J ami the sublime , 
 Might chant of Goiirred and her lover true 
 The prophet AH. Still are rhymes to you 
 Grateful? Their loves that shot a deathless light 
 In this our century's morn through Persian night- 
 Like new moon with the splendid daystar blent — 
 Shall live in nimble numbers, nor be pent 
 
 Longer by dry historian in his tome. 
 
 3 
 
The visions which these lovers far from home 
 Met in the waste shall us amaze and teach. 
 See Nimrod rise and tell the truth of each 
 At his old court, describe the birth of things 
 From soulless matter ^ trace through fins and wings 
 The breath that sways creation lozv and high ; 
 Hear him rebuild the pile which should defy 
 The heavens, and then confess him, last of all, 
 Of that unhallowed flame which wrought his fall. 
 
 A nd after ? When is told the perilous plight 
 Of Gourred captured, then a second night 
 May yield the spectre of that queen betrayed 
 Who Nimrod ruled. 
 
 But ere this, to my aid 
 Come, gentle souls, who gladly tales rehearse 
 hi intertwined and overlapping verse ! 
 Poets must have their audience. It behooves 
 Singers who fail to strike the popidar grooves 
 To hide their lyres, nor still the people vex. 
 
Yet question ever must the soul perplex 
 Of what men like ^ what like ?iot. In the end 
 The hoot of enemy a?id psalm of friend 
 Mix to a sound confused that lasts for some 
 Brief space, for others after lips are dumb 
 Below the soil. But who knows whether he, 
 Or he shall live, to-day or later ? See 
 How the broad comet awe and marvel casts, 
 Then is forgot. The little north star lasts. 
 
THE PERSIAN REFORMERS 
 
THE PERSIAN REFORMERS 
 
 The dusk lies thick upon the deep-grooved river 
 
 Where Babylon once stood in all her pride ; 
 Up from the waste there runs a lonely shiver ; 
 
 A jackal prowls across the desert wide. 
 On a strange peak are men. Two forms are sitting 
 
 Motionless, black, as if engraved in stone ; 
 Dumb since the lapwings to their nests were flitting, 
 
 Still while the owl was quavering forth his moan. 
 Whose are these figures two 
 Sombre of hue ? 
 
lo The Persian Reformers. 
 
 " Freedom to love ! " Was theirs that plaintive strain 
 
 Piercing the shades that over Asia quivered ? 
 Birds at the omen stir, yet grasp again 
 
 With trembling feet the branches of a shivered 
 And desperate tree, whose gaunt roots to the side 
 
 Of ruins on the barren mound are clinging. 
 Who could house there ? Who was the mourner sighed 
 
 About the hour when the great bats go winging 
 Slower their sated flight 
 Through the brown night ? 
 
 Whom his grief chokes and silent wrath convulses. 
 
 With chin on breast, buried in hopeless thought, 
 Has All for his name. The gentler pulses 
 
 Stir in a lady so celestial-wrought 
 In face and figure that admiring kindred 
 
 Long long before had given her for name 
 Gourred-oul-Ayn, Rest of the Eyes. That hind'red 
 
 Nothing that soon they cast her words of shame ! 
 Fickle are men and swift 
 Their grace to shift, 
 
The Persian Reformers. ii 
 
 And where their love was great their hate is bitter, 
 
 As sweetest milk soon turns to sourest whey ; 
 So where with flowers the jungles loveliest glitter 
 
 There poisons linger deadliest by the way. 
 Who stands so firm, that sometimes he has not 
 
 Felt faith, truth, hope, earth, solid rock dissolving. 
 Felt that a sneering god has laid a plot 
 
 To break his victim on the slow-revolving 
 Wheel of the groaning years 
 With blood and tears? 
 
 Since the last glimmer of the sun down rushing 
 
 Ali had lain and wrestled hard with gloom ; 
 Within his brain was night like blackness crushing 
 
 The last of light before the day of doom. 
 But on his face the eyes of that sweet woman 
 
 Were tenderly and most divinely bent, 
 While through her heart a gust of superhuman 
 
 Clean passion for her sorrowing comrade went ; 
 Then did he know great calm 
 Flow from her palm. 
 
12 The Persian Reformers. 
 
 " Nokteh," she said, and laid her smooth, warm fingers 
 
 Upon the knotted hands that fiercely burned, 
 " Nokteh," she pleaded, " Heart of Truth, why lingers 
 
 Dumbness so obstinate and so unearned ? 
 Speak ; let your words, fruitful as citron flowers. 
 
 Bloom from strong soil about my listening ear ; 
 Speak ; let your wisdom like the autumnal showers 
 
 Rain on the desert of your silence drear. 
 Better may two sustain 
 Pleasure and pain." 
 
 Then from recesses of his laboring chest 
 
 Came a slow sigh, of grief as he were dying, 
 Yet answer made to her benign request 
 
 Happier in tone, but woeful still replying: 
 " Gourred-oul-Ayn, I am not selfish-sad. 
 
 But oh, the doubt that has come roaring, surging 
 About my heart had almost set me mad. 
 
 All else in seas of horror deep submerging. 
 When your sweet dove-like hand 
 Told me of land. 
 
The Persian Reformers, 13 
 
 " 'Tis you I grieve for, my matchless Gourred ! 
 
 I cannot bear remember it was I, 
 I, guilty wretch ! with whom away you hurried ; 
 
 For me, an outcast through the world you fly ; 
 You hear affronts and undergo temptations, 
 
 Daily you bear the Mollah's learned prate ; 
 This very day the latest of our stations 
 
 Exposed you to the insult of the great, 
 Offering their gold for love 
 To the white dove. 
 
 " You could aim high. Did not that Jewish malice 
 
 Called Hand-of-Sultan promise you a seat 
 Second to none at Stamboul in the palace 
 
 If on his camel you would cross your feet ? 
 It is too much. You were a Moslem woman 
 
 Born to the veil, to couches, slumbrous ease, 
 Meant with a nod a host of slaves to summon 
 
 And make your master but the first of these : 
 Gourred, I have too long 
 Done you great wrong ! 
 
14 The Persian Reformers. 
 
 " What though my writings hide beneath a mass 
 
 Of flowery verbiage the great news we offer. 
 Our foes are keen, and, as in river grass 
 
 The pitfall lurks for elephants, the scoffer 
 Has digged for us a pit. The Persian hand 
 
 Can reach thus far, although I only utter 
 To earnest pilgrims through this Turkish land 
 
 Truths clean as those that in the rain clouds mutter, 
 Facts to which Asia knew 
 Of old the clue. 
 
 " But fight I may not ; — though another morning 
 
 Shall see us tracked, made captive, led in chains, 
 Though violence follow swiftly on the warning 
 
 We had to-day from him, who but refrains 
 His stroke one hour to strike more certainly . . . 
 
 Outcast and fugitive, what arduous duties 
 Are these you share ! What pardon can there be 
 
 If lawless men should shame your glorious beauties 
 When the next sun shall reign 
 O'er this old plain?" 
 
The Persian Reformers. ^5 
 
 Over his lips another hand came sliding 
 
 Gentle as south winds on the myrtle boughs, 
 Then in a voice, mellow in words of chiding, 
 
 Gourred her passion on his brow bestows : 
 " Pride of my life, know it was not your beauty 
 
 That drew me on ; no, nor your manly form ; 
 The choice it was of more than one great duty 
 
 Which in this world I live but to perform. 
 Yours I resolved to be, 
 Eternally — 
 
 "Why? — were there not men richer, manlier, fairer. 
 
 Who longed and sighed this frame of mine to win? 
 Ay, but like you which one of all was sharer 
 
 Of wealth so pure and jewel-like within ! 
 'Twas your star soul, your planet mind, O Sayid ! 
 
 Drawing me on with such resistless might 
 As moves gazelles, when they by streams have played, 
 
 Suddenly toward the waste to wing their flight. 
 Sayid, my desert's green 
 Where you are seen. 
 
1 6 The Persian Reformers. 
 
 " Oh, how this woman's life of mine is fragrant 
 
 With honor, Sayid, since I came with you ! 
 A doer of good, a teacher, though a vagrant ; 
 
 Once a lost flower that in the canebrake grew. 
 By this the harem with its dreary vices 
 
 Had made of me a tyrant and a slave, 
 A wretch whose body with its charm entices 
 
 A spouse allowed another's love to crave ! 
 From that corrupting den 
 You drew me then 
 
 " When I the dust of my own door shook off 
 
 And made with you from that time forth my dwelling, 
 Vowed that no hardship, woe, nor want, nor scoff. 
 
 Nor crime of man, my maiden thoughts dispelling, 
 Should break our faith, or block our chosen path. 
 
 Though you foretell, O greatest of all minds ! 
 That we shall perish by the mole-eyed wrath 
 
 Of men whom selfishness forever blinds ; 
 Still, till that time shall come, 
 You are my home." 
 
The Persian Reformers. 17 
 
 Up toward the stars their hands her comrade lifted 
 
 And cried : "Ye steadfast, that do yonder shine, 
 If you have strength, let upon her be sifted 
 
 Such even happiness as ne'er was mine ! 
 Chase from the hearts of men those evil tenets 
 
 Taught by a seer who fell before a jinn ; 
 The race this lady runs, O let her win it, 
 
 And save this nation from its cancerous sin ; 
 Deaden Mohammed's name 
 With his great shame ! 
 
 " He, my great forefather in race and mind, 
 
 Swerved from his path, the lusts of flesh obeying: 
 He his own conscience and his friends would blind 
 
 With forms of prayer, with silly fasts, which, preying 
 On the firm flesh, left souls as foul as ever. 
 
 Scarce to his Paradise the tender race 
 Of helpful women reach through strong endeavor. 
 
 Tyrant, he scorned the weak; he lacked of grace 
 And meanly humbled those 
 Through whom he rose ! 
 
1 8 The Persian Reformers. 
 
 " But may you, Gourred, see life's utmost statioiij 
 
 When that which Prankish hypocrites pretend 
 Shall really be throughout the Persian nation. 
 
 Then veils and harems all shall be at end ; 
 Woman shall stand in sunlight, modest, honored ; 
 
 Shall freely choose one mate to be her own ; 
 Then she that falls is openly dishonored. 
 
 But she that keeps her pure and clean is known. 
 Not, as behind one screen, 
 Clean and unclean. 
 
 " But I have news, O comforter in sorrow ! 
 
 Hidden from you, because you are so dear ; 
 Yet I must tell it, lest a sneer to-morrow 
 
 From cruel foes shall drive you to despair. 
 Our Boush-Reweeyeh — whom I made the Gate 
 
 Wherethrough the faithful to our doctrines enter, 
 The learned doctor, the wise man of state, 
 
 The nearest yet to me, who am the Centre — 
 Tempted by hates abhorred, 
 Has drawn the sword. 
 
The Persian Reformers, 19 
 
 " In lieu of peace he offers war. Alas ! 
 
 On threatening Moslem curses he bestoweth. 
 No longer meek, unhinderable as grass, 
 
 In humblest guise the patient way he goeth. 
 So fell Mohammed. Ah, he would be founder 
 
 Of temporal realms for me the prophet high ! 
 He would be conqueror, would he? not expounder 
 
 Of creeds that raise men from their misery ! 
 Blood, Gourred, has been spilt. 
 Ours is the guilt. 
 
 " Ay, hide your face, poor man-deceived lady, 
 
 The worst draws nigh. For though all Persia's head 
 Is careless or for Koran or for Kadi 
 
 And scorns whate'er the greatest prophet said — 
 Buddha, Mohammed, Moses, gentle Christ^ 
 
 Still, when reform attacks a Moslem tenet, 
 He will be quick the Mollah's cry to list. 
 
 Nor can the pureness of our dogma screen it, 
 Nor us our holy zeal 
 From his cool steel ! " — 
 
20 The Persian Reformers, 
 
 " Peace, let it come ! " spoke out that trusty spirit. 
 
 " We've done our best ; what more is there to say ? 
 If neither Shah nor people see the merit 
 
 Our creed contains, 'tis time we went our way. 
 But do not groan for me. What thing am I 
 I To cause in you so deeply sad a feeling? 
 I live to please you, not alarmed to fly 
 
 Dangers real, fancied, perils that come stealing 
 O'er a mind, as when stars 
 An earthmist mars. 
 
 "Ah, can you dream that I should cease," cried Gourred, 
 
 " From aiding you upon this mission high ? 
 If for one hour I keep you from that worried, 
 
 Sad, hunted look gazelles have when they die, 
 I am repaid ! O Ali, I'm your brother. 
 
 Sister and wife, your father, race and town, 
 And mine it is, O prophet pure, to smother 
 
 A little of the woe that weighs you down ; 
 I, not so strong as you. 
 Yet am more true. 
 
The Persian Reformers. 21 
 
 " List to my parable : These hawthorns staunch 
 
 That lean apart, that storms still more may sunder, 
 What though the raven croak within their branch ? 
 
 Far down below, the rocky mound soil under, 
 Their roots have gripped about the self-same stones. 
 
 Soft in the twig, their slanting trunks are harder, 
 But on their wrapped and married roots cyclones 
 
 iSIay pour their fur}^ ! All that envious ardor 
 Ser\^es but to steel the more 
 Their pith, their core. 
 
 " Such is our fate ; consider! You did rightly 
 
 To break away from that lone citadel 
 Where foes and friends supposed you poring nightly 
 
 O'er themes of life to come in heaven or hell. 
 Why should not we ourselves advance the church ? 
 
 We, making converts 'mid these pilgrims zealous. 
 Hasten the day that triumph boldly perch 
 
 Upon our faith, when Moslemin most callous 
 From their old rotten creed 
 Joy to be freed. 
 
22 The Persian Reformers. 
 
 "But if we must die, let us die together, 
 
 And, ere we go, further your god-sent work, 
 Loosing, as camels from a cruel tether, 
 
 The wives of Iran who in harems lurk. 
 Oh, that a man should imitate the beasts 
 
 That chew the cud — their lusts forever sating ! 
 The ancient king who lorded o'er these wastes 
 
 Was humbled to an ox the marsh-grass eating, 
 Because his heart within 
 Reeked with that sin. 
 
 " Yes, to this day in all these cities men 
 
 On cheek or forehead bear a scar assignant 
 Of God's displeasure. That strange mark of wen, 
 
 Those scars in shape of date and sores malignant. 
 What mean they, save that for some centuries 
 
 Doom is deferred ? To-morrow in his ire 
 Floods may dislodge them from their seats of ease ; 
 
 Like windfall figs they may be drowned in mire ; 
 Lightning may leave no trace 
 Of their lost race. 
 
The Persian Reformers. 23 
 
 " My friend and husband, lord, and only master, 
 
 Be comforted, blows could not drive away 
 Your Consolation-of-the-Eyes ; disaster. 
 
 Hunger, nor thirst shall her firm soul dismay ; 
 But speak again, for on this mound is brooding 
 
 I know not what of ghostly and of strange ; 
 A chill expectancy itself obtruding 
 
 As though it came from past our human range ! 
 Closer ! oh, clasp me tight 
 Against this fright ! " 
 
II 
 
 THE VISION OF NIMROD 
 
II 
 
 THE VISION OF NIMROD. 
 
 No sun, no moon. Northward the star Orion, 
 
 The star of Nimrod, had the zenith won, 
 When from the waste the roaring of a Hon 
 
 Boomed like the bursting of a signal gun. 
 They saw with fright the even dusk of night 
 
 Roll to a shape, black on the starlit heaven, 
 And lo, a Lion of enormous might, 
 
 Shadowy, shaggy ! From his jaws of ravin 
 Issued the awful sound 
 That shook the ground. 
 
 27 
 
28 The Vision of Nimrod, 
 
 And as they gazed, speechless with mortal terror, 
 
 It took new form like ocean's clouds at morn ; 
 The lion changed ; — that surely was no error 
 
 Which saw a bull shaking his dreadful horn ? 
 But hardly of the new shape were they 'ware 
 
 When the brute's head of him so fiercely charging 
 Turned human ; a grave face with curling hair, 
 
 Its ordered locks on breast and back discharging, 
 Loomed through the dusky night 
 And stayed their flight. 
 
 Then from the face, locked with a steadfast meaning 
 
 Upon their eyes, the shape took change and flow. 
 And lo, a giant on a war-club leaning, 
 
 Lifted on high, held the dark plain below. 
 Purple and golden on his stalwart shoulders 
 
 His garments lay, but spotted all and torn, 
 Like robe that long in royal cavern molders ; 
 
 And round his neck upon a chain v/as worn, 
 Like a strange cross to see, 
 An amber key. 
 
The Vision of Nimrod. 29 
 
 But all that coat, by tooth of time corroded, 
 
 Was full of eyes and little crescent moons 
 And peaches over-ripeness has exploded — ' 
 
 Pomegranates cloven by a score of noons. 
 The war-club whereupon his left hand rested 
 
 Was scaly like a pinecone huge in size ; 
 Against those two his shadowy bulk he breasted 
 
 And with his right hand pointed toward the skies. 
 Then in a voice of dread 
 Croaking, he said : 
 
 " Barbarians ! Once, with sages of Chaldee, 
 
 I, Nimrod, watched upon a tower's back. 
 Marking the planets creep most cunningly 
 
 A pinnacle past, which sharply cut their track ; 
 Methought this arm, that was all rigid grown 
 
 With following slow their motions wise and stealthy, 
 Grew boundless large, reached upward to yon sown 
 
 Broad field, the sky, with red ripe star-fruits wealthy, 
 Plucked and consumed them still 
 At my fair will ! 
 
30 The Vision of Nimrod. 
 
 " 'Twixt Kaf and Kaf, those hills that wall the world, 
 
 My body stretched, and from my heaving breast 
 The streams of breath, against the hard sky hurled, 
 
 Were turned to clouds that veered at my behest. 
 Anon the horizon with sharp white was lit 
 
 And by that glare the veil of things was riven ; 
 The door to strange new lands was suddenly split, 
 
 As if I, earth, had caught a glimpse of heaven. 
 I saw how great that bliss, 
 How petty this ! 
 
 " That was the hour of evil fates descending ; 
 
 From that strange night I was not merely man : 
 Where'er I marched crowds must be still attending 
 
 Me, the great midpoint of the earthly plan. 
 Euphrates was the life-blood of my heart ; 
 
 Tigris a vein that throbbed with ceaseless motion ; 
 In me the firs of Ararat had part 
 
 And I was earth, air, fire and boundless ocean ! 
 Folly from that black day 
 Held me in sway. 
 
The Vision of Nimrod. 31 
 
 " From Ur the town I marched with vainness blinded 
 
 And founded empires in the teeming plain ; 
 Lured to revolt ten cities fickle-minded, 
 
 And dared the gods that could not save their slain. 
 I was their god. I was the lord of all, — 
 
 Each step a new town or a plundered palace. 
 I drowned a land with break of water wall ; 
 
 Repeopled it, when kindness grew from malice. 
 Who reckoneth all my crimes? 
 He falls who climbs. 
 
 " Of Babylon I made the stateliest city 
 
 The earth has yet upon its surface known. 
 Nation I fenced from nation without pity 
 
 That all might wend toward Babylon alone. 
 Tribe might not trade with tribe, nor north with south. 
 
 But all must barter at my market centre ; 
 Nor eastman speak with westman mouth to mouth 
 
 Unless they first within my limits enter. 
 Thus grew each tongue and art 
 Slowly apart. 
 
32 The Vision of Nimrod. 
 
 " But my own folk and all the priestly pack 
 
 Grew fat with passage of the tribes deceived. 
 Shameless were they ; they tolled from every sack, 
 
 From each exchange a shameless moiety thieved. 
 Shrewdly the dialects could they translate 
 
 And turn each service to a wicked profit. 
 Still was their care the tongues to separate ; 
 
 At dullness in their victims still they scoffed, 
 But I, to see them plod, 
 Jeered all as god. 
 
 " A vulture was my crest, with locust pinions ; 
 
 Soon the unhappy tribes its meaning found. 
 No signs of life my warriors left. My minions 
 
 Seized, slew, burnt all or stamped into the ground. 
 Less wise, more fierce than Kush, my glorious father, 
 
 I heeded not the locusts' after state : 
 They waste and rot, but the sick remnants gather 
 
 And seek bare heights ere that it prove too late. 
 Men, locusts — wheat or chaff — 
 The grim stars laugh. 
 
The Visio7i of Nimrod. 33 
 
 "Wastes are the home of flowers most aromatic ; 
 
 Gums, savory fruits, grow from a rocky ground ; 
 Arabian plains, wild deserts Asiatic 
 
 Perfect a steed nobler than masters found. 
 Ah, had I fled this folk, these plains luxurious, 
 
 Reta'en the antique cliff homes of my stock, 
 Prosperity would not have turned me furious, 
 
 A sounder brain withstood the triumphal shock ! 
 The flaming stars were wroth ; 
 They lured their moth. 
 
 " Among the peaks that round my fathers glistened 
 
 Men are more godlike though their wealth be small. 
 Would to my guardian spirit I had listened 
 
 And turned me east, back to the world's great wall! 
 Then had I lived a life of hardy leisure, 
 
 With time to think, to govern well and brood 
 On those high thoughts which form the only treasure 
 
 That is not time's or swift corruption's food : 
 Perhaps till these last days 
 I should have praise. 
 
34 T^he Vision of Niinrod. 
 
 " But, spite of crimes, spite of my wealth and glory, 
 
 Of me what know ye, men of a puny age ? 
 I am a rumor, an uncertain story, 
 
 A vanished smoke, a scarce-remembered page ! 
 The angry peoples showed they could be kinder 
 
 To my great fame than after-following kings, 
 For hate still kept a little sour reminder 
 
 When every mark of me had taken wings. 
 Whate'er on brick I traced 
 My sons effaced. 
 
 Yes, my own sons, for whom I bear these curses, 
 
 Melted my statues, overturned my grave, 
 Hammered from living rock the deep-hewn verses 
 
 That from oblivion my vast fame should save. 
 Thrice was this mass of brickwork, seamed with ravage, 
 
 All newly builded by succeeding kings : 
 What of the rage of desert-dwelling savage ? 
 
 From sons a treachery far deeper stings ! 
 Every one hundredth year 
 Some man must hear, 
 
The Vision of Nimrod. 35 
 
 " Must hear how they betrayed me, yes, and ponder 
 
 O'er my great crimes, my splendor and my fall, 
 How messengers from some great godhead yonder 
 
 In vain approach, Nimrod from sin to call. 
 I know not who he is, foretold by many. 
 
 For on my mind weighs a thick cloud of doubt, 
 Like fogs across these barren plains and fenny. 
 
 So fertile once, they laughed at want and drought. 
 List, though you shrink with fear, 
 Tremble, but hear ! " 
 
 How can be told the terror and the quaking 
 
 Which on those lovers fell, when first they heard 
 The giant spectre his confession making 
 
 With many a groan and heart-confounding word ? 
 But Gourred, in the warm embrace of Sayid, 
 
 Was first to dare and whisper him of cheer. 
 Whereat he, too, waxed firm and undismayed. 
 
 " Nimrod," he cried in accents bold and clear, 
 " Tell on, thou hapless ghost. 
 All thy great boast ! " 
 
36 The Vision of Nimrod. 
 
 The spectral limbs of him his lot complaining 
 
 Grew denser as to lesser size he shrank. 
 Then a rough voice to gentler accents training, 
 
 His centuried silence to those hearers frank 
 With joy he broke. Beneath his stark arms fluttered 
 
 The windy robes that foglike round him swept 
 Ever as still his ordered speech he uttered ; 
 
 Thus, while the two closer together crept 
 Fast, like a ship's blown sail, 
 Ran the strange tale. 
 
Ill 
 
 AHRAM FOUND 
 
Ill 
 
 AHRAM FOUND. 
 
 " Long, O barbarians, is my wordy story, 
 
 For great the events which crowded all my reign. 
 What though my path became less rude and gory, 
 
 Still to the highest I did not attain. 
 Wherefore my station, nor divine, nor human, 
 
 Is now to live a dreadful death in life ; 
 Nor yet a shade, nor given the strength to summon 
 
 Myself once more ^o actual mortal strife : 
 
 Where, o'er the sea of sand, 
 
 Dust pillars stand 
 
 39 
 
40 Ahram Found. 
 
 *' There do I whirl upon the parched wayfarers 
 
 A writhing form whose head is hid in cloud, 
 Whose pitiless skirts have never yet been sparers 
 
 Of aught alive they caught within their shroud ; 
 But when the caravan lies deeply buried 
 
 Beneath the wide folds of my sandy cloak, 
 With a small mouth I slowly drain the worried 
 
 Still-pulsing hearts of men whom pebbles choke, 
 Ever to mortal brood 
 Linked by that food ; 
 
 " And ever doomed to still repeat the action 
 
 Which most I loathe, bewail and now lament. 
 I have no choice. An unwithstood attraction 
 
 Forces me slay the men whom wastes have spent. 
 Thus do I torments suffer far more horrid 
 
 Than those of spirits that are burned in hell; 
 They purge them of their sins in caverns torrid ; 
 
 I, ever sinning, with fresh crlm^ must dwell. 
 Smirched by an endless flood 
 Of guiltless blood. 
 
Ahram Found. 41 
 
 "Yet fear not me. The day that in ascendant 
 
 That star is found named after me on high 
 I know my crimes, I seek a true descendant 
 
 Of ancient seers, and him with words I ply. 
 So that he learn from my unholy doings 
 
 The dangers of an all-too-powerful sway, 
 Perchance the good of my heroic ruings 
 
 May slowly leak into the wide world's day. 
 Sayid, remember well 
 All I shall tell ! 
 
 " Earth grew too small for me ; I dared high heaven, 
 
 And soon a chariot, cunningly made light. 
 Stood yoked to eagles ready to be driven 
 
 From earth on mighty wings in all men's sight. 
 I took my seat. The eagles all, unhooded, 
 
 Arose as if to meet the ascending sun ; 
 But when so grievously they felt them loaded, 
 
 This way and that the coward birds did run. 
 Out was great Nimrod thrust, 
 Rolled in the dust ! 
 
42 Ahram Found. 
 
 " Then who durst laugh ? Only my runners trusty 
 
 Whispered, that far in Ararat a tribe 
 Of low-born shepherds mocked my journey dusty 
 
 By falcons loosed with gross and shameful gibe. 
 Wherefore I drew my myriad host together, 
 
 And northward marched in silent, boding rage ; 
 Hemmed in that folk so close, not even a feather 
 
 Could slip from out my crafty-latticed cage. 
 Savage and grim they fought, 
 But all were caught. 
 
 " Some to the block, some for the flames elected, 
 
 Some to the lake, some to a living grave ; 
 The rest — men, women, and fair boys selected — 
 
 Were southward haled for me and mine to slave. 
 Upon our march one stalwart captive ever 
 
 Freshened the sad and cheered with counsel wise, 
 Taught where to dig to find the vanished river, 
 
 Read words of comfort on the star-sown skies : 
 Ahram this leader's name ; 
 Great was his fame. 
 
AhraTfi Found. 43 
 
 " Him did I mark for death, a victim curious 
 
 For that grim god who haunts Euphrates' plain, 
 Him did I honor with a robe luxurious. 
 
 Spices, wine, gold — eunuchs, a prince's train. 
 Still by my stealthy gifts he would not profit 
 
 But parted all among his suffering kin ; 
 Held to his folk more ragged than a prophet ; 
 
 Marched in their ranks, haggard, but clear from sin. 
 Ahram at my right hand 
 I caused to stand. 
 
 " * Ahram,' I cried, ' what haughtiness of spirit 
 
 Bids you contemn the gifts I deign to cast ? 
 Have you no care my gracious smile to merit ? 
 
 Do you not know this hour may be your last ? 
 Say that you live, say that I curb my anger, 
 
 Soon may a life snap like a weaver's thread ; 
 Brittle as whirling wheels that burst with clangor 
 
 How soon may not your stubborn soul have fled 
 And with regretful shriek 
 The dead land seek ? 
 
44 Ahram Found. 
 
 " ' Wherefore it seems the part of one so wise 
 
 To seize the momentary chance-flung pleasures, 
 Stand by my chariot in a prince's guise, 
 
 Help to crush nations and divide their treasures ! 
 Born to command, what strange and childish folly 
 
 Weds you to rags and this poor broken tribe ? 
 Shake off, shake off unmanly melancholy 
 
 And be my captain, vizier, priest and scribe — 
 Else, lest too much be said. 
 Look to your head ! ' 
 
 " ' Nimrod,' quoth he, ' within the stars 'tis written 
 
 How things shall terminate 'twixt you and me. 
 You fatten me to form a victim, smitten 
 
 For some vile god, bred of the tropic sea ! 
 But for that god I shall not die. I know 
 
 Too much of heaven and earth, the spirit land. 
 Of dreams and portents and the murmurs low 
 
 From magic trees, of jinns to deserts banned. 
 Your hand shall you refrain, 
 As from your brain ! 
 
Ahrmn Found. 45 
 
 " * Without me vain will be your vast endeavor, 
 
 But my strong aid all demons shall outwit. 
 Your sons, without me, shall establish never 
 
 Your royal line, nor in your chariot sit. 
 Save me, who knows the rules whereby assemble 
 
 The fateful stars that sway a nation's birth? 
 Save me, who reads the meaning of each tremble 
 
 Within the heart of earthquake-shaken earth ? 
 Gems are but mud ; I own 
 Wisdom's great stone ! 
 
 " * Nimrod,' he spake, * know you what means the name 
 
 Of Hero, and what fame the man inherits, 
 Who wins thereto through paths devoid of blame, 
 
 And gains therewith reward for lofty merits ? 
 I am a Hero, not the same that you 
 
 Have reached by conquests of surrounding nations, 
 But one who's lord in realms withdrawn from view 
 
 And makes clean victories by his godlike patience. 
 Angels by him are seen 
 Glorious of mien ; 
 
46 Ahram Found. 
 
 " ' And all the past and all the terrible future 
 
 Are known to him, darkly, yet far more clear 
 Than e'er to priests who on your altars butcher 
 
 Cattle or slaves that omens may appear. 
 My knowledge now all other men surpasses 
 
 Save two great seers, bowed by unkindly time, 
 Who sit unmoved within the Eastern passes 
 
 Of Caucasus, their beards congealed with rime ; 
 They from disdain of speech 
 No more can, teach. 
 
 " * And would you know who are the earthly heroes ? 
 
 Then seek the hater who controls his soul. 
 What brow was calm, the day the whelming sea rose ? 
 
 Within what breast do triple lifebloods roll ? 
 Know you the man can lay his hand in passion 
 
 Upon a bride, and yet from her refrain ; 
 Who, full of hot desires, can daily fashion 
 
 His tongue to virtue and his flesh to pain ? 
 One who affronts affairs — 
 Never despairs ? 
 
Ahram Found. 47 
 
 " * Nimrod, the hero's not his own self-maker, 
 
 He comes resultant from a thousand things. 
 The anxious potter is a frequent breaker 
 
 Of jars. Too seldom one is found that rings 
 Perfect, and stands all sound and deftly painted. 
 
 Just so obscure must families pass away 
 Before one man is found in nothing tainted, 
 
 Before their heaping virtues in one clay 
 Meet — and some lucky morn 
 A hero's born ! 
 
 " ' Sad is that land where sons with foreheads brazen 
 
 Withstand their fathers, and forget the meed 
 Of service to the mother hands that chasten 
 
 Their foolishness and froward wills at need. 
 Great though the boasts of long-descended princes 
 
 Their claims are worthless, saving when the folk 
 Tables them in their hearts, and all evinces 
 
 That love, not force, has kept them in their yoke. 
 Only the house that's pure 
 Long can endure. 
 
48 Ahram Found. 
 
 " ' Now if we owe to our divine ancestors 
 
 The larger good which comes to us at birth ; 
 But to base parents half the sin that festers 
 
 Within our breasts — much in a narrow girth — 
 Whom shall we worship soonest, whom embellish 
 
 With choicest gifts, though only a name remains ; 
 Whom shall we feast, in hopes that they may relish 
 
 Elixirs pressed from sweet and wind-blown grains? 
 To the good parents' shade 
 Hymns should be made 
 
 "'And costly statues to such chiefs erected 
 
 As made men by their works more glad and wise. 
 They from the great the lowly have protected, 
 
 Have been the loftiest in a humble guise. 
 But as to gods — what know we of their favor, 
 
 Hatred or scorn, their attributes or forms? 
 Is not the human heart the true enslaver 
 
 Of destinies, the raiser of all storms? 
 Dumb, with unselfish ways, 
 Give the gods praise ! " 
 
Ahram Found,. . 49 
 
 " * Beware ! ' I cried, * tempt not the gods, O Ahram, 
 
 Though you be wise surpassing man's degree ! 
 Great are the dead, but fearful the alarum 
 
 That sounds when demons rise revengefully. 
 What harm can come from my august ancestors ? 
 
 But dreadful is the sting that dragon wields 
 Who wallows in the mighty swamp,. and pesters 
 
 The slaves who till my rich rank southern fields ! 
 Surely you work, as priest, 
 Magic at least?'" 
 
 " * Magic,' quoth Ahram, ' has its sovereign uses ; 
 
 But if, so fond, of wizard craft you crave, 
 .1 can expound its good and its abuses : 
 
 Witchcraft is not for kings, but for a slave. 
 Have patience, Nimrod ; if I seem obscure. 
 
 It is my tongue that silence long has swollen ; 
 It is my brain which has not pictured sure 
 
 Dim phrases from my soul too early stolen. 
 Trust through each new surprise 
 Me, who am wise ! ' 
 
 3 
 
50 - Ahram Found. 
 
 "Yet more he spake. But I took little profit 
 
 In words like those ; yet, won by slow degrees, 
 I raised so high the leather-jerkined prophet, 
 
 He stood erect when all men bowed their knees. 
 Our converse was of matters great ; as, wonders. 
 
 Quick flights of birds, strange tracks within the sand, 
 Omens low muttered in the speech of thunders. 
 
 Dull sounds perceived by them in mines that stand, 
 Stars that have rolled the same 
 Years without name. 
 
 " Down the great stream now altered and deserted 
 
 Floated for many a day our royal raft ; 
 The while the slaves my braves with dance diverted 
 
 Ahram exposed to greedy ears his craft ; 
 But when within the blooming banks we entered 
 
 Of vast canals around great Babylon, 
 My thoughts, my heart on Ahram all were centred ; 
 
 About his loins I cast my regal zone ; 
 Upon his thumb I thrust 
 My ring of trust. 
 
Ahram Found. 51 
 
 " Listen the tale which Ahram oft recited, 
 
 Which I have oft, in these sad centuries. 
 Retold to prophets shuddering, yet delighted. 
 
 Better have spoken to the passing breeze ! 
 Too dull, too slothful, they have feared their fellows ; 
 
 They dared not to the sneering world repeat 
 What they had learned. They trembled at the billows 
 
 Of vulgar bigotry ! Or priest, or state, 
 Awed them with threats of shame, 
 Tortures, the flame. 
 
 " But listen, ye ! Perhaps the spark of rigor 
 
 Is not all dead that once through Asia ran ; 
 Perhaps, to free yourselves, you may find vigor 
 
 To oust the impostor with his Alcoran. 
 Receive from Ahram, then, his best possession 
 
 Deep and abstruse, for overthrow of sin. 
 Ponder it well. Here is the root-confession. 
 
 Thus Ahram saw the forming of the jinn. 
 Strain on my face your eyes ; 
 Peace, and be wise ! " 
 
IV 
 
 THE TARN OF KAF 
 
IV 
 
 THE TARN OF KAF. 
 
 " ' Far in the east where sacred hills aspire, 
 
 Which you call Kaf and earth's most distant rim, 
 Hides among cliffs that soar like frozen fire 
 
 A hollow vale. Up to its ragged brim 
 Are awful shapes pictured in solid stone 
 
 Of every live thing which the soil has gendered ; 
 But to the vale such souls can pierce alone 
 As those whom years of self-restraint have ren- 
 dered 
 
 Simple and sanctified, 
 Devoid of pride. 
 
 55 
 
56 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 "'Such was I once, such hope to be, O Nimrod ! 
 
 And that is why, taught by an aged seer, 
 I passed the shadowy straits and trod the dim road 
 
 Of that gray vale deep in the crags austere. 
 Alone I marched, bearing for every weapon 
 
 One word upon my tongue, a word of might, 
 A little word, which, said aright, will deepen 
 
 The sun by day and lame the wings of night ! 
 Down through those shapes rainworn 
 I strode forlorn. 
 
 " * On me from dim and time-bleared eyes they smilfed ; 
 
 They grinned with mouths cracked by a million years ; 
 They could not speak, nor did they move an eyelid, 
 
 And yet I saw their hatred, knew their jeers, 
 And slowly, slowly felt niy footsteps lagging 
 
 The while a thought stirred in my trembling hairs 
 How in my heart the life was oozing, flagging, 
 
 Was giving way to stony veins like theirs ; 
 Fear made my brain so numb, 
 My lips were dumb. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 57 
 
 " * For scarce the first great terrace had I threaded, 
 
 Wheneas a longing quenchless-deep I knew 
 To take my stand amid the figures dreaded 
 
 Which, grim and sneering, from the rockbed grew. 
 It seemed so wise to change the heat of toiling 
 
 For cool hard veins like theirs, for dreams divine ! 
 To know all things aright without once soiling 
 
 A finger in life's filth ! to watch the brine, 
 But never long to taste 
 The bitter waste. 
 
 " * Never round me shall close such heavenly mansion 
 
 Of wisdom, as at touch of magic wand. 
 Never again arrive the wide expansion 
 
 Of brain that went with horror hand in hand. 
 Truly, I said, too weak to aid the living, 
 
 Too scornful of honors, I'll be rich in gain 
 Of wit past all ! Here am I freed from giving 
 
 My hoarded wisdom back again to men ; 
 Wrapt in my thoughts sublime, 
 I'll smile at time.' 
 
58 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " Ahram ! " (I cried) " to Nimrod came that seeming. 
 
 Like you, I too believed myself divine. 
 A thin domain was your vast land of dreaming; 
 
 The actual world, its fields and towns, are mine. 
 How fared you then ? was it forgot, your peril? 
 
 Did you like me give way to selfish dreams ? 
 Speak ! what rare gem of knowledge 'mid the sterile 
 
 Sheer crags of Kaf unknown, unwitnessed gleams ? 
 Say, did you farther win 
 And see the Jinn ? " 
 
 " ' The word, O Nimrod ! that was my salvation : 
 
 The name no man may utter, save when death 
 Stares in his face, when he that sways creation 
 
 Wills that one live, not die of what one saith. 
 That name is written, but in rock not graven, 
 
 Nor traced in sand, nor digged in lines of turf, 
 Nor built in walls, nor scrawled upon high heaven, 
 
 Nor wreathed in loops of island-fringing surf ! 
 Down in the ocean's deep 
 That name doth sleep. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 59 
 
 " * It sleeps. For though a word, it is a creature, 
 
 And, as it lies, wound in its fold on fold, 
 It is alive, and yet its coilings feature 
 
 The word, the name of him who is not told. 
 He willed, and lo ! the dragon where he slumbered 
 
 Uncoiled him once, and with the movement drew 
 The waters from above till they encumbered 
 
 More lands, O king, than ever fell to you ! 
 'Twas a great seer of old 
 Saw him unfold. 
 
 " * First came the ocean up the rivers charging 
 
 Like foaming boars resistless in their rnight. 
 And all the fields grew lakes ; their brims enlarging 
 
 Drove the folk upward toward the hills in fright. 
 Then fell the rain — not stol'n from out the sky. 
 
 But dropt in sheer, all-overpowering masses, 
 And what the sea had spared the torrents ply 
 
 With hideous rush. As in the marsh the grasses 
 Before wild oxen stoop 
 The peoples droop. " 
 
6o The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 ** * Regard an ant-hill which a summer freshet 
 
 Surrounds at foot with ever-gathering waves. 
 The busy crowd that watch the floods enmesh it 
 
 Rush o'er the hill and in and out their caves. 
 In vain. Inexorable, the creeping waters 
 
 Climb the long slope that's now an island made ; 
 Then of the soil those small and busy daughters 
 
 In clustering mass the flinty skies upbraid 
 Since, without knowing why, 
 They all must die. 
 
 " ' Such was the fate of men throughout these valleys 
 
 And circling hills upon that day of doom, 
 When, at the sounding of a Name, the chalice 
 
 Of ocean overflowed, and all the gloom 
 Of antique night came down to double fears 
 
 In men aghast ; when at old ocean's foot 
 Stirred the great snake that in his image bears 
 
 A hieroglyph, of human script the root ; 
 When the stars, blanching, heard 
 That awful word. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 6 1 
 
 " * 'Twas it first gave a clue to all things noted 
 
 Upon the earth by every tribe of man ; 
 For till that day the human speech had floated 
 
 This way and that without a chart or plan. 
 From that time forth speech was o'er space ascendant, 
 
 And sound, though hushed, was conqueror o'er time ; 
 Then wise men talked to their remote descendant 
 
 By graven rune, by deep and pregnant rhyme. 
 Nimrod, my tongue was stirred 
 To frame that word. 
 
 " * My lips but moved, and lo ! the spell was shattered. 
 
 Light grew my feet as wings, and firm, clear-eyed, 
 I passed on through those statues grim and battered 
 
 And left them frozen in their sneers and pride. 
 Down through a beetling pass I came unaided. 
 
 Downward a perilous way from ledge to ledge 
 Till the broad sky had nigh to twilight faded. 
 
 Within the deep where hills together wedge 
 A round black tarn did stare 
 Dead as the air. 
 
62 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * The eye of night, the womb of earth, the navel 
 
 Of teeming worlds, but lustreless and blank ! 
 Yet, as a stone in which magicians grave all 
 
 The future dark in many an artful rank, 
 That tarn was pregnant with the wisdom few 
 Of mortal minds were ever made to cherish, 
 And fewer still but half suspect a clue 
 ■ And key thereof ; but most men blindly perish 
 Ignorant how they came, 
 Whence, for what game. 
 
 " * So there I stood, close to the very brink 
 
 Of some gray secret in that mere profound. 
 At what might come my flesh began to shrink; 
 
 I trembled, as the sacred planes are found 
 Shaking their palsied, tossing tops together 
 
 Within the hush which runs before a quaking, 
 When, in a sultry lull of rumbling weather. 
 
 The demons of the rock a breath are taking 
 Ere they together clash 
 With dreadful crash. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 63 
 
 " ' But down I crouched, mumbling the one word ever 
 
 With eyelids rounded on that moveless mere, 
 Lucid of mind, certain I would not sever 
 
 My steps from there till all things should appear. 
 The lake was brown and deep ; it looked congealed ; 
 
 But in the depth fine crystals 'gan to form 
 Dim, like a scattered caravan concealed 
 
 Behind the sand veils of a desert storm ; 
 Evenly all about 
 Shapes started out — 
 
 " ' Shapes that are not shapes, yet have life and motion. 
 
 Join and disjoin, that make each other prey. 
 Grow fat, absorbing by a slow attraction 
 
 The mates with whom they seem at first to play : 
 And, when too large, a fine wide cleft appears 
 
 Across the shadowy and unshapely masses; 
 They break in twain ; each side his own way steers. 
 
 Then grows anew and through the same race passes. 
 Marvelous, of deep import, 
 Is that grim sport. 
 
64 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " ' Then through the dusky wave is seen a mountain 
 
 Slowly arising in the tarn opaque, 
 Troubled, as if its core were all a fountain 
 
 Of rock ebullient underneath the lake. 
 Great shapes like flowers about its top in cluster 
 
 Sit as if quick and warmed upon a hearth ; 
 And yet from out the rock no fiery lustre 
 
 Shines from the bowels of mysterious earth, 
 Neither does steam or flame 
 Rise from the same. 
 
 " ' But as the ocean under storm and shadow 
 
 Forever changes, and the billows slant 
 This way and that upon their barren meadow 
 
 In answer to the east wind's varied chant, 
 So does the mound, those wine-brown waters under. 
 
 Glimmer and gloom with deep internal stress. 
 Meseems that now a great and unknown wonder 
 
 To air and sunlight is about to press. 
 Slight is the foremost change, 
 Subtle and strange. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 65 
 
 " * The flowery bed about the summit growing 
 
 Defines itself and sways as if it wills. 
 Studded with myriad threads a purpose showing, 
 
 Surely the groping mass existence fills ! 
 Within the breathless lake they raise fine currents 
 
 Upward and downward, till the solid mere 
 Seems, having lost its former still endurance, 
 
 To suck down bubbles from the atmosphere. 
 So is the dry rock fresh 
 With living flesh. 
 
 " 'And slowly, slowly on the mound is motion 
 
 In that confused and semi-conscious mass : 
 A shaping is, to banners such as ocean 
 
 Waves from its sunken cliffs in giant grass. 
 Of these some bloom on writhen stalks and shaky, 
 
 They spread wide bells in gorgeous-colored row 
 Whose armlike petals whirl in movement snaky 
 
 And that dark wave in many a vortex throw. 
 Mightiest of all of them 
 One breaks its stem 
 
66 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " 'And up It sways, glad of its new-found powers, 
 
 With even pulsings through its jellied bulk, 
 Then turns about and o'er the surface towers 
 
 A domelike back, smooth, an amazing hulk. 
 There hangs well pleased, the while its threadlike fingers 
 
 Grope through the lake netting an unseen prey ; 
 Anon it moves, hurries apart, or lingers 
 
 Where'er it list within the hill-bound bay. 
 'Twas liquid clay, congealed, 
 Round like a shield. 
 
 " * But from the crest of that submerged crater 
 
 I saw great arms, each like a mighty snake, 
 Reach up to clasp the mass of living matter 
 
 And the wide disk in thousand fragments break. 
 Below the spot a monster lay, so hideous 
 
 That tongue may not its filthiness relate : 
 A wreath of wormlike arms ; two dull, perfidious, 
 
 Blue, glaring eyes ; a form swelled up with hate ; 
 A hide that hardly feels 
 Its cancerous weals. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 67 
 
 " ' No bones it had. Those limbs did not belong 
 
 To tremulous water, nor to earthcrust solid. 
 Sans feet, sans wings, it poured itself along 
 
 In oozy coils, and on its victim volleyed 
 A mass of slimy arms with jaws all studded. 
 
 These, on the desperate victim closing, sank 
 Into his flesh. The limbs though lopped still budded 
 
 With limbs anew. A horrible midmouth drank 
 Its live prey, throe on throe, 
 With tortures slow. 
 
 *' * What found itself within those arms involved 
 
 Left hope behind. The central mass was tumid 
 With moving lumps that, swelling, then resolved 
 Themselves* all smooth once more. The captive 
 doomed 
 Saw great bleared eyes, a puffed hide red and pale, 
 
 And, if at sea, the waters all on sudden 
 Turned jet with ink, or red with fire. No tail 
 This ogre had ; weapons, nor stone, nor wooden, 
 Brazen, nor iron could 
 Draw from it blood. 
 
68 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * Now if the former shape it quite devoured, 
 
 Or by some change grew out of it, who knows? 
 Brief was its own life, for a fish endowered 
 
 With triple strength within the weird pool rose. 
 All clad in frightful mail the fish ascended 
 
 Out of the foam that monster's lashing made, 
 And when the contest for the sea was ended 
 
 Glad in his might the fish his pomp displayed. 
 Proudly from rim to rim 
 'Gan he to swim. 
 
 " ' But still the mound increased with widening acres 
 
 And soon its roof kissed the wild water's plane. 
 The fish was gone, but through the fringing breakers 
 
 Crawled such a shape as never salty main, 
 Deserts, nor woods, nor crags that wound high heaven 
 
 Contain to-day — a beast so huge and bad, 
 The sight alone a nation would have driven 
 
 To slay itself, stung with an impulse mad : 
 Thence cunning lizards trace 
 Their wicked race. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf, 69 
 
 " 'About his neck when from the wave he rose 
 
 Were coral gills, through which he sucked the vapor 
 That filled the hollow vale. From stunted nose 
 
 All down his back to where his tail was taper 
 A fringe of wavy, blotchy hummocks shivered ; 
 
 But while I gazed both tail and red gills shrank, 
 Being useless, now the marshy island quivered 
 
 Beneath his tread. A while the air he drank 
 Through his vast yawn, and then 
 Paced his domain. 
 
 " * Bellowed the slimy thing, thereby assignant 
 
 In echoes from the funnel-shaped high hills, 
 Its lordship over all. In eyes malignant 
 
 Glittered a thousand after-hatching ills. 
 Within the roar there muttered a forewarning 
 
 Of wars and murders, deaths in after-times, 
 Of brutal ignorance and fiendish learning. 
 
 Of thoughtful lusts and coldly-pondered crimes. 
 Such was the rancor, it 
 Its own tail bit ! 
 
70 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * Reared on its hinder legs it marched in wrath 
 
 About the isle freshborn from out the ocean. 
 Gnashing long jaws at all upon its path 
 
 And pawing air with strange incessant motion. 
 Anon upon its body hard and scaly 
 
 Began to grow a white and gentle down, 
 And the forearms, which seemed at first all maily. 
 Grew fledge with plumage gray, green, black and 
 brown. 
 
 Nimrod ! ' wise Ahram said, 
 ' I grew afraid. 
 
 " ' For wings it longed, and wings it won. Distorted 
 
 With fear of what might come I crouched forlorn. 
 Behold ! the wings were spread, and up it sported 
 
 As for the third thin element 'twere born. 
 But on the island where its race had issue 
 
 New births arose of ever-warring shapes 
 And mighty plants, spongy and soft of tissue, 
 
 Clad with gray verdure all the uplifted capeSo 
 There giant reptiles stood 
 As in a wood. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 71 
 
 " ' Then on the isle was bellowing and commotion, 
 
 Whilst one grim monster with another strove ; 
 With tusk and horn the spawn of earth and ocean 
 
 Their hideous strengths against each other drove, 
 Till at the last a fearful beast was master, 
 
 Amazing thewed, with fourfold, plate-like horns, 
 Tushes that but to look on mean disaster 
 
 And writhen trunk that every creature scorns. 
 Loud she began to bray, 
 Chief in the fray, 
 
 " ' Whereat the reptile bird which far was wheeling. 
 
 Far o'er the summits of the mountains stark. 
 Drew down to view what rival had been stealing 
 
 Upon his home within the island dark. 
 He fell from high as tumbleth sheer a lavine 
 
 Along the slopes of pure Himal'yan snow. 
 Proud of his force, ready to make a ravin 
 
 Of that slow beast which dared him there below: 
 Then with their thunder-shock 
 The isle did rock ; 
 
72 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * And long they struggled, till his wing was twisted 
 Beneath the tushes of that queen of herds; 
 
 Then the vast weight descended where it listed, 
 And crushed to death the greatest of all birds. 
 
 So vast a bulk was that which won the tourney- 
 Mere living things her life could not sustain ; 
 
 Wherefore she browsed within the jungle ferny 
 And stuffed her carcase with a pallid grain. 
 Deep were her loins and wide, 
 Stupid her pride. 
 
 " ' Beneath the belly where the hide was folded 
 
 A pouch there was, wherein she did bestow 
 Her brood ere they to perfect shape were molded 
 
 And cared for them with huge caress and slow. 
 Her dream that they should hold the isle was blasted, 
 
 For from the wood a smaller beast forth crept 
 Whose sabre teeth of grass had never tasted 
 
 But ever flesh from living bone they stripped : 
 Roaring with voice of fear. 
 Straight he drew near. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 73 
 
 " * With hoofs, teeth, horns, began a conflict dire ; 
 
 The greater brute in power was a king, 
 But the lithe other, hot with fourfold fire, 
 
 Was far more swift upon his foe to spring. 
 The snarling, bleeding, rending and bone-crunching 
 
 That there ensued can never all be told ; 
 At last I saw the tiger-monster hunching . 
 
 Across the neck of that beast over-bold. 
 'Twas like a waterspout 
 In days of drought 
 
 " ' That whirls along the sea beneath a cloud, 
 
 But, meeting once a sandy promontory, 
 Empties its tons of water with a loud 
 
 Concussant jar. Thus on the arena gory 
 Fell the huge bulk, the largest that the sun 
 
 Has seen, save one, or shall see looking downward, 
 The clumsiest compound of all beasts that run, 
 
 Swim, creep, or fly, that lurk in seas, or sunward 
 Rear from the swampy grass 
 Their 'mazing mass. 
 
74 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " ' For she contained within her bony box ■ 
 
 The forces found in hundred later creatures : 
 The horns of bulls, the teeth of river-ox, 
 
 The legs of horses, and the diverse natures 
 Of beasts that followed through the centuries. 
 
 A clumsy pattern whence succeeding ages 
 Drew many forms that frighten not^ but please. 
 
 So, ever widening by progressive stages. 
 Spread in that valley life 
 Through endless strife. 
 
 " * But all this while the air, the lake, the island 
 
 Had suffered change. More perfect each was found 
 The air was clearer, lake more fresh, and dry land 
 
 Appeared where first was all a soggy ground. 
 In place of fern and fungus woodlands towered, 
 
 Within whose branches hid a manifold 
 Bird, beast and insect life in leaves embowered 
 
 Its varied tale of love and warfare told, 
 Safe from that brute of guile 
 A little while. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 75 
 
 " ' But soon arose a tyrant in the forest 
 
 In shape like man, yet was not man at all ; 
 Right mild of sway and yet of strength the sorest 
 
 If any dared to stir his angry gall. 
 Amid the boughs his dwelling was. Delicious 
 
 To him were fruits and water dipped with leaves. 
 Great was his wit ; a sly beast and malicious, 
 
 Working his ends by thought which force deceives. 
 'Gainst the fierce tiger brood 
 Great was his feud. 
 
 " * There soon I spied them to the proof advancing, 
 
 The crouching cat, the wily manlike ape. 
 Whose great right hand a mighty beam was lancing 
 
 With aim the tiger was too dull to 'scape. 
 The timber flew, the wounded beast sprang shrieking 
 
 Upon the ape ; but he, with heavy stones. 
 Beat in the massive skull, a vengeance wreaking 
 
 With flashing teeth and horrid growling groans, 
 And him, though wounded sore, 
 To ground he bore ; 
 
76 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * To ground he bore the lithe and lovely peril 
 
 And, shaking wrathfully the lifeless mass 
 With broad long tushes, green as is a beryl, 
 
 Into his mouth he caused the blood to pass. 
 Short was his reign. For of his kindred others 
 
 Opposed his sway. The island was a field 
 Whereon great apes forever slew their brothers 
 
 That unto them in wiliness must yield. 
 Soon, on the apelike plan, 
 Issued a man. 
 
 " ' Till now the broods of fish and beast and bird 
 
 Lived planless, still their daily wants sufficing. 
 Now had a king of all of them appeared 
 
 With forethought armed, by subtle craft enticing 
 All living to their ruin, or to serve 
 
 His own shrewd ends. He made so great a slaughter 
 That hardly could the race of beasts observe 
 
 What killed them. Fish with wood he slew, with water 
 Drowned the dull cavern bear 
 Within his lair. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. yy 
 
 " * The cunning brain that slew the greatest beasts 
 
 Imposed on all a fierce incessant battle, 
 From dry wood rubbed his fire, and at his feasts 
 
 Treated his captives like submissive cattle. 
 Beasts fly from beasts. By rocks and trees concealed 
 They rear their young, they prosper, though they 
 tremble ; 
 But man so keen, so fierce a wit did wield, 
 That no place served where quarry might assemble ; 
 Quickly he followed, still 
 The weak to kill. 
 
 " * Weak though his force, by his unearthly guile 
 
 All apes he beat, all birds and beasts o'ercame ; 
 Then with his fellow man an endless coil 
 
 Of fights, deceits and slaughters he did frame. 
 Polished he grew, luxurious and conceited. 
 
 And where before deceitfulness meant life, 
 His brothers he from malice pure defeated. 
 
 Forever mixed in fierce relentless strife, 
 Where still the wiliest one 
 Forever won. 
 
78 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " ' Then was it plain that he of all, alone, 
 
 Each sound could imitate and read the intention 
 Concealed behind an act. For he was prone 
 
 To save himself by sly or bold invention ; 
 And thereto framed an ever-varying code, 
 
 A fruitful web of gestures and grimaces 
 Whereto success in many a fight he owed, 
 
 Wherefrom came aid in thousand perilous cases 
 Now that with fellow man 
 His craft could plan. 
 
 " 'And whilst before by signs and guttural barks 
 
 Men called to men ; now a most wise invention 
 Of chanting tones the varying spirit marks 
 
 With ordered speech, wherethrough a separate men- 
 tion 
 Each bird and beast receives, each tree, each wind. 
 
 The mountains, lakes, the fruits and herbs and rivers; 
 But those who spake right soon did leave behind 
 Their duller foes. Who bent not to their wishes 
 Was snapped as snaps a reed. 
 Plucked like a weed. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 79 
 
 " * Then faster, faster rose continual changes 
 
 Till men there were so equal in their brain 
 That each defends the forest that he ranges, 
 
 Not safe, but ready to attack, maintain 
 An equal battle, or by flight to 'scape ; 
 
 And next began the luxuries to gather, 
 The useless arts that good and evil shape 
 
 In even measure. For great wealth is father 
 To vice and to fine arts 
 In equal parts. 
 
 " ' But the small tarn that once was close and narrow 
 
 Had grown apace into an isly mere, 
 Where one kept flocks, the next made axe and harrow, 
 Plowed, and from earth drew bread. And then 
 with clear 
 Brown ferment of his grain he brewed a liquor 
 
 Stronger than what, from tender grapes out-pressed, 
 A third man drank. In boats, still quicker, quicker 
 Across the waves they forayed east and west, 
 Fought, and made peace, and lied ; 
 Wived, multiplied. 
 
8o The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " ' Their manners grew so strangely complicated 
 
 My wildered brain the cause in vain would ask 
 Why this was done, not that : as, why they mated 
 
 With that mate, not with this ; and why one task 
 Gave health and strength, another slow extinction ; 
 
 Why men that held them proudest fell most soon ; 
 Why they were barren who had most distinction, 
 
 And they bred strongest who were hardiest grown ; 
 Why Use and sad Abuse 
 Warred without truce ? 
 
 " * Yet some grew wise beyond all human bounds 
 
 And at their deaths, or violent, or peaceful, 
 Out of the mouths of such, with moaning sounds, 
 
 A Something fluttering, took on shape, or graceful 
 Or else as bestial as those monsters grim 
 
 That went before. Then well I marked their nature : 
 The beauteous ghost was issuant from him 
 
 Whose life had been of service to each creature ; 
 The hideous bred in shoals 
 From cruel souls. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. 8i 
 
 *' ' For there was seen amid the warring men 
 
 That twain of spirits born from finer ether: 
 The hater of mankind who loves to pain 
 
 All creatures, he who has a heart for neither 
 Virtue, nor youth, nor age, nor weak, nor foolish ; 
 
 Of him did giant minds evolve the jinn 
 With powers unholy and with aspect ghoulish, 
 
 Dowered with strength through many a guile to win 
 Luck from the good, and yet 
 Endless regret. 
 
 "'The other spirit was of equal force, 
 
 But all his thought was how to cure the ailing, 
 Succor the needy, and to arrest the course 
 
 Of headlong miseries, support the failing, 
 Aid the advance of prosperers, and joy 
 
 In all things good. The pathways most laborious 
 This fairy trod, for things which most annoy 
 
 To him were sweet, absorbing, high, most glorious, 
 Once their resultant stood 
 For some light good. 
 
 4* 
 
82 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " * But if I shuddered when that monster's wing's 
 
 Grew out before, how did I shake and shiver 
 When into space, as light as smoke outrings 
 
 Spiral from tents, those jinns began to quiver 
 Their pinions in the air ! Like boys possessed 
 
 With horror of a spectre in the gloaming 
 I girt my loins and upward madly pressed, 
 
 Sure that I heard a rustling and a foaming 
 As if the mere did rise 
 Me to surprise ! 
 
 " 'And as from tier to tier of hills I fled, 
 
 Among the rocks I saw on either side 
 Forms like the forms that through their lives had sped 
 
 Before my sight. There lay, all petrified. 
 The plantlike fish and fishlike plants, the true 
 
 Life-bearing beasts, and, near the last high portal, 
 Again those statues which had power to glue 
 
 My hasting feet by whispers of immortal 
 Bliss, if I did but dare 
 To linger there. 
 
The Tarn of Kaf. Z'i^ 
 
 " * One on a tortoise sat, and one within 
 
 A shark's wide mouth ; a third form stood boar- 
 headed ; 
 A fourth, half lion ; and another's grin 
 
 Was that of apes ; while he I no less dreaded 
 Handled an axe ; the seventh was a bowman ; 
 The eighth blew soundless on a magic flute ; 
 The ninth, a saint of piety unhuman ; 
 
 The tenth, a gay swain in a warrior's suit ; 
 Each figure in its way 
 Willed me to stay. 
 
 " ' Why did I fly ? Mayhap it had been better 
 
 With them my lot to cast. Then, Nimrod, you 
 Had found me not, when that most grievous fetter 
 
 About my nation cast resistless drew 
 Our remnant hither to great Babylon. 
 
 Alas, alas ! Who knows the best in fortune? 
 Sure is but this : those demons would have won, 
 
 Charming with spells that subtly can importune, 
 Had not a now-lost face 
 Pleaded for grace ! ' " 
 
84 The Tarn of Kaf. 
 
 " Thus, O barbarians, Ahram told the tale 
 
 Of life's progressive and antique creation ; 
 Once only found he that miraculous vale 
 
 In Himalaya, saw the jinns' evasion 
 Once only ! What the strange recital meant 
 
 How can I tell, a ghost who sees all blurry ? 
 Yet 'tis of import lofty, and was sent 
 
 To lesson me, to save me from the sorry 
 Fate of my after years. 
 Open your ears, 
 
 " Open your ears ! Ere downy-footed morn, 
 
 Warming the sky with beckoning rosy fingers, 
 Has broke the dusk and from my shoulders torn 
 
 What wretched simulacrum thereon lingers. 
 Revolve what efforts at the first I made 
 
 To keep the path of right, and how I faltered. 
 But turn again when falls the evening's shade 
 
 And hear my story out, no word being altered 
 From the first sad refrain 
 Of this old pain." 
 
V 
 
 ESTHER THE VESTAL 
 
V 
 
 ESTHER THE VESTAL 
 
 " On these wide plains, which once stood all a-ripple 
 
 With grain by strange-tongued, swarthy races sowed, 
 I gave the remnant of wise Ahram's people 
 
 A goodly portion and a guard bestowed ; 
 But in my palace where the wealth of nations. 
 
 Gems, vases, carpets, what the silk-worm spins 
 Were thickly cast, the highest of all stations 
 
 Was held by Ahram always clad in skins-. 
 
 Counselor, treasurer. 
 
 My key he bare. 
 
 87 
 
88 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " How shall I count the works of public weal 
 
 By Ahram fathered and my nations finished ? 
 The fields reclaimed ? his superhuman zeal 
 
 To plan canals and mighty dikes that 'minished 
 Floods in the season of the Hyades ? 
 
 On every side of Babylon the wondrous 
 Are rivers deeper made ; the Indian seas 
 
 Stretch to my quays of bronze, whereat the ponderous 
 Whale and the desert ship 
 A like wave sip. 
 
 " But chiefly I sought, from him in wit abounding, 
 
 To learn the future of the fateful skies. 
 To see how soon a second flood, confounding 
 
 These plains again, my kingdom might surprise ; 
 For well I pondered how, before my sire 
 
 Pushed westward, warring on ancestral foes, 
 The sky fell down, the sea frothed up, till higher 
 
 Than all the hills save Ararat it rose. 
 Then were the nations found 
 Like conies drowned. 
 
Esther the Vestal. 89 
 
 " As god I moved, yet, prone to human errors, 
 
 I longed to be from other gods assured. 
 Evil foreknown is shorn of half its terrors 
 
 And at the last with steadfastness endured. 
 Should I an ark contrive, strong-ribbed, gigantic, 
 
 Like those few souls who plowed the old whelming sea. 
 Wherein to shut myself against the frantic. 
 
 Wild spray of men that madly then would flee 
 Upward ascending waves 
 And unhewn graves ? 
 
 " Or should I seize on all the Western regions 
 
 And on their highest and most holy peak 
 Plant me a temple whence my harnessed legions 
 
 Should spread the earth's remotest bounds to seek? 
 Or on the edge of my embowered gardens 
 
 Should I cause grow a most enormous wall 
 Of mortised stone with well-burnt lime that hardens 
 
 With time the more, the more that showers fall — 
 Thus, when the ooze waxed high, 
 To keep me dry ? 
 
90 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " But then I feared, should I my kingdom alter, 
 
 The robber hordes from past the Caspian gates 
 Would sack my towns, leading my folk in halter, 
 
 Trample my fields, level the fruit-hung dates. 
 Or, if I built the wall, ten thousand wretches 
 
 Would desperate climb along the rising flood 
 And swarm like rats when some old willow stretches 
 
 Its arm in pity toward the struggling brood. 
 'Ahram,' I cried thought-wan, 
 'Find me a plan ! ' 
 
 " And Ahram pondered. At the last he claimed 
 
 A year to seek the deathless truth, a permit 
 For six months' counsel with the old and famed 
 
 And six months' brooding as a mountain-hermit. 
 I gave the year, and Ahram to my keeping 
 
 Left his small tribe, his kindred and his flocks. 
 I saw no spoiler through their lands went reaping. 
 
 No hand of violence dared unbar their locks. 
 Ahram was far away 
 One year and day. 
 
Esther the Vestal. 91 
 
 " Now in my train the eunuch Bitsu stood 
 
 Chief of my household. His, to gather tidings 
 Of distant wars, revolts, the secret brood 
 
 Of thoughts of minds ambitious that have hidings 
 In towns of strength. He spied upon the slaves, 
 
 The thousand wives, the soldiers of my harem. 
 At his least word a swift-foot runner braves 
 
 The perilous waste, the hail-storm's dread alarum. 
 Bitsu, once Ahram gone, 
 Was quick to fawn. 
 
 " ' King! ' thus he cried. ' God, to whom earthly nations 
 Are dust, and whom the sky has loaned ! Great god! 
 
 Is it your will that all the hid relations 
 Of men submit to your approving nod ? 
 
 king of kings, Ahram preserves some treasure 
 Secret, rare, tempting, in his new-built town. 
 
 1 have not seen it, but I know the measure 
 
 Of wealth that he for that thing will disown ! 
 'Tis a strange gem he saves 
 Too great for slaves. 
 
92 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " ' Without your leave the vizier [who is greater. 
 
 It seems, than Nimrod even] sent back men 
 Of his own tribe, and put to death as traitor 
 
 That chief who led us to his mountain den ; 
 And then from out the valleys where the snow 
 
 Lies half the year was brought this bulky jewel, 
 Vase of fine metal, ark or idol, so 
 
 Enchanting that no rare and costly fuel 
 Burns on its altar stair 
 Too rich, too rare. 
 
 " ' Say but the word, and to an inner chamber 
 
 Which no man sees, not even his tribal kin, 
 My spearmen break, my nimble footmen clamber 
 
 And from the town that secret we shall win.' 
 But — ' Peace ! ' I cried ; ' tempt me no more ! I ask 
 
 Of Ahram wonders deep and mind-perplexing; 
 'Tis not for us to mar his god-like task. 
 
 With greedy souls his little household vexing. 
 Get you back whence you came, 
 You and your shame ! ' 
 
Esther the Vestal. 93 
 
 " He fled. When Ahram came, his shining forehead 
 Told that the problem had been solved at last. ' 
 I knew his brain contained the temple storied 
 
 Should save the future and condone the past. 
 Three days we talked, three nights and days great 
 Ahram 
 Told me the plan of his gigantic charm ; 
 Three days and nights my wonder-stricken harem 
 Watched without rest for sounds of joy or harm ; 
 When, suddenly, east and west 
 My runners raced. 
 
 ** 'Twas then I raised in Babylon the building, 
 
 Trophy of conquests o'er the sky and earth, 
 Whose gold the kings replaced by paltry gilding. 
 
 Whose mimicked form but roused my hollow mirth. 
 Fools that they were to try replace the hidden 
 
 Wise, planet-reckoned secrets of that fane ! 
 The demons laugh when fondly they are bidden ; 
 
 Monarchs that wisdom lack must build in vain. 
 Mine was the only one 
 That favor won. 
 
94 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " Ay, many enigmas lay within the plans 
 
 And projects Ahram drew for all men's wonder. 
 And first it stood a symbol to the clans 
 
 Of following epochs tliat the king, whose plunder 
 Was drawn from every nation, could ordain 
 
 A mausoleum such as Egypt's princes 
 Had not to show on Nile's o'erteeming plain. 
 
 It was the tomb for one who nowise minces 
 Words, but whose lightest say 
 Kings must obey. 
 
 " But to the living world the fabric beaconed 
 
 The fame of Kush, my father huge of arm ; 
 Thus was inculcate, so wise Ahram reckoned. 
 
 Regard for parents ; thus was raised a charm 
 To save an impious city from o'erthrowal. 
 
 Who saw at morn that land-mark 'gainst the sun, 
 Sure of much offspring, won a rich bestowal 
 
 Of flocks and grain ; who watched it, day being done, 
 To him thrice profits grew ; 
 His wives were true. 
 
Esther the Vestal. 95 
 
 " So on this spot, to all the stars propitious, 
 
 A mighty, square foundation was intrenched ; 
 With blood from bulls, instead of slaves pernicious, 
 
 Ahram in mystic rite the area drenched. 
 Its basement was of rock and sun-baked brick, 
 
 Square, wisely cornered ; it would hold a river; 
 Vaulted it was and dark, with walls so thick 
 
 No raging sea might ever make it quiver ! 
 Window it had but one 
 And always shone 
 
 " Therethrough the north star red, the wise, the healthy ; 
 
 Its ruddy eye forever pierced the murk. 
 Fixing in magic chains those spirits filthy 
 
 That in the bowels of earth uneasy lurk. 
 This star alone forever holds his station 
 
 Without one change which eye of man may see, 
 A ruby pivot, whereon all the nation 
 
 Of heavenly ones revolve eternally. 
 Sublimest sentinel, 
 He stares on hell. 
 
96 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " By cloudy nights, when all the sky was wild, 
 
 The spirits black, the jinn, the elf, the devil 
 Rode on the wind, the flowers of earth defiled. 
 
 Tore at the tower and havoc played in revel. 
 Should yet the north star, when the storm clouds drift 
 
 By will of God a little way asunder. 
 Drive but one gold dart through a fortunate rift — 
 
 Back to their holes the swarming demons blunder. 
 Fearing the diamond lance 
 Of his clean glance. 
 
 " If men dared creep therethrough by torchlight dim. 
 
 They saw, low molded on the slimy walling, 
 Monsters of hideous view, misshapen, grim. 
 
 With grisly mien the stoutest heart appalling. 
 Vast scaly beasts with eyes replete with loathing, 
 
 Pale, flabby worms in tortuous intercoil 
 And snakes like weeds a rocky cavern clothing 
 
 Seemed the foul den with their foul skins to soil. 
 And yet a strange cold smile 
 Grinned from the pile; 
 
Esther the Vestal. 97 
 
 " For they were glad, those figures worse than bestial, 
 
 Though far too vile to care for aught on earth 
 Save their own dross ; they loathed all things celestial 
 
 And ate the spawn to which they gave a birth. 
 Their lumpish limbs they rent from one another 
 
 Where in a dreadful battle they were knit, 
 Nor felt a hurt. Each bleeding dragon brother 
 Fought with his stumps and though in death throes 
 bit. 
 
 Of them the sudden fright 
 Would blanch hair white. 
 
 " Into this square base from Euphrates led 
 
 A deep canal o'er-vaulted all and hidden 
 From light and men. By sluices great was stayed 
 
 The rush of sudden waters, until bidden 
 To flood the whole. A granite chest stood there 
 
 Empty, but carved with all my wars laborious ; 
 There, sealed in lead, my earthly frame should wear 
 
 About it water and above a glorious 
 Sky-reaching, marvelous tower, 
 
 Sign of my power. 
 
 5 
 
98 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " Then on the deep foundation thick and roomy 
 
 Builded throughout by that short swarthy race 
 Which tilled the marshes when my father gloomy 
 
 His blood-stained triumphs from the East did trace, 
 I caused seven of the proudest peoples 
 
 Skillful with tools and forced to labors rude 
 To raise this model of your mosques and steeples, 
 
 This tower pyramidal and diverse-hued 
 Which like the mountains hoar 
 Steadfast should soar. 
 
 " It was a mountain in itself. It told 
 
 Of Eastern hills that gave my father being. 
 On the long plains, which then far smoother rolled, 
 
 It soared from earth as though to heaven fleeing 
 Up from the squalor of the low-roofed town. 
 
 Was the sun fierce, or came the wintry breezes, 
 Still kept the tower, or at foot, or crown, 
 
 Cool for the parched, or warmth for him who freezes, 
 Just as, when seasons change, 
 Hill-dwellers range. 
 
Esther the Vestal. 99 
 
 " Then were Euphrates' face and all my borders 
 
 Crawling with slaves who still my praises sung ; 
 A hundred tribes obedient to my orders 
 
 Hailed me a god in each conflicting tongue. 
 No king might stay, however dread of power, 
 
 His hand from laboring, despite his worth. 
 Nor even might Nimrod's self withhold his hour 
 
 Of work to raise the lordliest flower of earth. 
 The architect approved 
 But no hand moved. 
 
 " Black was the first tier. Those were Nile-horse tamers 
 
 Who baked the pitchy bricks and laid them clear. 
 White was the next, whereof the smooth-limbed framers 
 
 Were clean-cut Greeks from out their isly mere. 
 Saffron the third ; only the endless treasures 
 
 Of Indian kings such costly tint could buy ; 
 To dye those bricks what unrecorded measures 
 
 Of tender roots their husbandmen supply! 
 These were the first of seven 
 'Twixt earth and heaven. 
 
lOO Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " My Medes and Persians then their necks submitted 
 
 And toiled to rear a story all of blue. 
 The mariners of warlike Sidon fitted 
 
 Their share of porcelain red as blood in hue. 
 The sixth was silver ; their fierce spirit broken, 
 
 Iberians wrought it, from the sunset drawn ; 
 The seventh was sheathed in gold and stood a token 
 
 Of princes humbled near the gates of dawn. 
 Each one was given two names — 
 Honors and shames. 
 
 " For each was sign of some great monarch's ravin, 
 
 But each spoke, too, of a celestial star : 
 My heavenly captains were the planets seven 
 
 That rain down victory in each glorious war. 
 About the whole a horse-shoe wall was builded 
 
 Black, with one issue toward the southern plain, 
 Whose inner face with hunting scenes was gilded : 
 
 There lay a lioness by javelin slain ; 
 A mountain cow lay here 
 Pierced by a spear. 
 
Esther the Vestal. loi 
 
 " Beyond, the workmen of my swarthy nation 
 
 Had molded fine upon a pitchy ground 
 The hill whereon the king his chase did station, 
 
 The plain on which a varied prey was found. 
 Above were seen the gentle birds of heaven 
 
 Whom well-taught hawks on tireless wing pursued, 
 Doves which the falcon from their nest had driven, 
 
 And ducks whose feathers were with blood imbrued. 
 These were the scenes which shone 
 Within that zone. 
 
 " But at the portal of those precincts holy 
 
 Two figures crouched, of most majestic mien ; 
 So cunning framed that they might bafifle solely 
 
 The jinns which keep the land from growing green. 
 Upon the right, hewn from one rock gigantic, 
 
 There kneeled a bull ; but all his upper frame 
 Was like a man's. The virtues necromantic 
 
 Of this great charm all demons male could tame. 
 On his tongue's tip alway 
 One finger lay. 
 
I02 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " And on the left, over the way, was lying 
 
 A mighty leopardess with sword-like claws, 
 Yet woman all above. Now, she replying 
 
 With gesture meet, yet different, gives pause 
 With hollow right hand to her shelly ear ; 
 
 And, while with rage the leopard claws are gripping. 
 Her clear, calm, slumbrous-lidded traits appear 
 
 To yearn for sounds all other ears outstripping, 
 While her clenched left is pressed 
 Tight to her breast. 
 
 " Such talismans of watchful care and cunning 
 
 Did Ahram found, so that no evil jinn 
 Female or male, no hungry spirit dunning 
 
 For ghostly food and prayers which lighten sin 
 Should dare invade the temple of the fire, 
 
 Which as a flame stiffened to brick and stone 
 Still from a round hearth skyward should aspire, 
 
 So long as issued from the bull no tone. 
 And while that palm of her 
 Never made stir. 
 
Esther the Vestal, 103 
 
 " How frame the wonders, mark the heavenly traces 
 
 To those who knew revealed within the pile ? 
 So squared the basement was, alternate faces 
 
 Looked eastward, south, west, northward o'er the 
 plain. 
 The strange huge shadow swung about the basis 
 
 With tale of moons, of seasons, hours of day, 
 An index vast, whose most entangled mazes 
 My beggar architect thought out in play, 
 Wherein he did disguise 
 Truths of the skies. 
 
 " Of gold and sunshine and of angels South 
 
 The first fane argued ; of the North and glittering 
 Moon-rays, the next ; the third, of sprites of drouth. 
 
 Ruddy, by West all husbandmen embittering ; 
 The fourth of saffron and of morning dyes 
 
 Round the whole compass ; but the fifth, of heaven 
 And upward height and blue from noonday skies. 
 
 Downward and black, the lowest of the seven 
 Did for all being fix 
 Dimensions six. 
 
I04 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 "And that fane sixtli, the greatest saving one, 
 Betokened centers which have no dimension, 
 Yet being, are. Weigh all the building's sum, 
 And Ahram's subtle and matured invention 
 Placed that as mid-point where the balances 
 Would straightly poise, nor jog. — 
 
 But why discover 
 Problems, when things of beauty, sure to please. 
 Crowd to a mind that runs with memories over 
 While the tongue, rusty, trips 
 Between the lips? 
 
 " From right to left about the flashing mass 
 
 Arose a spiral stair, the tower ringing, 
 Whereon aloft my jeweled throne could pass 
 
 As round the Polestar goes the dragon singing ; 
 But on the crest — a glittering far-seen wonder 
 
 Of jade, of amber and of facet-stone — 
 With mine own hands I built to the god of thunder 
 
 The sacred fane where he might house alone. 
 With couch both soft and wide 
 For his own bride. 
 
Esther the Vestal. 105 
 
 " Her had my seer selected from his folk; 
 
 She was the gem that hid within his dwelling ; 
 A maid of spirit, never galled by yoke, 
 
 By name of Esther splendid fates foretelling. 
 With fearful oaths, by lightning-bolt and thunder, 
 
 By evil gertii, by my father's beard, 
 I swore no man her sacred zone should sunder, 
 
 But always, high in the pure sky up-reared, 
 She in the shrine should spread 
 The air-god's bed. 
 
 "Small was the care that Nimrod had for women ! 
 
 Of wondrous queens too many I had known 
 Eager to be my sport, my slave, my leman. 
 
 Whose beauty well had won a separate throne. 
 One after one I threw them by, disgusted, 
 
 Yet the least glorious in these pygmy days 
 Would shine like moons compared with targets rusted 
 Beside the beauties whom ye moderns praise ! 
 Esther was given grace 
 To see my face. 
 5* 
 
io6 Esther the Vestal. 
 
 " Her veil was drawn. Ah, what a heavenly splendor 
 
 Broke from her form upon my jaded eyes ! 
 * Prophet,' I cried, ' 'tis well you did not render 
 
 Account to me of this most glorious prize ! 
 But I have sworn. Load her with gifts and station 
 
 A woman's guard about the elected maid ; 
 Bid that a herald to each subject nation 
 
 Trumpet the name of her whom I have made 
 Greatest of women ; ay, 
 Bride of the sky ! * 
 
 " She was so quiet ! Yet, methought, most thrilling 
 
 That stillness was. And when each lazy sheath 
 Sloped over eyes like opals, I was willing 
 
 To swear her loveliest yet. But when beneath 
 Shot out the startled radiance of those eyes, 
 
 O, then she seemed no earthly, fleshly creature ; 
 I stood aghast, lest toward the envious skies 
 
 She might ascend before my hand could reach her, 
 Draw her close, breath to breath, 
 Once ere my death ! 
 
Esther the Vestal. 107 
 
 " But no ! Though Iran could contain no woman 
 
 Safe from my will, this single girl alone 
 Had been reserved by vows so superhuman 
 
 That far away from my embrace she'd grown. 
 Strange are the deeds of love ! That my great body 
 
 Should tremble leaflike at a captive maid, 
 Should glow with rapture while a cheek grows ruddy, 
 
 And at a frown turn anxious and afraid ! 
 She and the seer of mine 
 Were half divine. 
 
 " Betwixt her brows Ishtar had set her seal 
 
 Shaped like an oval mole. In other maidens 
 Haply that mark a blemish would reveal ; 
 
 Not so with her : it was in rhyme, in cadence 
 With all her wondrous charm for joy and harm. 
 
 Nor perfect was her figure, nor quite even 
 The features of her face ; yet all was warm 
 
 With such a look ! as if from glowing heaven 
 Falling, to woman turned, 
 The love-star burned. 
 
VI 
 
 THE UPPER FANES 
 
VI 
 
 THE UPPER FANES 
 
 " But let me strive, although the night be waning, 
 
 To tell by rote a portion of the scene 
 That once shone here, though naught be now remain- 
 ing 
 In proof of memories of what things have been 
 Upon a chosen, separate day those seven 
 
 Tall stories, each with dark rites, were begun 
 That from a subtile reckoning with heaven 
 I and my peoples every ill might shun. 
 Space was o'ercome. Superb 
 Time felt my curb. 
 
112 The Upper Fanes. 
 
 " And first we were the day's great wheel renowning : 
 
 His shrine of gold, second to none in worth, 
 The six times variegated stories crowning, 
 
 Spired aloft far from the awestruck earth. 
 To each there was a fourfold statued portal, 
 
 Since four times seven the days of every moon ; 
 Four doors, seven stories and the fane immortal 
 
 Are twelve all told from monsoon to monsoon. 
 Year, month and day and hour 
 Stood in its power. 
 
 " The four doors of the topmost fane were built 
 
 Of glittering sunstone and of topaz golden. 
 They seemed from far undecked, yet were they drilled 
 
 With marvelous gravings. You had there beholden 
 In delicate networks of incised lines 
 
 Lions, bulls, boars, the shape of Behemoth ; 
 In deep green emeralds there were pictured pines 
 
 And banyan-trees of huge and vigorous growth ; 
 Tongue could not name the swarms 
 Of sun- vowed forms ! 
 
The Upper Fanes. 113 
 
 " When first the sungod's matin eyes came beaming 
 
 In at the eastern door of his own fane 
 With hands of gold he touched fine harps, the dreaming 
 
 Sky's bride to call from slumber's tangled skein. 
 Above the cities of the plain the tender 
 
 Evasive strains dropt gently from the sky ; 
 The peoples knelt and toward that morning splendor 
 
 Their cleansed brows and wide palms stretched on high; 
 Low on the sun-gilt spire 
 Burned Esther's fire. 
 
 " Within the sun-god's fleckless habitation 
 
 No altar was, no rug of any hue; 
 All was clear glass, wherein by duplication 
 
 A thousand-fold the sun himself did view. 
 A single diamond window overhead 
 
 Focussed his rays, just as he reached high heaven, 
 And lit the sandal-wood which Esther spread 
 
 To catch the bounty by the sun-god given. 
 Yet did she never dare 
 To enter there ! 
 
114 1^^^ Upper Fanes. 
 
 " No woman might that holy fane invade ; 
 
 But Esther, at the western doorway kneeling, 
 Plenished each noon her fire, though sore afraid, 
 
 Lest the great god, his soundless sun-bolt dealing, 
 Should strike her dead. ' But when her torch was lit 
 
 Up to her shrine upon the platform giddy 
 Like frighted dove to dovecote she would flit 
 
 With bated breath, with cold hands, feet unsteady. 
 Then knew all Babylon 
 That noon was on. 
 
 " But when came evening with a rest from toll 
 
 The hidden harps, gift from the Orient's princes, 
 Rang out their music o'er the teeming soil 
 
 To master worn with watching, slave that winces 
 At cruel goad. Then tower-ward turned each face, 
 
 Spoke litanies for me and for their altars. 
 Against the powers of darkness begged for grace. 
 
 Intoned, or whispered, as they stood, the psalters 
 That sing how all men yearn 
 For sun's return. 
 
The Upper Fanes. 115 
 
 " Thus was appeased the first day of the seven ; 
 
 The next belonged to her who shines most bright 
 When stars are palest and the gloomy heaven 
 
 Has lost all traces of the sun-god's light. 
 The silvery moon that hunts when clouds are thick 
 
 Within the shrine was bidden to her dwelling ; 
 Moon that gives love, but empty all and sick, 
 
 No sooner forming than at once dispelling, 
 Quick as the mists that steal 
 Past her white wheel. 
 
 '* The outer wall in mansions eight and twenty 
 
 Divided was, wherein low-graven stood 
 Symbols of stars that drought portend, or plenty 
 
 Of rain or wind, and formed a dial rude 
 For the whole month. But inside at the centre 
 
 A pillar rose of half-transparent stone : 
 Should one at nightfall in that precinct enter, 
 
 The mass with such unearthly pallor shone 
 As if a lamp it bore 
 Deep in its core. 
 
ii6 The Upper Fanes. 
 
 " Of crystal were the jambs and lintels made ; 
 
 The thresholds four, precious with jewels stranger, 
 Were formed of moonstones that are used in aid 
 
 Of those the moon has brought in secret danger. 
 Sad are the maidens by the moonstroke blighted ! 
 
 They rise from sleep, drawn by a hidden force ; 
 Through perilous ways they stare ; they walk unlighted 
 
 Like murderers mad with shadowy wild remorse ; 
 Waking from hideous dreams 
 With crazy screams. 
 
 " But inward round the tier, all silver crusted. 
 
 Fair wrought by captives from the western isles, 
 A tale of grief was to the walls intrusted — 
 
 How bootless love that heavenly queen beguiles. 
 O'er hill and dale the fair was pictured flying 
 
 To overtake her love with golden hair ; 
 Her lover deaf, who wist not of her sighing 
 
 And saw not, blind, the marks of her despair ! 
 Then in a pleasant land 
 She seems to stand, 
 
The Upper Fanes. 117 
 
 " Where at the last her lover is o'ertaken : 
 
 He lies upon a couch of spicy leaves ; 
 But his sweet eyelids, though with kisses shaken, 
 
 Will never ope for any wile she weaves. 
 And farther on the artful western painter 
 
 Had limned her flying back in sore dismay, 
 Whereat the charm grew faint and ever fainter 
 
 Until he woke and blithely hied his way : 
 Thereat the queen renewed 
 Her following rude. 
 
 " And once again she's caught him ; but alas ! 
 
 What deadly spite is this ? He cannot see her. 
 Swiftly from sight her lovely form must pass 
 
 Just when he waits and seems no more to flee her ! 
 She waves her arms — alas ! he is unconscious ; 
 
 Her bosom bares, but all her charms are naught ; 
 She fain would shriek, but not a whisper launches 
 
 From out the mouth of her with love distraught. 
 Nay, than thin air her white 
 Hand is less light. 
 
ii8 The Upper Fanes. 
 
 " Thereby was seen where those Iberians savage 
 
 A hunt had drawn. They showed with crafty skill 
 Upon the youth a boar commit such ravage 
 
 That all his life upon the grass did spill. 
 Thereon was pictured how his heavenly lover, 
 
 Stricken with anguish at his mortal pain, 
 Above him, weeping, in the air did hover, 
 
 Shrieked and implored for help — yet all in vain ! 
 On her hard virgin breast 
 Rocked him to rest 
 
 " And mourned his loss with woodland ways of sorrow, 
 
 With band of nymphs disheveled and forlorn, 
 Satyrs in sackcloth and sly fauns that borrow 
 
 For once a visage tearful, sad and worn. 
 Within the cave he stretched, embalmed and fragrant 
 
 As once he lay beneath the strange sleeping-spell ; 
 Thither by night she turned her footsteps vagrant 
 
 Her anguish to the rocks and woods to tell. 
 Such was Fate's bitter boon 
 To the pale moon. 
 
The Upper Fanes. 119 
 
 "Whose was the third day and the third high story? 
 
 Beneath the platform of the queen of night 
 The fane was built for him who loves the gory 
 
 Affronts of battle and the thick of fight. 
 He is the god of that small angry star 
 
 Red as the sky when sun in wrath is setting 
 Which, most portentous of a coming war, 
 
 Is cause of fame's and misery's begetting. 
 These walls the blood-stained hands 
 Of pirate bands 
 
 " From Sidon faring stained with carnal juices 
 
 Bright red like blood. The cornices within 
 Were hung with targets, weapons for all uses, 
 
 Trumpets that bray across the battle-din. 
 The floor was all a field of grassy fire 
 
 That flickered still, yet never lower burned, 
 So true to life, the foot was lifted higher 
 
 As if the lesson never could be learned. 
 For 'tis a hot, quick fire. 
 The war-god's ire. 
 
I20 The Upper Fanes. 
 
 " And round about the art of skilled Phoenicians 
 
 Had painted fresh the taking of a town. 
 High on a tower a score of wan magicians 
 
 Besought the planet on their foes to frown. 
 Along the town-walls iron-souled defenders 
 
 With boiling lead, with stone and spear and dart 
 Fight with a useless rage that only renders 
 
 The victor dire and adamant of heart. 
 There, on the lower plane, 
 A dreadful train 
 
 " Of harnessed men strode on with leveled lances 
 
 In windy rows, as when the pulsing breeze 
 Bows into even ranks as it advances 
 
 The wintry tops of glittering ice-bound trees. 
 They storm the wall ; they swarm at every angle ; 
 
 They cut and thrust ; they fling the quenchless torch ; 
 Though arms are lopped, their teeth the foe can mangle 
 
 Reckless of how the gathering flames may scorch. 
 Beyond, a stately fleet 
 The sight did greet 
 
The Upper Fanes. 121 
 
 " Where too was battle and a dire commotion : 
 
 Against each other like to mad bulls ran 
 The myriad-footed galleys. All the ocean 
 
 Was full of wrecks as far as eye could scan. 
 Here lay two hulks, whereon a tide of seamen 
 
 Flowed to and fro in grapple desperate ; 
 There, on a captive merchantman, the women 
 
 Destroyed themselves to escape a terrible fate. 
 The sea with blood is red : 
 Countless the dead. 
 
 "Next there was limned a plain encumbered densely 
 
 With horse and foot, with chariots flecked with gore, 
 O'er which there hung the horror that intensely 
 
 Grips at the nerves in hushes just before * 
 The jar of battle. Eyes might hear the moan, 
 
 The hideous crash, the carnage- and the madness. 
 With broken armor all the field was sown 
 
 And through it stalked the war-god, smiling gladness. 
 
 Sucking some grateful death 
 
 With each new breath. 
 6 
 
122 The Upper Fanes. 
 
 "The doorways to the shrine of Mars had erches 
 
 Of spotty bloodstone, while each pillar's head 
 Was formed like skulls of wolves that dog the marches 
 
 Of wounded braves. Rubies of gleaming red 
 These had for eyes, and on each bare skull stood 
 
 The red-pate bird that startles the lone forest 
 With taps like drurn, when against fields of blood 
 
 The dogs howl loudest, wives are weeping sorest : 
 Such was the grisly fane 
 Of man's great bane. 
 
 " Now underneath, unto the fourth day given. 
 
 Spread out the temple of the tiny star 
 Which never frankly shines in midmost heaven 
 
 But hides its head before the god of war. 
 Blue was the house that planet, the dissembler. 
 
 The slippery one was bidden to invade ; 
 A merchant race, for merchandise a trembler. 
 
 The far-fetched tiles of sky-sprung azure made. 
 Tiles by the folk designed 
 Of farther Inde. 
 
The Upper Fanes. 123 
 
 " The hall within was lined with diverse metal 
 
 Whereon by craftsmen were sly pictures sealed 
 With fire in low relief; thus: men who settle 
 
 A barter, and, their perjuries revealed, 
 Make off with ill-got gains ; . a subtle thief 
 
 Who crawls upon a campment in the dawning 
 To steal a blood-horse, but when caught reprief 
 
 Obtains by witty lies and crafty fawning. 
 Such were the scenes applied 
 To the east side. 
 
 " Along the north stretched out a snowy region 
 
 Wherein lithe youths were sweating at their play. 
 Made mimic war between each mimic legion 
 
 And trained their bodies all the livelong day. 
 O'er snow, near by, one saw a file of deer 
 
 Were swiftly drawing cars of merchandise 
 And farther on the courts of towns appear 
 
 Where orators lead captive all men's eyes, 
 Swaying the mobile throng 
 Toward right or wrong. 
 
124 '^^^ upper Fanes. 
 
 " Upon the west was made a sea in motion 
 
 With tossing ships careening to the blast ; 
 Adventurers were seen appeasing ocean 
 
 By costly presents on the waters cast. 
 Not far away there rose a range of hills 
 
 Where men for ores, the furnace melted, burrow ; 
 Here for a heavy crop the sand they till 
 
 And there the beds of empty streams they furrow, 
 Even as my Median bands 
 Searched the far strands. 
 
 " And furthermore, the southern wall adorning, 
 
 In caravans from torrid climes are seen 
 Beasts and strange birds, men who are all men's 
 scorning 
 For monstrous shape, for fierce or puny mien ; 
 Men of vast strength, men of a baby's size, 
 
 With heads too great, or feet like elephants. 
 Serpents in baskets, many a brook-won prize 
 
 Of glittering gems, healing and hard-found plants ; 
 Bark from envenomed trees 
 Which cure disease. 
 
The Upper Fanes. 125 
 
 " The ceiling was a miracle of art 
 
 With sapphires deep and palest turquoise blended. 
 A sky was there, whereof one cloudy part 
 
 Was milky quartz ; as if a storm had ended 
 Across the darker clouds was drawn that bridge 
 
 Of wondrous hues whereon the sky's great father 
 Sends earthward fast his messenger as pledge 
 
 That for a time his wrath shall cease to gather, 
 Revenging fast insult 
 With lightning bolt. 
 
 " Like palm-trees were the pillars of the gates 
 
 Of this lithe god, around the which were tangled 
 Wise serpents topaz-green ; each one his mate's 
 Mouth, tail and middle touched in peace, nor 
 mangled 
 With teeth his friend. Thus was the fane. Far greater 
 
 The shrine below, for o'er each august portal 
 Was shaped in ebon the strong serpent-hater, 
 The eagle which if not slain is immortal, 
 Nor e'er is dying found 
 On the earth's round. 
 
126 The Upper Fanes, 
 
 For eagles that as nestlings learn to gaze 
 
 Deep in the eye of the great world-reviver 
 And are destroyed unless they stand the blaze 
 
 Unwinking; eagles are their own depriver 
 Of outworn life. When beak and claws are grown 
 
 So crook, they cannot rend or strike the quarry. 
 Sunward in tempest towering, sheerly down 
 
 They dash upon the ocean ! and a sorry 
 Featherless, shapeless form 
 Sinks in the storm. 
 
VII 
 
 THE LOWER TEMPLES 
 
VII 
 
 THE LOWER TEMPLES 
 
 " Could you have passed the gateways of the story 
 
 Third from the earth, vowed to the great fifth day, 
 It would have seemed that in an oak-grove hoary 
 
 With age, yet lusty, chanced your feet to stray. 
 The ceiling seemed with leafy boughs bespread 
 
 And upper walls with mighty tree-trunks dense ; 
 But underneath on carven screens were read 
 
 Tales of high prowess, victories immense 
 
 O'er the astounding, rude 
 
 Titanic brood. 
 6* * 129 
 
130 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " The place was sacred to that royal star 
 
 Which sails majestic through supernal ether; 
 Of mighty force to help the earth or mar ; 
 
 The cloud-compeller, the white mountain-wreather, 
 The thunderer in hail-storm or in rain, 
 
 The god whose voice is heard in wailing branches, 
 Who, toying with the crocus on the plain, 
 
 Shakes the hill- passes with his avalanches ; 
 Who levels towns, who stirs 
 Ripe chestnut burrs. 
 
 '' And there along the wainscot, deftly graven, 
 
 Were banqueters who smiled above a feast : 
 Here sat a king; there priests with crowns all shaven 
 
 In shape of sun or moon. The royal beast 
 Lay there as watchdog to the throne, the lion. 
 
 Before them filed an army, one array 
 Of pompous pride, and at their head the scion 
 
 Of kingly line his mincing horse did play. 
 Such was the festal sight 
 Upon the right. 
 
The Lower Temples. 131 
 
 " But let me tell you how the gates were framed : 
 
 Of amethyst the southern door was builded, 
 Friendly to drunkards of their vice ashamed. 
 
 With yellow sards the northern posts were gilded. 
 Upon the east stood pillars of dark jade, 
 
 Concealing, half revealing crafty gravings. 
 The western doorway was of loadstone made 
 
 That draws from far metals in slender shavings 
 Even as the sun draws still 
 Earth's every hill. 
 
 " To left the ranks of royal oaks were broken 
 
 By olive groves ; on panels of dark wood 
 Stood fields of tender grain but late awoken 
 
 From wintry sleep, and next in furrows stood 
 The eldest of a band of husbandmen ; 
 
 Up to the clouds a grateful hand he lifted 
 In thanks for purging wind and gend'ring rain 
 
 And with weak arms a mimic snow he sifted 
 Of seeds in hope to please 
 The lord of trees. 
 
132 The Lower Temples. 
 
 "But on the next wall was a dire contention 
 
 Between the generous god and those rude sons 
 Of chaos and commotion. Deep invention 
 
 Can only stem the force that, like to tons 
 Of mindless stone, their swollen bodies wield ! 
 
 The god of rain was pictured with his lightning 
 Streaming resistless o'er his awful shield, 
 
 The sheen whereof, all lesser giants fright'ning, 
 Drove to their former berth 
 In heart of earth. 
 
 " Yet farther on was seen the first great forming 
 
 Of iron weapons. From the mountain side 
 The god had digged the ore, and fashioned, warming 
 
 In lambent flame, a sword so sharp, hard, wide. 
 The tooth of time it blunted. 
 
 On a tyrant 
 The blade he tried. The latter fled away, 
 Dropping from nerveless arms the last aspirant 
 To his old throne, an own son ; them to slay 
 Always had been his wont 
 Before that brunt. 
 
The Lower Temples. 133 
 
 " And he, of his own offspring the afiflicter, 
 
 Was honored, too, in seventh and lowest tier ; 
 But mighty lay betwixt him and his victor 
 
 The shrine of her who dulls the wargod's spear, 
 Strips of their pride divinities the greatest, 
 
 Humbles to dust the careless, snubs disdain — 
 A goddess who, if earliest not is latest 
 
 And in the hearts of graybeards still shall reign. 
 She who within her sphere 
 Has not a peer. 
 
 " Whom do I mean save Ishtar ? Nimrod even, 
 
 I, hard-thewed hunter, at the last was crushed 
 Beneath her ivory heel. Within that haven 
 
 All noises rude, all voices rough were hushed. 
 Cooing of doves, the amorous cat's soft purring 
 
 Were there allowed, but of the voice of men 
 Only those mellow with the heart's deep stirring 
 
 Echoing about the murmurous chambers ran. 
 List how to earth that flame 
 Of white love came ! 
 
134 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " It was in spring-time, in the world's fair morning, 
 
 When gracious, fickle and alluring sea 
 Yearned for still earth with such deep-rooted longing 
 
 That stirred at heart was her immensity. 
 From every part the ocean drew her finer. 
 
 More spiritual essence into foamy wave. 
 Whereof the allied winds became refiner, 
 
 And, far by south, to one close spiral drave, 
 Where lay, as though in bower. 
 The world's one flower — 
 
 " Ishtar the white, the rosy, the transparent. 
 
 Her fragrant head was pillowed on a hand 
 Cunningly 'twixt her yellow locks apparent 
 
 As smoothy milkstones hide in golden sand. 
 Her dimpled elbow on the wave reclining 
 
 Gave to her weight a little, but no more ; 
 Her sun-bright tresses were not wet but shining 
 
 With humid kisses of the dark-green floor. 
 Her counterfeit could move 
 To dreams of love. 
 
The Lower Temples. 135 
 
 " That was great Ishtar's making. Phrygian Greeks 
 
 Engraved her thus within the marble palace 
 Sixth from the top. For hers is still the week's 
 
 Sixth day amongst you. Half within the chalice 
 Of one wide-petaled lotus-bloom she lay ; 
 
 About her sported dolphins ; through the billows 
 Bending before her they did steer their way 
 
 And drew the goddess on her perfumed pillows. 
 There the clear marble stone 
 With soft hues shone 
 
 " Not painted, but in darkness fashioned slowly 
 
 Within the heart of subtly-shaping earth. 
 The craft to cut that stone had vanished wholly 
 
 Long years before ye moderns had your birth. 
 The floor of Ishtar was of stone so clear 
 
 It looked a sea, a still lake or a mirror 
 Wherein inverted did the fane appear : 
 
 The entering novice was at first in error 
 Lest in a cool wave's lip 
 Her sandal dip. 
 
136 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " And here and there upon the walls were chiseled 
 
 Most lifelike groves of myrtle, rose and peach ; 
 Apples of love, pomegranates which to grizzled 
 
 And languid age a youthful vigor teach. 
 Among their leaves were sparrows ; swans and doves 
 
 Were mimicked well along that pooly mirror ; 
 The bird was there that all too fondly loves 
 
 Its absent mate and dies of lonely terror. 
 In the wide lintel's cope 
 Its eye did ope 
 
 " One rose- white jewel set with pearl and beryl 
 
 Yellow, white, green, whereof the shifty sheen 
 Was told again within the waters sterile 
 
 Of that false pool. The opal great, I ween, 
 A symbol was of love that hides from sight, 
 
 Yet burns the hotter still, albeit hidden ; 
 And in strange ways and devious comes to light, 
 
 Arrives, goes, turns, and goes for good, unbidden : 
 For love a deep touch-stone — 
 Ishtar's alone. 
 
The Lower Temples. 137 
 
 " Hers was a fane the greatest of all others 
 
 And lowest too, save that of Father Time, 
 The shrine of Saturn, the hoar god who smothers 
 
 His infant sons in fell destruction's slime. 
 Because the rest are Ishtar's slaves : the master 
 
 That moves the sun, the empress of the moon, 
 The war-god fierce, the god who dreads disaster, 
 
 The festal banqueter who loves high-noon — 
 All who have come to earth 
 Through seas of birth 
 
 '* Must deal with Ishtar beautiful and dread j 
 
 Behind her couch like beggars they must station 
 Till in her oval mirror she have read 
 
 Their fates in love. Now even such probation 
 Portrayed was there. Upon a bank of snow 
 
 With red raw feet was such a suitor standing. 
 He trembled much and on his hands did blow. 
 
 Frozen or parched at Ishtar's light commanding. 
 Hot, cold like snow, in turn 
 Her love doth burn. 
 
138 ' The Lower Temples. 
 
 " But vaster yet were portals deep and roomy 
 
 Of agate, onyx and of serpent stone 
 Which frowned about the temple black and gloomy 
 
 Where Saturn brooded, molded on his throne. 
 About his nape his arms were sadly twined. 
 
 His face was hid. A few locks white and scattered 
 Hung down between. To desperate change resigned 
 
 He crouched like one with whom they little mattered, 
 Things on the old earth's ball, 
 Great things or small ! 
 
 " All wrought in fired earths, his back so broad 
 
 Shored up, it seemed, a main wall of the tower ; 
 So, should he come to life and seize his sword. 
 
 Which like a sickle moon in her first hour 
 Shone by his side, the fabric o'er his neck 
 
 Had split right through. Then all the shrill gods' 
 chiding 
 Had not availed to save their homes from wreck, 
 Nor all the strength within their spheres residing 
 Prop for a moment's tide 
 Their ruined pride ! 
 
The Lower Temples. 139 
 
 " Above his head a cypress wreathed gaunt arms 
 
 Whereon there sate an ancient raven pair ; 
 Into his ears these gray birds croaked their charms : 
 
 One told the future and kept green despair 
 At loss of just such days as still the other, 
 
 Memory by name, recounted croak by croak. 
 He seem'd to long the actual day to smother, 
 
 Live yesterday, to-morrow's tide invoke, 
 Rather than bear the sour 
 Present's dark hour. 
 
 " About the four sides of this empty shrine, 
 
 The wall's foot and the doorway lintels lining. 
 Ran a strange rounded beading, whose design 
 
 Was slowly seen, until at last the shining 
 False eyes of one huge snake revealed its form. 
 
 Around the fane it stretched, until o'ertaking 
 Its own thick tail, the motionless gray worm 
 
 Laid fast thereto. Above, through jungles breaking. 
 Were elephants whose feet 
 'Twere death to meet. 
 
140 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " Now in the space betwixt the tower and wall 
 
 Of horseshoe form that round about was builded 
 There stood a sacred grove, wherein grew tall 
 
 The windy hill-pines, whose long cones were gilded 
 To catch the sun's glint. On the other side, 
 
 A clump of granates, every apple covered 
 With silver like the moon's. These grew the pride 
 
 Of twice six priests elect, who always hovered 
 With careful guard around 
 The holy ground. 
 
 " A well there was deep sunken in each grove, 
 Of virtues sovereign and of magic seeming; 
 That of the sun among the pines did prove 
 
 Most strange by night. For then there glowed a 
 gleaming 
 Deep in its entrails, as the tube it were 
 
 That star-men point against the glittering fires ; 
 Therethrough the sun, though lost to upper air, 
 Could still be seen, the while the moon aspires 
 And sheds her still white rain 
 Across the plain. 
 
The Lower Te7nples. 141 
 
 " That other spring, bubbling among the apples, 
 Was all the moon's, and greatest was its might 
 When quivering heat from off the moist land dapples 
 
 ,The noon horizon with unsteady light. 
 Then, were the moon far wandered from the sky, 
 
 A sheen of silver in the darksome water 
 Pledged her return ; she was not lost for aye, 
 But to the votary rightly that besought her 
 Would tell what bridal bed 
 The fates would spread. 
 
 *' The twelve priests of the sun and moon were clad 
 
 In robes of separate hue, therein enwoven 
 Celestial signs. A mystic rite they had, 
 
 The sacred mold with golden mattocks cloven 
 To plant with grain, the crop wherefrom they gave 
 
 To all men of the earth because 'twas holy. 
 Landsmen from far the sacred seed did crave 
 
 And pilgrims fared to Babylonia solely 
 A handful to obtain 
 Of lucky grain. 
 
142 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " There had you stood in bowery Babylon 
 
 And gazed afar at that my loftiest wonder ; 
 You had conjectured of the secrets done 
 
 In stone and brick the flashing tier-tints under. 
 The sun and moon shrines were my royal head ; 
 
 Mars was the courage in my breast residing ; 
 Mercury for my active heart stood stead : 
 
 Four greater gods were thus my frame dividing; 
 But the dread upmost shrine 
 My crown divine ! 
 
 "My lower man was symboled by the three : 
 
 Jupiter, Venus, Saturn the deep-brooding ; 
 Symbols they were of the v/ide-searching sea. 
 
 The two above, to my broad chest alluding, 
 Stood for the air. The still superior ones 
 
 For fire ethereal, that to which inferior 
 Is air and shines the brightest in the sun's 
 
 Omnipotent, all-gendering, deep interior. 
 Thus sprang the cone-shaped god 
 Up from the sod. 
 
The Lower Temples, 143 
 
 " A dreary secret has not yet been told. 
 
 Unknown to Ahram, at the eunuch's bidding, 
 With murder every story was befouled, 
 
 This place seven times by guile of Ahram ridding. 
 Bitsu had caused of each land one chief man 
 
 In brickwork to be walled, unfed, unwatered. 
 Ahram for all the wisdom of his plan 
 
 Heard not, absorbed, how the dry mouths of slaugh- 
 tered 
 
 Chiefs, their far countries' pride. 
 For vengeance cried ! 
 
 " It was an ancient custom of our land 
 
 Which Ahram cursed. Yet Bitsu showed me clearly 
 How their seven sprites like guardian souls would stand 
 
 Within their live entombments late and early. 
 Alas, 'twas they who Lured the foulest jinns, 
 
 Wind-devils, demons and the ghosts uncanny 
 •Whose clawlike hands could grapple where my sins 
 
 Had left within the pile too many a cranny- 
 Still shouldered out more wide 
 By those inside ! 
 
144 ^-^^ Lower Temples. 
 
 " 'Twas done. East, west, north, south the humbled 
 nations 
 Departed, dazzled by my godlike pride. 
 My fame was blown to earth's remotest stations, 
 
 To seas remote and farthest mountain-side. 
 And as in bands they fled, their labors ended, 
 
 They saw my throne, bright with the jeweled glare, 
 By all the pomp of Babylon attended 
 Ever ascending by the spiral stair : 
 Curses in many a tongue 
 Backward they flung. 
 
 " I heard them not. I only marked the gleaming 
 
 Of countless cities and the endless chain 
 Of slaves and booty-laden camels streaming 
 
 From every land o'er the deep Shinar plain. 
 On high I saw the radiant vestal beckon 
 
 A brother god toward the celestial house. 
 Was it so strange that I should lawful reckon 
 
 Whatever passion in my breast might rouse ? 
 The pile which tortures built 
 Was used for guilt. 
 
The Lower Temples. 145 
 
 " Before the threshold of the sun I bade 
 
 The pomp cry halt. Then from my dais golden 
 Leaping, alone prostration short I made 
 
 To fire directly to the sky beholden ; 
 And all alone I scaled the highest peak 
 
 Where Esther stood in robe of many colors, 
 The hues whereof should fright the jinns who seek 
 
 To plague that holy one with spiteful dolors. 
 Wrapped in her priestess-hood 
 Fair Esther stood. 
 
 " Know you how Spring ascends the mountain valleys 
 
 In fragrant dances on the line of snows. 
 Enrobed in wind half-cool, half-warm, that dallies 
 
 With vineyards now, and now by snow peak blows ? 
 When vernal hills are green with dainty guesses, 
 
 With hope, with promise of delicious pain, 
 And sun from udders of the glacier presses 
 The foamy milk, life to the thirsty plain — 
 Know you the zest that fills 
 Spring in the hills ? 
 7 
 
146 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " Thus did it seem before the glowing face 
 
 Of Esther, captive-slave and priestess-royal, 
 In whom such keenness and such zest held place 
 
 With natural genius. And then first did loyal 
 Untainted thoughts for any woman rise 
 
 Within my cynic breast. 'Twas not embraces 
 I longed to win, but that in scornful eyes 
 
 I might perceive of tenderness the traces — 
 Yes, what none else should see, 
 All meant for me ! 
 
 " She did not kneel. With looks that were a threat 
 
 She held of that most sacred shrine the portal ; 
 Her head was godlike on her shoulders set 
 
 With poise indignant. Through her "flowing kirtle 
 Shone a white knee that would not bend, though I, 
 
 The mightiest lord of earth, were there approaching ; 
 Her blue-black silken hair about did fly 
 
 With kisses soft on clear white cheeks encroaching ; 
 Anger more lovely made 
 This wondrous maid. 
 
The Lower Temples. 147 
 
 " Ah, little know ye, this lean shadow seeing. 
 
 The splendor of my port in that brave time ; 
 My stature grand with haughty look agreeing, 
 
 My regal gait, my awful nod sublime ! 
 Esther was human. Could she fail to glow 
 
 At such as I was? Could she keep from dreaming 
 Of power like mine, of all I might bestow ? 
 
 Could she restrain her restless brain from scheming 
 Triumphs that lay so near 
 Her own career? 
 
 " ' Nimrod ! ' she spake, in low voice ill-compressed, 
 
 * 'Tis well you come. Your slave has made good trial 
 Of all this office. Blandly your request 
 
 From Ahram came, backed by the mandate royal. 
 To him naught say I, but to you, the head. 
 
 Whom less I fear, albeit no less I'm humble. 
 To you I say: Spare me this golden bed. 
 
 Never again at lots obscure I'll grumble 
 So that you set me free 
 From hence to flee. 
 
148 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " ' I am no priest or seer ; I am a woman 
 
 Used to dear friends, to gossips, daily tasks. 
 Why should I house alone, or with inhuman 
 
 Faint spectres whom the incorporate ether masks ? 
 Ahram but did your bidding. Oh, too well 
 
 He knows the mind to sway with turnings specious— 
 This is not life,' she cried, * or else a hell 
 
 To one like me that finds an hour more precious 
 Which eyes of love have known, 
 Than years, alone ! 
 
 " ' Why should we women always live in fetters ? 
 
 Why am I not a man, to come and go ? 
 All men save one are equals, not my betters : 
 
 As hot they find the sun, as cold the snow. 
 What is this sex ? A. bugbear used to frighten 
 
 Poor women into servitude more base ! 
 Oh, hard are men who do not seek to lighten 
 
 The burdens on the weaker of their race ! 
 Yet, though I bend to might, 
 Death may set right 
 
The Lower Temples. 149 
 
 " ' The grievous wrong that you and Ahram do — 
 
 O Nimrod, look me in the eyes and listen ! 
 I swear by him who reigns within the blue 
 
 And her whose locks by all earth's rivers glisten, 
 By gods above the air, below the ground, 
 
 Your father's grave and by your beard most royal. 
 That, self-slain, as a spectre I will hound 
 
 You, Nimrod, to destruction, if denial 
 Of my petition slips 
 Your fateful lips ! 
 
 " * I am alone,' she wailed, ' lone on the summit 
 
 Of this luxurious pile, more sad and poor 
 Than girls in hovels whose dull pulses quicken 
 
 When well-known fingers grope against the door. 
 All night I lie among the embroidered pillows 
 
 And hear the wind howl in the gates of brass, 
 I see it wave my robes like even billows 
 
 On Tigris when the south wind stamps the grass. 
 Cold, Nimrod, is the side 
 Of your god's bride. 
 
150 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " ' Liar ! 'she cried, * am I to waste my daytime 
 
 And bloom because you're king and choose to say 
 This god exists, or if he hves, his playtime 
 
 To such as me will stoop to give away ? 
 Let me go hence, back to my hoary father ; 
 
 Bid Ahram lead me to our sterile home, 
 Once more to live in tents, once more to gather 
 
 The hardy flocks that o'er the hillsides roam. 
 Our chiefs tempt not the skies — 
 And tell no lies. 
 
 " ' Think you,' she raged, ' I fear your godlike power 
 
 Or tremble as I seize your sacred beard ? 
 Behold, I care not if from off the tower 
 
 You cast me ! To the last I still shall gird. 
 What have I done, that no sweet craving fingers 
 
 Shall grasp this barren and ungracious breast ? 
 Without a son who o'er my ashes lingers 
 
 How shall it be when I have sunk to rest ? 
 No one with gifts will bribe 
 The demon tribe. 
 
The Lower Temples. 151 
 
 " * Another priestess for this pageant summon 
 
 And drive me hence, I care not how forlorn, 
 So that I see again the pathways human, 
 
 Wed and be gay, bear, as I once was born, 
 And hear my children cry, laugh, sing and prattle. 
 
 Look how I rend my gold-embroidered vest ! 
 Thus, Nimrod, king of kings and lord of battles. 
 
 Thus may your kingdom fare, if my request 
 Falls on a deafened ear. 
 Hear, Nimrod, hear ! * 
 
 " How could I chide that loveliness unruly ? 
 
 No god, I knew, could look on her unmoved ; 
 Wherefore I was ashamed and glozed untruly. 
 
 Faltered, spoke soft, pleaded while I reproved. 
 Then from my neck I raised the chain of coral. 
 
 Whereon there hung my wondrous egg-shaped pearl. 
 Pearl that had force to soothe the fiercest quarrel, 
 
 Pearl that was torn from out the most perilous whirl 
 Where the Red Inlet shocks 
 Against the rocks. 
 
152 The Lower Temples. 
 
 " Pearls are the sign of Ishtar,* since in Spring, 
 
 When love revertant all creation hallows, 
 At crack of dawn the chiming dewdrops fling 
 
 Their lustrous globes along the expectant shallows ; 
 Those drops which sun with first all-quickening ray 
 
 Has struck athwart their mimic worlds of crystal 
 Are changed to pearl. Deep in the breathless bay 
 
 As flowers the pollen crave with trembling pistil 
 Yearn for those fine sea-bells 
 The wide-mouthed shells. 
 
 " Great pearls are lonely and their savage haunt 
 
 Is in the deep where shark and sea-wolf wander. 
 How many a diver paid with life for vaunt 
 
 Of seizing this ! How many a merchant, fonder 
 Of gold than ease, has lost his all for it ! 
 
 And even as beauty is an agent hallowed 
 To awe mind-troubles ; so a poison-fit 
 
 Is broke if pearls are touched upon or swallowed ; 
 Pearls will the bane out-thrust 
 Of diamond dust ! 
 
The Lower Temples. 153 
 
 " Was it the pearl ? I know not. But of Esther 
 
 The anger faded as from Elam's range 
 Fade into blue the spiteful clouds that pester 
 
 The virginal peaks. Rapturous was the change. 
 And she was calm, but in her eyes there brooded 
 
 A look that would not speak, yet crazed my brain, 
 A strange desire and bliss that lay yet hooded — 
 
 Bliss with a vast ambition in its train ! 
 
 * Where is the god,' I cried, 
 
 * Would scorn this bride ? ' 
 
 *'* She smiled. And from the black depths of her eyes 
 
 A gleam shot forth. Find him, it seemed to murmur ! 
 Shamed from the radiant maiden of the skies 
 
 Great Nimrod turned. A slave had been no firmer. 
 Went and took council with his priests and sages, 
 
 Questioned the oracles of cave and tree, 
 Pored o'er the mysteries on the breeze-blown pages 
 
 Of leaves that sibyls trace most cunningly ; 
 
 Thence came the answers bold — 
 
 The gods ask gold ! 
 7* 
 
IX 
 
 BITSU THE EUNUCH 
 
IX 
 
 BITSU THE EUNUCH 
 
 " * Gold ! ' cried the priests. ' For each great god 
 
 an idol 
 
 Golden-robed, jeweled ! Works of the fine-meshed 
 
 loom ! 
 
 Then shall each enter as the groom to bridal 
 
 His marvelous wrought and most luxurious room. 
 
 That being done, the high god of the lightning 
 
 Shall condescend to his terrestrial couch 
 
 And then no more her lone torch vainly brightening 
 
 Shall Esther desolate and unwedded couch ! ' 
 
 Only dark Ahram's mood 
 
 Fierce waxed and rude. 
 
 157 
 
158 Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 " ' What, not enough ! ' he cried ; ' each planet tall 
 
 Is honored so, their every gift requited, 
 Gold and fine sculptures decking every wall 
 
 And images that folk may be delighted ! 
 For hath not Ishtar idols, and old Time, 
 
 Saturn the wise ? All else are far too mighty 
 That hands should shape their effigies sublime, 
 
 Our faith too feeble, minds obscure and flighty. 
 An idol only stains 
 The holiest fanes. 
 
 " * Be not, O king, deceived ! Regard my warning. 
 
 Bitsu and these, now, as of old, are bent 
 On their own profit, not the tower's adorning 
 
 And long that gold on their own flesh be spent. 
 I hear their whispers, see their intrigues slow 
 
 To nip the bud of giant-like endeavors : 
 What pains doth not this eunuch sly bestow 
 
 On the chaste priestess ! Gladly would he sever 
 The pure clean amity 
 'Twixt her and me ! ' 
 
Bitsu the Eunuch. 159 
 
 " More calm he spake : ' O Nimrod, stop your ears, 
 
 Nor stand estranged while plans are green and tender ! 
 Wait till the grave" and solid-making years 
 
 Your projects test, your edicts perfect render. 
 To noisome minds leave the foul idol brood 
 
 And all their trail of personal defilement : 
 Show to the nations who in ebb and flood 
 
 This centre pass no crowning state beguilement. 
 Try, through their worship, men's 
 Foulness to cleanse ! 
 
 " ' But you, ye sleek priests, best beware ; I know 
 
 Your greed, your hate, your secret slimy plotting ; 
 Toward me, toward Nimrod, ye would coil your slow 
 
 Pale circles of deceit. While I, unwotting. 
 Would build a glorious throne, a race, a faith. 
 
 Ye would be laying sly eggs of destruction — 
 O filthy flies ! — wherefrom the worm that slay'th 
 
 Comes to turn fair to inward foul corruption. 
 Rouse not the mountain bear ! 
 Bitsu, have care ! ' 
 
i6o Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 " It was the floor of hoary Saturn's fane, 
 
 Which then we held for grave and secret meeting. 
 Proud Ahram stand at my right hand had ta'en ; 
 
 Bitsu, upon the stone his forehead beating, 
 Knelt on my left. Before my royal chair 
 
 Sat the twelve grove priests with their abject faces ; 
 Listened, and weighing all our words with care, 
 
 Stirred not for terror from their several places. 
 Bitsu, his beardless head 
 Raising, thus said : 
 
 " * Ahram, great lord and right hand of the king ! 
 
 Upon my brow unfairly lights displeasure. 
 Your wisdom, past the wit of man, should fling 
 
 Such thoughts aside. By your great soul you 
 measure 
 Me, a poor worm, that's only half a man. 
 To fly like you too feeble is my spirit. 
 We lack the grasp to follow out your plan 
 Your virtue so transcends our humble merit. 
 Slaves, we take thought alone 
 For Nimrod's throne. 
 
Bitsu the Eunuch. i6i 
 
 " 'Have we blasphemed the temples, groves and tower? 
 
 Nay, now! They show the glorious thought of twain: 
 Nimrod the god and his own prophet, our 
 
 Great lawgiver and most exhaustive brain. 
 But we are baser, to the people nearer ; 
 
 We see their wants, we hear their cries of need, 
 We read the heart-beats of the vulgar clearer 
 
 For having lived administ'ring their creed. 
 This tower, some festal morn, 
 Will stand forlorn 
 
 " ' And Dagon's fane and Ishtar's grove at Ur 
 
 Shall win the masses to their gloomy porches. 
 Not all your might, O king of kings, can stir 
 
 The people from their old inveterate orgies ! 
 The gods, they'll cry, must not be mocked for whims 
 
 Of Nimrod even, still less of a stranger ! 
 These fears, O lord of lords, are not mere dreams ; 
 
 We, humble slaves, but warn you of the danger 
 With a rash hand on such 
 Old faiths to touch ! 
 
1 62 Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 " ' Ahram is wise ; Ahram is good and pure ; 
 
 All must admire our prophet's quenchless spirit ; 
 But who save he so spotless may endure ? 
 
 Who is the fellow-angel can come near it ? 
 All other men, to keep them from far worse, 
 
 At times must loose the rein and roll in orgies ; 
 The vulgar ease their minds with blow and curse, 
 
 Since every man his evil demon urges 
 Out his good angel thrust, 
 To plunge in lust. 
 
 " ' Wherefore great Ahram errs in charging greed 
 
 Upon these priests. They read the ancient annals 
 First is the throne, and for the throne there's need 
 
 That worship run in the old slippery channels. 
 Next is the folk : crimes will be past belief 
 
 If holy revels do not draw the danger : 
 The robber, murderer, ravisher and thief 
 
 Will plague the people, fright away the stranger — 
 Pleasures no longer balk 
 Rebellious talk. 
 
Bitsu the Eunuch. 163 
 
 " * Thus do we rede. But O, we are most humble, 
 
 We only dare to raise for good our voice. 
 In counsels even the greatest mind may stumble ; 
 
 'Tis best to take of many plans a choice. 
 Wondrous, O king, is this your lofty tower 
 
 And wide your fame among the nations blown ; 
 Tribes no one knew are suppliants to your power; 
 
 Kings over sea ask friendship at your throne. 
 And of your wondrous seer 
 Farthest lands hear. 
 
 " * But as for me — poor me, too mean to tremble ! 
 
 True, often I with radiant Esther talk ; 
 But, that I blame the sage, or e'er dissemble 
 
 In any way, or seek his plans to balk 
 I here deny. It were enough for me 
 
 That Esther holds him high. Though neither woman 
 Nor man, alas ! yet is not Bitsu free 
 
 To love great persons? has he nothing human? 
 And Esther, is not she 
 Barren like me ? ' 
 
164 Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 "He ceased and Ahram, white with hidden rage, 
 
 Reached out his clenched hand with indignant gesture: 
 He sought by art his fiery heart to assuage, 
 
 And yet, repressed, it shook his shaggy vesture. 
 As when among the woods the urchins track 
 
 A porcupine, and swiftly round it sweeping, 
 Harm it with stones, and all its hairy back 
 
 Bristles with wrath ; so, at his enemy keeping 
 Ever apart and safe, 
 In like wise chafe 
 
 " Ahram's strong hands. His sharp-cut Adam's apple 
 
 Throbs in his throat ; his large dark eyes, like stars 
 Rayed by long lashes, with his foemen grapple 
 
 Fierce as when Sirius all the desert chars. 
 His eagle nose snuffs battle ; so a steed 
 
 Will look when neighing toward the gathering ravens ; 
 His chin grows hard ; his bent mouth straight as reed 
 
 And of his brow the steep and pallid heavens 
 Toss like the smooth cloud crust 
 Before the gust. 
 
Bitsu the Eunuch. 165 
 
 " * Slaves ? ' he repeated. ' Ay, we're all mere slaves, 
 
 And humble too. For all is not death given ? 
 Yet who would sink so low, he no more craves 
 
 To rise an angel through the spheres of heaven ? 
 We know the truth. Are we so weak and mean 
 
 As yield to falsehood through unmanly terror ? 
 We lust. Why therefore should we wish to screen 
 
 The fact by lies, join falsehood unto error? 
 Should we not raise the yoke 
 That weighs the folk ? 
 
 " ' Behold this pile, like to the frame of man 
 
 Soaring from dust ! On Space and Time 'tis founded 
 As all things human are. The cyclic plan 
 
 With sea-sprung Generation next we rounded. 
 The Belly then, that for the frame provides ; 
 
 The Heart, that gives the fabric life and, action ; 
 The Chest, which on the others bravely rides ; 
 
 The lower Head, that feels the moon's attraction. 
 Then we the Crown designed — 
 The glorious mind ! 
 
1 66 Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 " ' Shall we invert this order ? Shall we stake 
 
 In grimy mold the palm-tree, bloom and branches, 
 Trying good dates from ropy roots to shake ? 
 
 Shall we deny the truth because our paunches 
 May lack for honey cakes and Syrian wine ? 
 
 Which should be leader, pray you, — brain, or belly ? 
 Rather the sea shall wave above the pine 
 
 And mountains to their tops lie salt and shelly 
 Ere Nimrod, great and wise, 
 Govern through lies ! 
 
 " * But judge between us, Nimrod. Now that he 
 
 Invites assault, what say you to the magic 
 This flattering eunuch plies to injure me? 
 
 Behold me here. A hundred times a tragic 
 Unholy death was shaped for me by him 
 
 Who yonder kneels a paragon of meekness ! 
 Had he but won, within my every limb 
 
 Anguish had crept upon the heels of weakness 
 And I had gone in gloom 
 Down to the tomb. 
 
Bitsti the Eunuch. 167 
 
 " * For know, great king, this eunuch, love pretending, 
 
 Prayed of me hairs from chin and lip and head, 
 * Since they,' quoth he, * their owner's wisdom lending. 
 
 Will turn to gold my own most spurious lead.' 
 I gave the hairs, for who am I to say 
 
 Such things are naught ? and yet how little wotted 
 The foolish gift was meant my health to slay ! 
 
 The hairs were begged by one who merely plotted 
 By treacheries high or low 
 Me to o'erthrow. 
 
 " * It was a night framed for vile deeds when I, 
 
 Prompted by bodings of a lurking evil. 
 Walked my own housetop and with careful eye 
 
 Beheld in this man's garden, like a devil 
 In form to see, a figure that was bowing 
 
 Before a flame. Moved by a silly fear, 
 Scaling the wall, I watched this eunuch mowing, 
 
 As maniacs mow, before an image drear 
 Molded of wax of bee 
 To feature me. 
 
1 68 Bitsu the Eunuch. 
 
 " ' Anon from out the fire where they lay 
 
 He plucked his brazen pins all white and glowing, 
 And, muttering spells, in every shameful way 
 
 Pierced my wax effigy, on that bestowing 
 Whatever tortures he on me would vent. 
 
 At length when curse grew weary and the idol 
 Was crumbled sore, the rest was slowly spent 
 
 With blistering coals. And still the doll he'd sidle 
 Near to the gnawing flame 
 And cry my name. 
 
 " ' This is the man, O king magnanimous, 
 
 Who talks of friendship and is quick at fawning ! 
 Dream not I fear his magic. 'Tis not thus 
 
 Ahram is humbled. He who braved the yawning 
 Stark Himalayan hell can safely laugh 
 
 At old-wife sorceries of a nerveless eunuch ! 
 He who has fashioned this enormous staff 
 
 For the king's fame on sun and star-text runic 
 Smiles at his juggler sticks 
 And petty tricks ! ' 
 
Bitsu the Etmuch. 169 
 
 " Then started Bitsu as if stung by asp : 
 
 * O King ! ' he cried, * too far this prophet ventures. 
 If what he saw were true, he failed to grasp 
 
 The aim of what his gall so fiercely censures. 
 But let it pass. Upon this earth there be 
 
 Spirits in flesh that drearti not they are evil, 
 Souls three times washed of hell-fire in the sea 
 
 Who dwell in great minds as in corn the weevil. 
 Festering, till all within 
 Is black with sin. 
 
 " ' At times they show their demonlike possession 
 
 Under dark brows that meet in cloudy stream ; 
 Tfieir eyelids red, of sinister expression, 
 
 Half veil at heart a drop of lurid flame. 
 Surely against the Evil Eye 'tis rightful 
 
 To guard one's life ! O King, behold it there ! 
 'Twas from such spell, unconscious, slow and frightful, 
 
 I shielded me, before the demoniac stare 
 Should drain of force my veins 
 With searching pains ! ' 
 
X 
 
 THE PRIDE OF INTELLECT 
 
X 
 
 THE PRIDE OF INTELLECT 
 
 " Thus 'twixt the eunuch and the fiery sage 
 
 Was wordy battle — scarce they knew my presence. 
 Rising, I bade them cease their useless rage, 
 
 And, leant on Bitsu's shoulder, to the pleasance 
 Within the temple wall I passed in thought, 
 
 The while the priests withdrew them and the mas- 
 ter 
 Into the fane retired. Anon he sought 
 
 The topmost shrine. With mien that spake disas- 
 ter 
 
 To Esther's high abode 
 
 Wrathful he strode ; 
 
 173 . 
 
1 74 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " Which Bitsu noting, an expressive motion 
 
 Louder than tongue addressed my wavering heart. 
 He dared no word, but yet he roused a notion 
 
 So sinister that through my every part 
 On swept the tide of jealousy ! Magicians 
 
 Scarce drop a clear drop in a crystal flood 
 When all turns black. Within my brain suspicions 
 
 Made sudden revolution. All was rude 
 Boisterous, unreasoning hate, 
 Senseless as fate. 
 
 " I could not rest. 'Twixt love and hate's attraction 
 
 On Ahram's traces to the sun-god's fane 
 I needs must follow. Nowise by inaction 
 
 Could I unbind my bosom of its chain. 
 My dais rose in silence by the stair 
 
 Spiral and long that wound about the tower. 
 I had them bear me to the higher air 
 
 That sunshine colors to a later hour. 
 
 There where the moon was banned 
 I bid them stand 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 1 75 
 
 " And hide them till I come ; then all alone, 
 While the last ray within the sun-fane mutters, 
 
 Upward I softly saunter where the tone 
 
 Of Ahram's voice through the faint music flutters, 
 
 As leaves will drop through cobwebs. 
 
 By the fane 
 
 I stand to catch the purport of their talking, 
 
 Nowise ashamed my royal ears to stain 
 
 With private matters, so that I am balking 
 
 One who too freely moved 
 
 Near her I loved. 
 
 " Esther was speaking : ' Ahram, king and lord, 
 
 Be patient, each one has his woe and trouble. 
 Right well I know how in your heart abhorred 
 
 Is all the pomp of priestcraft ; all the double 
 Deceitful talk of augurs. But, alas ! 
 
 In carrying out your mighty thoughts and measures 
 You crush the folk as elephants the grass 
 
 When to the lake they're marching. 
 
 All our pleasures 
 To you but folly seem, 
 
 A worthless dream. 
 
1 76 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " ' Yet think of me. What life is this I lead ? 
 
 For your sake I have tried it, and forever 
 Bade home and men farewell. And yet the steed, 
 
 However proud in trappings and however 
 Raised to a palace manger, longs to fly 
 
 Back to the desert where his kindred gather ; 
 Yes, though his hoofs be gold, if he can spy 
 
 A loop-hole, he will break his chain, and rather 
 Parch, than enjoy the wave 
 That cools a slave. 
 
 " * And so I long for those old times, when we 
 
 Lolled by the summer tents, or, in the mountains, 
 Told at the fires of winter tales of glee : 
 
 How in the elms lurked maidens ; in the fountains 
 Hid lovely boys whose laughter, sometimes heard, 
 
 Blent with the wind in tree-tops and the babble 
 Of brooks, with flutlngs of the unseen bird ; 
 
 And some afifirmed a faintly-falling gabble 
 Was speech of elves ; and some. 
 The pheasant's drum. 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 177 
 
 " ' O, leave this place and take me with you ! Listen 
 
 To one whose heart forewarns her what is best ! 
 This place is foul, although with gems it glistens ; 
 
 This town, this nation, never can have rest. 
 Ahram, I know not clearly what I mean : 
 
 A horrid something steeps and wraps this tower ! 
 All is so fair, and yet, I swear, unclean 
 
 Is every fane, and o'er this temple lower 
 Clouds that shall be by sun 
 Never undone. 
 
 " ' You fear no demons, but alas for me ! 
 
 What power have I to save me from possession 
 By sevenfold imps that dwell below the sea, 
 
 By earless devils deaf to all concession. 
 Sexless, who live far down in earth, at times 
 Rising with sulphurous thunders ? 
 
 Though your magic 
 Should keep such off, not all the sun-god's chimes 
 Mayhap shall save your vestal from a tragic 
 Mentionless lot by night 
 Or death through fright 
 
1 78 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " ' At hands of jinns who haunt the mountain peaks. 
 
 But yet again I say, the eyes of evil 
 Have smit this pile with taint. The temple reeks 
 
 With unseen blotches, cankers, that deceive all 
 You men of wisdom. Lips of baleful force 
 
 Over the whole have jabbered imprecations ; 
 All is unwholesome, from the topmost course 
 
 Story by story to the grim foundations 
 Where fires of myrrh and nard 
 Earth's bosom charred. 
 
 " ' Nay, smile not ! You are greater, wiser far 
 
 Than woman e'er can be. Yet women often 
 Have vague forewarnings of a truth. A star 
 
 Is sometimes traced,though mists the outlines soften 
 To blurry haze, and eyes which see it best 
 
 May fail to mark the little lamps that beacon 
 Around great moving planets. In my breast 
 
 All is so dark my words must fail to quicken, 
 Alas, your skeptic ear ; 
 Yet hear me, hear ! ' 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 1 79 
 
 " A silence fell. Viewed from that giddy height 
 
 The town embowered in trees, the country gleaming 
 With silvery crisscross of canals, the light 
 
 From myriad dwellings, and the sky-shine dreaming 
 On the broad river — all was visionary, 
 
 Sublime, unreal — a checker-board methought. 
 And I the giant, who, from cloudlands airy. 
 
 Conning the little squares, most lightly ought 
 With outstretched hand to gain 
 The mimic plain. 
 
 " Then Ahram spake : ' O dearly-loved, sweet Esther ! 
 
 There was a time when need of speech like yours 
 Had never been. The good old times were blester, 
 
 Yet not so great as these. Ambition's lures 
 Once I would readily have scorned. But now 
 
 That, forced on me, a mighty task is given, 
 How can I linger, how refuse and how 
 
 Dream o'er again, as then I did, that heaven 
 Of wedded life with you 
 The lovely, true ? 
 
i8o The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " * Nimrod had mercy on my captive lot 
 
 And raised me to be chief of all his servants, 
 Then every remnant of our nation got 
 
 A benefit thereafter. No observance 
 Of cringing habits gained me rank, but pure 
 
 Fidelity to what is best of spirit 
 In Nimrod and mankind. While stars endure 
 
 This world the same great maxims shall inherit : 
 Self-sacrifice and love 
 For all that move. 
 
 " ' I am not harsh. Within this breast is beating 
 
 As warm a love for you as ever burned ; 
 But if I yield to you, I shall be cheating 
 
 Millions of wretches, e'en like them that yearned 
 In vain for mercy to the skies, and raised 
 
 Their torn eyesockets to the ruthless great, 
 Or lingered, with injustice sickened, dazed 
 
 By crimes of kings, or bowed beneath the weight 
 Of priests, whose devilish faith 
 Grinds, crushes, slay'th. 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 1 8 1 
 
 " * What may not self-denial reach? Indulgence! 
 
 Alas, to what undoing does it come ? 
 Where lives a woman in divine effulgence 
 
 Of sanctity like yours ? Must you have home — 
 You — called to stand a monument of beauty, 
 
 Inward and outward, something raised o'er sin, 
 To whom her purity is more than duty — 
 
 A spiritual mother of those truths that win 
 Surely, as through the tides 
 Tigris outglides ? 
 
 " * Behold yon ash-gray, just now rosy portals 
 
 Of the great sun ! When from my cheeks the red 
 Fades and I go to join the wise immortals 
 
 That live indeed, though live men call them dead, 
 I will not leave a blemish on my soul ; 
 
 I will not creep among the shades in terror ; 
 I will not, sick of conscience, miss the goal ; 
 
 I will not plead that crime is earthly error, 
 Whereto — not I alone — 
 All men are prone. 
 
1 82 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " * But as the wheel of fifty golden spears, 
 
 Whirled by the sun-god, every morning pierces 
 The sluggish serpent of the fog and tears 
 
 Its shadowy hide before the light immerses 
 The landscape in a glory ; so may I, 
 
 Breaking the rings of crawling ignorance, 
 Let fall the radiant light of truth from high, 
 
 Cast error back into the baser haunts 
 Where men are beasts, and fall 
 Deepest of all. 
 
 " ' And you ? You will not be my comrade here, 
 
 My follower there, my spiritual full completion ? 
 Your golden chains are heavy, but I fear 
 
 Far heavier are those chains which the magician 
 Bitsu the eunuch seeks to load you with. 
 
 Frighting with tales of goblins, his endeavor 
 Has been, will be, like worms that bore the pith 
 
 Of goodly shrubs, by little gnawings clever 
 To undermine my work. 
 Yea, he doth lurk 
 
The Pride of Intellect, 183 
 
 " * In seeming harmless guise about my feet. 
 
 When there shall seem to him a crisis brewins" 
 He'll slime my path. His crooked, small deceit 
 
 Will catch with Nimrod to my sure undoing. 
 And even you, who should be firm as steel 
 
 To all I plan, into your soul may enter 
 The thin edge of a doubt. Even you will feel 
 
 Hurt to your dear heart's golden-ruddy centre 
 Because of my neglect 
 Of you, elect. 
 
 " ' Yet, though I know my fate, no further shunning 
 
 Exists for me. Like him who hunts wild goats 
 And finds himself with swift momentum running 
 
 Across a knife-like ridge ; beneath him floats. 
 Far down below, a cloud ; aghast, he fears 
 
 To halt one instant, lest his nerve should alter; 
 Ever with restless ardor on he steers 
 
 In deadly terror lest his purpose falter ; — 
 Thus do I haste forlorn 
 From morn to moirn. 
 
184 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " * Watch me in pity. Add not your complaint 
 To all the burden of my coming battle. 
 
 Let me be hermit, stay yourself a saint, 
 
 And turn an adder's ear to all the tattle 
 
 Of eunuchs, slaves and slavish priests. 
 
 Ay, so 
 
 To speech of kings, should ever Nimrod, losing 
 His present awe, upon your state bestow- 
 That flattery which resides in kingly choosing, — 
 
 Let him not cause light blame 
 
 To smirch your name. ' 
 
 " * You are not just ! ' arose her passionate voice 
 
 As nightingales awake the shadowy thicket. 
 * You fear not demons, yet will show no choice 
 
 For one god more than other. Good or wicked 
 Are all alike to your sublime disdain. 
 
 If they exist not, why this sumptuous tower 
 Fashioned throughout by human sweat and pain? 
 
 What are these mummeries ? what the bridal-dower 
 Bestowed within these gates 
 On one who waits ? ' 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 185 
 
 " ' Listen ! ' he cried. ' This structure is for those 
 
 That see not what on each green leaf is written. 
 They must have gods and foes of gods ; the blows 
 
 Of their own hands they fancy jinns have smitten. 
 They ask for temples ; eight of them are few. 
 
 They long for idols, and when we deny them 
 Will worship pebbles, rags of sundry hue, 
 
 Or call on gods of pottery which they buy then 
 With half a harvest crop 
 From a mean shop. 
 
 " * But to the wise this talisman hath meaning 
 
 Most orderly, complete, sublime, eterne. 
 Each story imitates the gradual weaning 
 
 Of mind from matter. Herewithin discern 
 From tier to tier man's grosser thought of heaven, 
 
 As ore in flames, by gradual steps refined, 
 And in this fane superior to the seven 
 
 Know that I honor Him whose boundless mind 
 Exists in every groove 
 Where atoms move. 
 
1 86 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " *■ Now mark, tall spirit ! These Chaldeans teach 
 
 The earth is like a shield all hollow under ; 
 The sun, when he has run his daily reach. 
 
 Hissing divides the ocean waves asunder 
 And sinks to Hades, Thence by magic might' 
 
 He hoists him through the eastern sea to lighten 
 The shades of one day more. Yet truly sight 
 
 Hath never seen one ocean quicklier brighten 
 Or one shore sparkle more 
 Than other shore. 
 
 " '• We deem us wise. What if a tiny beetle, 
 
 An insect vile that haunts the lowest ground, 
 Should read the earth-shape better, should unseat all 
 
 The fancies sage Chaldeans dare propound? 
 Out of the bog the beetle molds a sphere 
 
 To house its eggs ; with kind and clumsy ardor 
 Under the sun across the sandy mere 
 
 Rolls his small ball of germs the tricksy hoarder : 
 Thus is our earth revolved — 
 The problem solved. 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 187 
 
 " ' This earth's a sphere that hangs in midmost heaven 
 
 And round it moves, or seems to move, the sun, 
 And where his rays bear down with heat most even 
 
 Life most proUfic on his path is spun. 
 Life loves the sun. By him is Hfe engendered, 
 
 Wherefore all life looks westward at day's end 
 And yearns that way, because the sun has rendered 
 
 One daylight more for timorous man to spend. 
 Westward all beings move 
 Inspired by love 
 
 " ' Of light and life, fearful that each day's end 
 
 May prove the last. And so, did nothing stay them. 
 Westward the nations round the globe would wend, 
 
 Slowly but surely circling. What delay them ? 
 Their own great vices ! the unstinted store 
 
 Of wealth the sun piles on their way; the folly 
 Which makes them boast their riches, ay, and more — 
 
 The hatred of their neighbors who are wholly 
 Wanting in wealth and ease ! 
 Such men as freeze 
 
1 88 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " ' Far in the north by dismal hut and tent, 
 
 Alone, and battling with all natural rigors ; 
 Such grow so strong that when the bands are rent 
 
 Which bind them in their tribes, the wretched diggers 
 Of winter roots, the fur-clad brutes, the men, 
 
 Who, starving, freezing, hate the southern nations, 
 Burst like the mined levee between the fen 
 
 And river ! Then come wars and desolations 
 Like to which those were mild 
 When Nimrod spoiled. 
 
 " * They too desire the sun. They too will languish 
 For full-yeared summers and to southward march 
 With sateless maws, regardless of the anguish 
 
 That runs before them, of the wastes to parch 
 Their headlong hordes, and of the ancient towns 
 
 Their stupid force o'erthrows, still less the learning 
 Of patient men their ignorant violence drowns. 
 
 Thus do they southward wander, slaughtering, burn- 
 ing— 
 At last with rue their track 
 To wander back. 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 1 89 
 
 " ' Thus, O fair Esther, by two instincts spurred 
 
 The mass of races south and westward jostle. 
 Slowly and gropingly ; full oft they erred 
 
 From one straight path. As when two golf-men hustle 
 The golfing ball at once to south and west 
 
 And neither gains, but in the hurly-burly 
 Betwixt the two southwestward it is pressed, 
 
 So have the nations, gradually but surely, 
 Poured, nor as yet have ceased 
 From the northeast. 
 
 " * Your eyes are wide ! Yea, what has this to do 
 
 With you and yours ? Be patient. Every nation 
 That slays another in its turn must rue 
 
 The deed performed. There lies a just equation 
 In ever)'- act : the conquerer in turn 
 
 Is weakened, scattered, hurled in fragments broken 
 Back by the conquered ; to each race hath stern 
 
 Revengeful Mars alternate courage spoken. 
 Through battles lost and won 
 Man blunders on. 
 
190 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " ' Have we not sat beside the foamy shore 
 
 Of our vast lake among the steadfast mountains 
 And watched the billows rise, stop, break and pour 
 
 Slanting along the beach their turbid fountains ? 
 Thus do the nations, slanting on that zone 
 
 The sun puts round the earth, descend by torrents — 
 Only in ruins to dissolve when grown 
 
 Too proud, too rich, the scorn, the just abhorrence 
 Of One who loathes the flood 
 Of human blood ! 
 
 " * Now mark. Great Nimrod's line, descended far 
 From out the northeast ranges, smote the nations 
 Southward and westward till their cruel war 
 
 Reached the blue Nile. Here were their central 
 stations 
 And hither back they rallied, hurled by those 
 
 Black warriors once their servants. Nimrod's power 
 Has shaped an empire here ; but still as rose 
 The sun of yesterday and braved his hour, 
 Nimrod shall have his day, 
 Then pass away. 
 
The Pride of Intellect. 191 
 
 " 'And we ? This southern folk has laid its hand 
 
 Upon our necks ; let us but wait, disasters 
 Are sure to reach our conquerors, and the land 
 
 That knew us slaves shall cringe to us as masters. 
 But where's the good ? Shall we remain the sport 
 
 Of Mars, who drives now this way, now the other ? 
 Brains are the only weapons, and that fort 
 
 No foot can storm, no wave nor flame can smother, 
 Is built in hearts that brood 
 Only on good. 
 
 ** ' Know then that I was chosen, 'gainst my will. 
 
 To help mankind through Nimrod's mighty power, 
 Raise them from groveling instincts and to fill 
 
 Their stubborn hearts with kindness. 'Tis the dower 
 Fate has allotted me. Within my hand 
 
 I bear my life ; but, while the chance is given, 
 Ahram shall build his projects, though the sand 
 
 Be shifty underneath. They are the leaven 
 That saves great Nimrod's name 
 From lasting shame. 
 
ig2 The Pride of Intellect. 
 
 " 'So shall this nation by my projects led 
 
 Know greatness, peace and glorious progress ; even 
 As when the trade-winds blow and sails are spread 
 
 And merchantmen, by changeless breezes driven, 
 Fare boldly o'er the laughing sea ; their nests 
 
 When halcyons build in safety on the waters, 
 When infinite peaceful freshness cools and rests 
 
 After long speechless drought Arabia's daughters : 
 So shall each human hive 
 Through me revive ! ' 
 
XI 
 
 A WOMAN'S POWER 
 
XI 
 
 A WOMAN'S POWER 
 
 " ' Alas ! ' cried Esther, * what have these to do 
 
 With you and me ? Think you, a single mower 
 Can reap Euphrates valley ? no, not you, 
 
 Nor any man by work however sour 
 Can compass it. To your own kin, to me 
 
 First duties owing are. You do so muffle 
 Your mind in clouds heroic, that you see 
 
 Shapes that exist not, arguments that shuffle 
 
 With cruel facts, as when 
 
 Magic blinds men ! ' 
 
 195 
 
196 A Woinaris Power. 
 
 " * Nay, hear me out ! ' cried Ahram. ' Once for all 
 
 Being here, perforce we must our lots encounter. 
 To do men good, no thought, no act must fall 
 
 Unused for careful ends. We may not saunter 
 At ease through life with children at the knee, 
 
 A tender spouse against our shoulders leaning. 
 Ourselves a perfect sacrifice must be : 
 
 All thoughts like that from out our bosoms weaning 
 We must march on alone 
 With hearts like stone. 
 
 " * Yet with a sacrifice we gain a payment 
 
 Far higher than aught else that men have known, 
 Far richer than brown gold or silken raiment, 
 
 Ay, loftier, sweeter than the happy throne 
 Of those who live to love as other men. 
 
 For loving man or woman is a peril ; 
 But, love mankind ! ah, then you're happy, then 
 
 You sow the grain that never can be sterile. 
 Though on ungrateful ground 
 The seed be found. 
 
A Woman s Power, 197 
 
 " * The loftiest love of human twain — what is it 
 
 But earthy dross entire or else in part ? 
 Love of mankind exhales a scent exquisite 
 
 As winds that blow from out the snowy heart . 
 Of clear pure mountains. Not one selfish taint 
 
 Of marsh-bred flowers, and not an amorous breathing 
 Of lovesick trees, nor one narcotic plaint 
 
 Such as from out the lily's calix seething, 
 Tells that the lily's soul. 
 So white, is foul ! 
 
 " * How are we nobler than the beasts and birds, 
 
 The wanton fishes and the selfish flowers ? 
 He who his loins against that passion girds 
 
 Can rightly claim his manhood. He who lowers 
 Himself to beasts shall die like them. But those 
 
 Who fight themselves and keep that demon under, 
 For them at last no heat of sun, no snows. 
 
 No lightning-bolt, no watery waste shall sunder 
 From the great prize, the throne 
 On Wisdom's stone. 
 
198 A Woman's Power. 
 
 " ' Yet listen, Esther, it may be that later, 
 
 Our tasks once done and Nimrod's favor lost, 
 Inferior duties may usurp the greater 
 
 And we, released from those high fates which crossed 
 Our peaceful ways, may see once more the hills. 
 
 Our childhood's cradle, may inhale the ether 
 Life-lengthener, joy and antidote to ills 
 
 Which blows about our home. When that comes 
 neither 
 Wisdom shall lure nor pride 
 Me from your side ! ' 
 
 " With that, O mortals, from his seat uprose 
 
 Wise Ahram, comforted in heart, and ready 
 To face the world again. As honey flows 
 
 From fragrant lips of flow'rs to lure the steady, 
 Straight-winged bees from off the appointed path 
 
 Esther, her utterance thick with honeyed languor, 
 Murmured his name : * Ahram ! Ay me ! and hath 
 
 Your heart no room for aught but schemes and anger ? 
 Have you no vein that's warm ? 
 See this bare arm 
 
A Womaris Power, 199 
 
 " * How shapely, white, coursed with blue veins a-tingle 
 
 With love for you ! Now fancy it all dry 
 Of light and life : Such is the man who, single, 
 
 Thinks to fulfill a brain-sick destiny ! 
 Give o'er such thoughts heroic ! Feel my heart 
 
 Bounding against my side as though to sever 
 The space, the cruel gap, the gulfs that part 
 
 One sphere of love in twain. If you were ever 
 True, sever not your face 
 From my embrace ! 
 
 " * But love me rightly, in a human fashion, 
 
 Nor seek to ape the gods whom pride doth stay. 
 And they not always, from a natural passion. 
 
 Love is a birthright. He who love would slay 
 Is punished sore with thousand starting troubles! 
 
 Nor think to set yourself o'er rules that bind, 
 Surely as sightless death befalleth bubbles. 
 
 The man who scorns the rights of womankind. 
 Ahram, respect in me 
 Love's majesty ! ' 
 
200 A Woman^s Power. 
 
 " Then through a fissure of the wall I saw 
 
 What drove me frantic with crushed love and jealous : 
 Around a sunburnt neck white lilies draw 
 
 A throbbing circle ; in a living trellis 
 Of arms and silken hair is Ahram bound, 
 
 Restless, yet yielding to the fascination ; 
 His bow-shaped, parted lips give forth no sound, 
 
 But in his starlike eyes a supplication 
 Kneels to her wayward face 
 And begs for grace. 
 
 " But she with one hand closes up those orbs 
 
 And on his lips pours her whole soul in passion : 
 The blissful pressure every vein absorbs 
 
 In yearning pain. From him could sculptors fashion 
 The man who sees in forest drear and lone 
 
 The fragrant witch-snake, who, around him ringing 
 Her aromatic coils, so dear has grown 
 
 He smiles, aware that death's against him clinging. 
 Thus did forgetful sleep 
 Wise Ahram steep 
 
A Woman s Power, 201 
 
 " One moment and no more. Then back he started, 
 
 Awake to fate and all the crime he dreamed. 
 With trembling hand the embrace delicious parted 
 
 And now to fly resolved and now he seemed 
 Resolved to stay and ply a cruel tongue. 
 
 But all in vain. Behind his sinewy members 
 Soft ambush lay, and round his shoulders hung 
 
 A lithe and swaying form. Those ash-grown embers 
 Of his old fiery love — 
 He felt them move. 
 
 " * Nay, I must go ! ' he cried. * Ah, no, no — cruel !* 
 
 'You know not what you ask !' — *I claim your love !' — 
 * Take these and these ! ' — ^Those kisses were but fuel 
 
 To her long starving flame. * By sky above, 
 By earth below and those great souls that hover 
 
 Betwixt them both, I will not let you go 
 Till you affirm that still you are my lover. 
 
 Till on your lips and in your eyes you show 
 I am your only pride. 
 Your love, your bride ! ' 
 
202 A Womans Power. 
 
 " ' You are ! ' he cried, alternate pale and red. 
 
 * I loved you more than self and thought to smother 
 The thing for good of men. It seemed so dead 
 
 I hoped to touch you gently as a brother 
 A sister greets. Far otherwise it is. 
 
 Alas for me ! I am poor clay, I tremble. 
 Where is the antidote against such bliss ? 
 
 You are unearthly ! How can I dissemble 
 With words when blushes speak 
 Upon my cheek?' 
 
 " Thereat he made to clasp her tighter yet ; 
 
 But she, afraid, or as a prudent winner, 
 Got her away and soon a space had set 
 
 Betwixt them both. Like a detected sinner 
 Wise Ahram stands ; but next, as one who feels 
 
 A load withdrawn, nor yet a moment speaking, 
 Guiltily, wanly looking back, he steals 
 
 Off to the door. But still her eyes keep seeking 
 Lures for his quick return : 
 Like brands they burn. 
 
A Woman s Power, 203 
 
 " One instant there he stood. ' You've humbled me 
 
 Who weened me proof against my lower nature. 
 I blame not you. I go myself to free 
 
 From stings of love, from thought of every feature 
 Of your too ardent form. Alas, you rouse 
 
 The dragon passion that obscures the shining 
 Of sunlike virtue. What no law allows 
 
 May hap ere morn. But when your dreams come 
 twining 
 
 About your head, beware 
 I am not there ! ' 
 
 " He fled, and Esther with her torchlike eyes 
 
 Seemed still his vanished features to peruse. 
 * Ah ! ' murmured she, * what blissful terror flies 
 
 Through every limb ! Those words I cannot choose 
 But thus translate : Great Ahram has surrendered 1 
 
 This very night, who knows ? we shall be one. 
 This very night, O victory ! shall have rendered 
 
 Twin hearts too glad that they should greet a sun 
 That frights too soon, too soon 
 The lovelorn moon.' 
 
XII 
 
 THE DEED OF NIMROD 
 
XII 
 
 THE DEED OF NIMROD 
 
 " Ay me ! and where was I ? Upon them gazing 
 
 My blood was fire, my brain a whirling flame. 
 Her visage was a spell ; her form was crazing 
 
 My every instinct without care for shame. 
 I could have sprung on my departing servant 
 
 And torn him limb from limb. 
 
 I could have laid 
 On her a ruthless hand. Then vainly fervent 
 
 Wild, maiden prayers my furious love had stayed ! 
 
 Yet which way could I turn 
 
 To cool my burn ? 
 
 207 
 
2o8 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " Burst forth ? reveal myself a vile eavesdropper ? 
 
 Cast Nimrod up to Ahram's silent scorn ? 
 Arouse in Esther an aversion proper 
 
 Toward one of dignity so all-forlorn ? 
 With halting step a-tiptoe down I stole 
 
 Revolving close a thousand vagrant fancies, 
 How to possess her fond and inmost soul, 
 
 How to make head against the o'erwhelming chances. 
 Setting 'gainst Ahram's claim 
 My royal name. 
 
 " Thus found I Bitsu. ' Counsel me,' I said, 
 
 * And you shall never live to rue the action, 
 Counsel me Esther to my royal bed. 
 
 But not unwilling. Let my own attraction 
 Or that of power as queen and only spouse 
 
 Urge her to violate the sacred sealing 
 Whereby she's sealed and all her god-borne vows ! 
 
 Give me relief, for this my brain is reeling 
 With her great loveliness, 
 Her sweet distress ! ' 
 
The Deed of Nimrod. 209 
 
 " Thereat the swarthy eunuch turned so pale 
 
 That I did laugh. ' What now, thou beast unhuman ! 
 
 Hast thou a heart, and can thy soul avail 
 To love with manliness a glorious woman ? ' — 
 
 * Nimrod ! ' he cried, ' Great god of heaven and earth, 
 
 Jeer not your slave. I do love Esther truly : 
 No one so well can prize her matchless worth 
 For no ignoble thought doth wound unduly 
 
 Her perfect purity, 
 
 Her chastity. 
 
 *' ' Give me but time to think ! ' — ' Time is for slaves. — 
 'She will not hear your suit.' — 'She must. Consider!' — 
 
 * I know not what to rede.' — ' Why then, my braves 
 
 Shall have their sport with you ! ' — 
 
 ' O godlike bidder, 
 Have mercy on a man who loves, next you, 
 
 The one you love, with deep respect and honor.' — 
 
 * I have, for you live yet ! 'Twere well I slew 
 
 Ten thousand such, for that they looked upon her ! 
 Think on it, Bitsu ; see, 
 It cannot be 
 
2IO The Deed of Nimrod, 
 
 " ' But that, once queen, fair Esther will discover 
 
 How vast a height she stands above the swarm 
 Of this world's women. Then her godlike lover 
 
 And faithful eunuch will receive her warm 
 Heart-given thanks ; those windy words the sage 
 
 Has stuffed her with will seem the silliest fables 
 And you shall form, in your decrepit age, 
 
 Our chosen counsellor, seated at our tables, 
 Third in our mighty realm, 
 Close to the helm ! ' 
 
 "That struck. Sly Bitsu, in a flash perceiving 
 
 The fall of Ahram and his own tall gain, 
 Esther's reward when she had done with grieving 
 
 For Ahram's loss, and more, the perilous strain 
 On my unruly passions, in the caves 
 
 Of his unholy fancy spawned a hideous 
 And tempting plot that oiled the boiling waves 
 
 Of passion with smooth hope. What turns insidious 
 Of argument I wove 
 To prop my love ! 
 
The Deed of Nimrod. 211 
 
 " Then straight I hied me to my palace, clamorous 
 
 For wine and roses, dancers and the slaves 
 Who stir the languid pulse with hymnals amorous 
 
 Of wave-borne Ishtar and the song that raves 
 Of love new loves begetting. And soothsayers 
 
 Pondered what hidden fortune should be mine 
 Ere break of day, if, after gifts and prayers 
 
 In Friday's house, I should another shrine 
 Brave with unhallowed love 
 And seize its dove. 
 
 "* Great,' cried the wizards, ' is your star to-night 
 
 With Venus standing in conjunction patent. 
 Whate'er you plan will surely turn to right. 
 
 In you, if love you ask, success is latent 
 Such as you never dreamt since life began ! ' 
 
 Whereat made bold, with Bitsu and no other, 
 When night had long surpassed her midmost span, 
 
 I sought the temple of Ishtar the god's mother. 
 There, vowing gifts, I sighed 
 And suppliant cried : 
 
212 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " * Ishtar ! Anunit ! Thou who like to fire 
 
 O'er the fallows dawnest on benighted men ; 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! Gladdener of the sire, 
 
 He that long has childless and unfruitful lain ; 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! Stealthy as hyaenas. 
 
 Bold as stalks the lion marching on his prey ; 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! From creation seen as 
 
 Goddess of the four skies, whom the gods obey : 
 Ponder in thy majesty 
 All I wrought for thee ! 
 
 " ' Ishtar ! Anunit ! We the temple widest 
 
 Save alone thy father's here endowed to thee ; 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! here perchance residest . 
 
 Thou whose servant day is, heaven thy canopy. 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! Still the mountains hurtle 
 
 'Neath the hand that oft the vault of sky unlocks ; 
 Ishtar ! Anunit ! Thou whose rains are fertile, 
 
 Dawner, great begetter of life in arid rocks, 
 Ponder in thy majesty 
 All I wrought for thee ! ' 
 
' The Deed of Nimrod. 213 
 
 " One watch before the dawn ! And Babylon 
 Lay sunken fathom-deep within the shimmer 
 
 Of a vast fairy sea which slowly won 
 
 Its life from out the rivers by the glimmer 
 
 Of a strange moon. 
 
 Around the tower there stole 
 
 An inlet from the feathery inundation ; 
 
 Here was an isle pyramidal ; a shoal 
 
 Was there of temples, as if no salvation 
 
 From that weird flood were found 
 
 Elsewhere o'er ground. 
 
 "Alone we seemed, alone upon an isle. 
 
 Sweet slumbering Esther and one man, left over 
 From all earth's myriads ! What was then worth while, 
 
 Save the last loved one and her fated lover ? 
 Bride of the sky ? Surely, was I not god 
 
 As great as any known, from sun-god onward ? 
 If greater lived, why let him with a nod 
 
 My plans frustrate, yes, let him hurl me downward 
 Headlong from temples built 
 For good, or guilt ! 
 
214 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " If Babylon lay fettered in a spell 
 
 Of midnight magic, so, too, Nimrod wandered 
 Dazed by the fogs of devilish lust that well 
 
 From depths of souls unhappy which have pandered 
 To a weak will. Nerved for a desperate deed 
 
 I marched wide-eyed to take a sleeping city. 
 The more I dwelt upon the crime my speed 
 
 Grew more. I hastened to forestall my pity. 
 Ghost-like my shame I bore 
 From floor to floor. 
 
 " Far to the south the royal stars, the Crown 
 
 Bade me be king. Above my head Orion 
 Those stars of mine in aidance showered down 
 
 Nerve and address. From palace court a lion 
 Caged for my sport lifted his awful voice. 
 
 And with a whisper through the tower ever 
 Lapsed the sweet waters where with silvery noise 
 
 They purged each story ere they found the river, 
 Whenceforward sevenfold 
 Holier it rolled. 
 
The Deed of Nimrod. 215 
 
 "Yet did I often linger by the way : 
 
 Meseems that voices from the scampering geckos 
 Reach my scared ear ; meseems that sounds betray 
 
 My purpose, that my footsteps wake the echoes 
 The loudHer now I strive to make them Hghter, 
 
 And that the beating of my timorous heart — 
 Poor battering heart of Nimrod the fierce fighter ! — 
 
 Roars like a drum, whereat from sleep might start 
 A slumbering girl — to lame 
 Nimrod with shame ! 
 
 " The hanging parted — there upon a couch 
 
 In richness worth a kingdom lay the maiden 
 Bathed in dim light. The night-lamps near her crouch 
 
 In jars of jadestone with incisings laden. 
 Breathless she looks, and yet most quick. Her lips 
 
 Half parted as to speak. Her eyelids tender 
 Scarce shut ; her bosom bared ; her lovely hips 
 
 Marred by fine gossamer-linen folds that render 
 . Whiter the silvery skin 
 That shines within. 
 
2 1 6 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " I stood upon the holiest spot of all 
 
 Within my kingdoms, in the shrine devoted 
 To him who most unbearably lets fall 
 
 His wrath upon mankind. Surely I doted 
 When thus to that forbidden couch I stole 
 
 Whereon she lay, the girl whom gods were witness 
 As set aside for vestal. My fierce soul 
 
 Curdled with terror. ' It would be in fitness 
 With my just meed,' I said, 
 ' If I fell dead ! ' 
 
 " Was she awake? . . . There seemed a smile to play 
 
 About the clear curved eyebrows and the bended 
 And pouting lips. Her lashes seemed to stray 
 
 Ranged on the fair cheek with a grace intended. 
 Pink were her ears, and through the alabaster 
 
 Of neighboring parts the red was spreading still. 
 She lay there waiting for a heavenly master 
 
 To say the word, when, buoyant to his will. 
 Up she would float and leave 
 Mortals to grieve. 
 
The Deed of Nimrod. 217 
 
 " Was she aware ? . . . The firm young virgin bosoms 
 
 Dinted by slender forearm, which did seem 
 Most like two snowballs topped with sweet-briar blos- 
 soms, 
 Nor heaved in long-drawn waves, as when the dream 
 Is deep, unvexed ; nor was it swayed, the pool 
 
 In whose clear white shone the sweet pearl, her navel, 
 With gentle pulses answering to the rule 
 
 Of her soft breathing ! . . . Ah, who may unravel 
 The thoughts, or keen, or blind 
 Of womankind ? 
 
 " She is awake ! . . . Her shapely wondrous thighs 
 
 Lie far too firm, and the slim legs, round-ankled, 
 Stretch their fine curves straightforward thoughtfulwise. 
 
 She breathes like one in whom there never rankled 
 Suspicion of an equal, who knows well 
 
 Her power, and though man gaze upon her glories 
 Moves not, her pride being wide as gates of hell, — 
 
 One who is glad because her beauty worries 
 Men that insanely grope 
 Toward a false hope. 
 
2 1 8 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " Nay, she doth sleep ! . . . She sleeps as angels might 
 
 Secure in Paradise, and all the quiet 
 That armors virtuous minds. The spot so white, 
 
 Lucent and smooth, nor on the arm, yet nigh it, 
 Nor quite upon the breast, has such a lustre 
 
 It seems of opal. In that dusk profound 
 Her jet-black hair in many a blooming cluster 
 
 Takes purplish hues ; upon which royal ground 
 White as a swan afloat 
 Swims her round throat. 
 
 " Three steps, no more ! and I was by her side 
 
 Tingling with warmth of her delicious body ; 
 Heard of her fragrant breath the balmy tide 
 
 Run to and fro, in time with pulses ruddy 
 Of veins celestial ; quaked with mortal dread 
 
 Lest the least noise my victim should be waking ; 
 Glanced o'er my shoulder, down and overhead 
 
 Lest wrathful sprite his vengeance might be taking, 
 And gasped as if a wraith 
 Choked my poor breath. 
 
The Deed of Nimrod. 219 
 
 " So craven stood I, nowise sure that she 
 
 Who lay there, tempting, warm and almost smiling. 
 Might not be conscious of my agony 
 
 Of love and fear. But if she were, no whiling 
 Was needful now. But if not, what would hap 
 
 When I with ruthless violence should trouble 
 Those spheres untouched before, my strong arms wrap 
 
 That lily candid in enchainments double 
 Of sin and luxury 
 She might not flee ? 
 
 " There was a time, when warring in the hills 
 
 With fierce Carduchians I was ambushed, hunted 
 And hurled toward an abyss. Still memory thrills 
 
 To think of how, when sword and spear were blunted 
 With deathful blows, no choice at last remained 
 
 Save from the cliff to throw myself ; preferring 
 To court death so than surely to be slain, 
 
 Honor too mighty on my foes conferring. 
 There did I doubting wait 
 In wan debate ; 
 
220 The Deed of Nimrod. 
 
 " Yet was the later anguish greater far. 
 
 Anon my hand toward the jade lampstand hurried, 
 Then paused because my senses were at war. 
 
 In her great loveliness my eyes lay buried, 
 
 And cried the light should stay ! 
 
 My lips were wroth, 
 
 That they so long from her ripe lips were parted. 
 
 My knees, that ne'er before had known of sloth, 
 
 Shook, yet with longing toward their mistress started. 
 
 O'er all, my coward soul 
 
 Strained for control ! 
 
 " One hand approached the lamp, while knees were bent 
 
 In adoration of her grace ; its fellow 
 Yearning to snap the last impediment 
 Moved toward her bosom. 
 
 Hark ! what murmurs mellow 
 Float on her lips ? * At last to claim his right 
 
 Comes my true lord ! ' But eyes are fast shut, neither 
 Does feature change nor any awakening light 
 Break the calm glory of the slumbrous breather. 
 Sudden ... the light was crossed! . . . 
 Esther was lost. " 
 
XIII 
 
 HAND-OF-SULTAN 
 
XIII 
 
 HAND-OF-SULTAN 
 
 Tense was the silence o'er that crumbly mound 
 
 When Nimrod from his long recital stinted. 
 AH and Gourred on the tile-strewn ground 
 
 Sat close embraced. Then first they marked how 
 glinted 
 A wondrous pallor on the horizon east 
 
 And knew the dayspring nigh ; that while the demon 
 Waxed to a bulgy height, and, sighing, ceased 
 
 With tale half told. But Gourred sweet, a woman 
 
 Most curious, durst implore 
 
 Nimrod for more. 
 
 223 
 
224 Hand-of -Sultan. 
 
 " Barbarians, " quoth the great ghost at the last, 
 
 " I need no urging my strange tale to finish, 
 But ask that you, whenso the sun is passed 
 
 The midnight's nadir, my old pain diminish 
 By listening to the rest I yearn to tell. 
 
 Now while I turn me to my desert prison 
 See ye revolve my words and actions well ! 
 
 Lo ! as I speak the cruel sun has risen 
 And with disdainful light 
 Hurls me from sight." 
 
 O'er Phraat the holy, past the Shushan hills. 
 
 The red had grown, and now the fog-belt whitened. 
 His shadowy bulk was honeycombed as rills 
 
 Will mine a snowbank. Ever more it lightened 
 Till where great Nimrod stood to ease his mind 
 
 A roll of mist curled upward, slowly floated 
 Off toward the waste. Ever with arms entwined, 
 
 Sunk in a stupor, on the mist-wreath gloated 
 Gourred and Sayid. Then 
 Noise rose of men. 
 
Hand-of -Sultan. 225 
 
 The light still grows, and on the sherdy plain 
 
 Where to old dawns a brilliant city started 
 Points glitter. What — has Babel come again ? 
 
 Thus, while their lips in anxious stare are parted 
 Bursts the new sun all flaming on the mound, 
 
 Bathes them, drops lower, then on lances hovers 
 Near and below. There comes a shouting sound — 
 
 At last the foe has found the pilgrim lovers ! 
 
 Jeering the horsemen sweep 
 
 Toward the old keep. 
 10* 
 
226 Hand-of -Sultan. 
 
 How long shall cowards flourish, and how long 
 
 The tender brow of day grow tough and brazen 
 With gazing on the never-ending wrong 
 
 Man heaps on man ? In what age shall the blazon 
 Of Lord Protector to the meek be one 
 
 That all outcrows the haughtiest war-stained title, 
 Or bannerets earned by service baselier done, 
 
 Or pompous shields, of lucre the requital? 
 When shall men feel in meekness 
 The strength of weakness ? 
 
 A million times the sun with equal care 
 
 And patient visage cheered the deep-grooved valley. 
 The millionth time, O sight to cause despair! 
 
 The scene must needs with all the foregone tally. 
 For in the arms of a dark-featured rider 
 
 Was Gourred borne ; nor could she shrink away ; 
 While All, bruised and pinioned, marched beside her 
 
 Half stripped, and bleeding from the uncalled-for fray. 
 Coarse phrase and villainous jeers 
 Burned in their ears. 
 
Hand-of-Stdtan. 227 
 
 Before the horseman, as a leader, yet 
 
 In deadly fear of men so loud and reckless 
 Upon an ass a tremulous man was set, 
 
 Who now that lady eyed and now the necklace 
 Of antique beads which with his sordid hand 
 
 He'd caught from Gourred's lovely curving shoulders. 
 What was his thought ? What had his cunning planned ? 
 
 None knew among those ignorant beholders 
 Who had been safely fain 
 A gift to gain. 
 
 And on they trail across the seed-pearl rain 
 
 Of melody the larks pour from the zenith 
 Washing their bosoms of the earthy stain 
 
 Won while the night upon her star- throne queeneth. 
 The datepalm, proud of beauty and of use, 
 
 Waves a kind welcome to the passers sorry. 
 As being too gentle to perceive the clues 
 
 Of their strange motions. Only aromas myrrhy 
 Rise from the hurrying hoofs 
 ^ - As mild reproofs. 
 
2 28 Hand-of-Sultan» 
 
 The buffalo that on the stagnant pool 
 
 Sways his broad muzzle like an alligator 
 To stare surprise ; the savage boars that rule 
 
 In jungles dense on Tigris, as the .satyr 
 Ruled of old time ; the treacherous maneless lion 
 
 Hunted of Nimrod, and the abhorrent wolf, 
 The fox's bastard, and the watchdog's scion, 
 
 Who changes form poor woodmen to engulf — 
 None, such was Gourred's charm. 
 Had done them harm. 
 
 Nor these wild Arabs that with brandished spears 
 
 Had scaled the height by two pale saints defended 
 Had acted so, nor blows and brutal jeers 
 
 Upon these lambs of innocence expended. 
 Stood not behind them a most shameless force, 
 
 One that makes vulgar, smirches still the cleanly 
 And dries each generous impulse at the source. . . 
 
 Dull souls, unable to decipher keenly 
 
 This truth : There's none so bold 
 Keeps ill-earned gold. 
 
Hand-of -Sultan. 229 
 
 Thus to the town of Hillah are they come. 
 
 But, at their advent, the bazaar's loose rabble 
 Hoot and swarm fast. So bees with venomous hum 
 Swarm round a thievish Death's-head moth and 
 scjuabble 
 Who shall sting first. But Hand-of-Sultan, he 
 
 Who rode the ass, had cast about sweet Gourred 
 That veil she scorned, lest the low folk should see 
 And feel the heavenly splendor of her forehead 
 And turn from foes to friends 
 Against his ends. 
 
 The Kadi of the town was his ally ; 
 
 It boots not wherefore, if it were not honest. 
 
 Dragging the saints to his divan, the cry 
 
 Unmanly rose : 
 
 " O Kadi, thou that shonest 
 
 So many years a not inferior sun 
 
 To Judge Hakeem, thy musklike reputation 
 
 Smells sweet with the Pasha, who forms but one 
 
 With Scheik-oul-Islam, fountain of salvation. 
 
 Here on thy judgment stone 
 
 I claim mine own. 
 
230 Hand-of -Sultan. 
 
 " Hamsa of Hlllah, who to all the tribes 
 
 Art known for judgments upright and unswerving, 
 Behold an unbeliever who with gibes 
 
 Smirches the name of the Prophet ! Undeserving 
 Is he of life, for odious blasphemies. 
 
 But that is nothing to mine aim. Consider 
 Only this woman ; for the Sultan's ease 
 
 With hard-won means I bought, a generous bidder, 
 Her from her master here " 
 With conscience clear. 
 
 " And when methought he stept aside to write 
 
 A bill of sale, behold, with shameless forehead 
 Forth had he fled into the waste and night, 
 
 And only now I found him and this Gourred, 
 My purchased slave, in hiding on the mound 
 
 Where stands the keep in ruins. Wisest Kadi, 
 I claim my slave, or else my thousand pound ; 
 
 My slave the rather, for with her no lady 
 At Stamboul can compare 
 She is so fair. 
 
Hand-of -Sultan. 231 
 
 " The money let him have. My witnesses 
 
 Are ready. Is it right, a tricky Persian 
 Should cheat poor Hand-of-Sultan of his fees? 
 
 I charge you listen, and whatever version 
 This man of guile may frame, believe him not. 
 
 A pretty pass, when the hard-working trader 
 Pays and gets no return ! For bought is bought 
 
 And he'd no right to take her or persuade her 
 When the price once was told, 
 The fair slave sold." 
 
 But while his cone-shaped bonnet the wise Kadi 
 
 Donned with an air of virtue, from her face 
 Swept her long veil that sorely injured lady 
 
 And on the justice poured her sun-bright grace. 
 Mildly she spoke. " My lord judge, it would seem 
 
 This slaver deems himself a marvelous jurist, 
 If that to prove his crazy charge he dream ; 
 
 For who is sure, although his right be surest ? 
 And he is wondrous bold 
 Pilp-rims to hold 
 
232 Hand-of -Sultan. 
 
 " Who look no home to have, no friends, no wealth! 
 
 True is it that he made the scandalous offer 
 To this my lord and comrade, me by stealth 
 
 Conveying to Stamboul, to fill their coffer 
 With proceeds of my freedom basely sold. 
 
 What answer was I need not say. The rather 
 Hear who he is to whom his slave-curst gold 
 
 This blind man tendered, from the tale to gather 
 The crime that he has done, 
 Infamy won. 
 
 " He who stands there abused and fettered sore 
 
 Has in his veins the blood of the Prophet ! Hasten 
 Ye Arabs rude a Sayid to adore! 
 
 See you not ? even Hand-of-Sultan, brazen 
 Jew that he is, begins to tremble. Well, 
 
 Loosen his bonds ! Now, on this Mirza Sayid 
 All Mohammed, came at birth the spell 
 
 That hung about the Prophet ; for there played 
 About him balsamed air, 
 Odors mdst rare. 
 
Hand-of -Sultan. 233 
 
 " For he was set apart of Allah, light 
 
 By thought and pen upon the world to lavish. 
 The turban green he wears not, though his right, 
 
 As I wear not a veil ; since just such slavish 
 Badges are they of vices in our peoples. 
 
 For Mollahs, Kadis, great men all and some 
 On their pure lives must stand like deep-base steeples — 
 Woman, no more a slave, 
 Learn to be brave. 
 
 " We fight for freedom. We do not rely 
 
 On rights prescriptive, such as both inherit. 
 Teaching the gospel of this Prophet high 
 
 From God revealed through his abounding merit. 
 Where Meccawards the Persian pilgrims throng 
 
 We preach our faith — the first faith great Moham- 
 med 
 Taught at Medina clean of blood and wrong. 
 
 Nor have we fled, nor have we hid, nor shammed, 
 Nor lied, nor bought, nor sold. 
 Nor touched his gold. 
 
234 Haiid-of -Sultan. 
 
 " But what grips he within his greedy talons 
 
 Thin, long and dry, predacious like a bird's? 
 It is my rosary which he did not balance 
 
 To snatch from me ! What use is there of words 
 To argue need of change in all the laws 
 
 That hamper women in the Moslem nations. 
 When, like the lambkin in the cruel claws 
 
 Of vulture, she who has no strong relations, 
 Is seized with blow and scoff, 
 Bound, hurried off 
 
 " To feed the lust of some great man, and rouse 
 
 In harems anguish, hatred and contention, 
 Perhaps to cause the breakage of deep vows 
 
 Or sow between stepchildren fierce contention ; 
 Adding to burdens of the humble ; wasting 
 
 On vanities the taxes of a town ; 
 Through sloth and intrigue and divorces hasting 
 
 From plane to plane forever down and down — 
 Mother of Moslem child 
 Bartered and soiled ! — 
 
Hand-of -Sultan. 235 
 
 ** What rule is that in early years whereunder 
 
 Our offspring spoil? What school is it for them 
 Where gluttony, lies and intrigue, heartbreak, blunder 
 
 Still alternate ? One man as well might stem 
 The waves of ocean with his feeble arms 
 
 As rear his children virtuous in a harem. 
 So many wives, and just so many harms! 
 
 But since 'tis ignorance keeps them bad, alarum 
 Should beat in every place 
 To save the race 
 
 " From utter rot, by holding every man 
 
 To his one wife and teaching her the beauty 
 Of knowledge and high thoughts, the daily plan 
 
 Of work, the sweets of cleanliness and duty. 
 And therewithal, for sake of those who earned 
 
 Such freedom, loosen wives from shameful fetters 
 Of veils and cloistered walls ! For these are spurned 
 
 Daily by wicked women, while their betters 
 Languish within the rope 
 Sans love, sans hope ! 
 
XIV 
 
 THE DERVISH 
 
XIV 
 
 THE DERVISH 
 
 " Give leave" cried Hand-of-Sultan, for he fancied 
 
 The judge was moved by eloquence and looks, 
 " Twas magic that ye two were at, when chanced 
 
 My Arabs on your track. In holy books 
 Stands written, Harut-Marut demons are 
 
 That haunt the mound they call of Nimroud yonder. 
 This talisman I feared would prove a bar 
 
 To holding you, lest you from me should wander 
 
 And by those demons led 
 
 Again have fled. 
 
 239 
 
240 The Dervish. 
 
 "And trust not, Kadi, this bold she-magician! 
 
 What proof is given we have a Sayid here ? 
 Do Sayids, then, blaspheme and rouse sedition ? 
 
 With wine and women, then, are they austere ? " 
 But while he spake behind his ample robe 
 
 He toward the Kadi four thin claws extended 
 Which signified, No more this matter probe, 
 
 And four pounds are your fee ! And thus he ended. 
 So eloquent, they say, 
 Is yellow clay 
 
 Which has no tongue and yet all tongues can silence ! 
 
 " The case is grave," the worthy judge replied, 
 " If she is yours, why did you him such violence? 
 
 Why so much force, if right be on your side ? 
 I must look farther in the case. Speak out 
 
 You that are said to be a prophet. Utter 
 Your thought, nor longer dream, nor stare about, 
 
 Nor, like to men that talk in trances, mutter !" — 
 Through Ali's purple eyes 
 There shot surprise 
 
The Dervish. 241 
 
 " But speech came not ; for in the attentive gang 
 
 Of ruffians of the bazaar and Arab shepherds 
 A tattered youth of piteous visage sprang 
 
 Light as o'er hurdles vault the beauteous leopards. 
 Lovely he was, for all his rags and dirt, 
 
 And seized the sight with pleasure and with pity ; 
 A blood-soaked bandage told his feet were hurt. 
 
 He turned about with motion quick and witty, 
 And drew within the fold 
 A Dervish old. 
 
 " The Dervish had a mien of majesty 
 
 Conscious, like one who bears great news. Most 
 haughty 
 His nod was. Face and bearing somewhat free 
 
 Brought low salaams from that slave-trader naughty, 
 And made the Kadi him a place assign 
 
 On his own carpet. Likewise by his turban 
 Believers read the unmistaking sign 
 
 That oft he'd been to Mecca. Then more urban 
 He did the Kadi greet 
 And took his seat. 
 
242 , The Dervish. 
 
 " Welcome, O holy pilgrim from afar," 
 
 The justice said, " You come when most is wanted 
 One who is practiced in the subtle war 
 
 Of wits that scholars wage within the vaunted 
 Halls of right Moslem learning. It is true 
 
 That Hand-of-Sultan claims this fair-faced woman 
 As his bought slave. But now there's naught to do ; 
 
 What better were, to pass the time, than summon 
 These doctors to dispute 
 Religion's root ? 
 
 " It likes me well so," condescended he, 
 
 " For I have heard the lady's strange oration ; 
 But," quoth the Dervish, " is it right that we 
 
 Before a Jew of mysteries make relation 
 Sacred to Moslem only? Heretics 
 
 Must be confuted ; but for unbelievers 
 There is no hope, and 'tis most wrong to mix 
 
 Discourse before such scoffers and deceivers 
 As Jews and Christians are. 
 I come from far 
 
The Dervish. 243 
 
 " With him my son and bring in yonder sack 
 
 Broidered thus richly jewels that are destined 
 For Hamsa, Kadi of Hillah ; but my back 
 
 Soon must I turn on this well-built predestined 
 Illustrious town, of whom the inhabitants 
 
 Are famed for learning, courage and free-giving. 
 I cannot stay, I must avoid the haunts 
 
 Of luxury ; for always I am living 
 On dry bread and the stale 
 Of desert well." 
 
 At this the justice opened wide his eyes. 
 
 Mashallah, was his thought, at last, uncourted, 
 Has luck fallen to you, Hamsa? have your wise 
 
 Enactments far as Stamboul been reported ? 
 Are you about to be Hakeem, Emir — 
 
 Pasha perhaps ? Upon his townsmen gloated 
 This justice vain and strove unmoved to appear; 
 
 Then glared on Gourred while in heart he doted : 
 " A better wife than she 
 I may not see." 
 
244 ^-^^ Dervish. 
 
 " True, holy man ! " broke in the wily Jew, 
 
 " I am not one to hear the secret proffers 
 Of argument, called ketman, which th^ few 
 
 And friendly make between them. But no scoffers 
 Are tribes of Judah 'gainst your Moslem faith. 
 
 I'm here to claim as mine this goodly woman 
 Whom I affirm, by Azrael who slayeth, 
 
 Was bought from him whom once more I do summon." 
 Then made he other sign 
 With fingers nine. 
 
 But, " Listen," Ali cried in musical 
 
 Fine scholar-phrases like the texts of Koran, 
 " To Jew and Christian, Moslem, Hindu, all 
 
 The tribes of man on coasts however foreign 
 My Gospel speaks. I cry the name of God, 
 
 The one high God of Moses, Christ, Mohammed, 
 Yet differently. He lives in every clod 
 
 As well as souls for diamond beauty fam^d. 
 Creator — thus alone 
 Can he be known. 
 
The Dervish. 245 
 
 " Seven ways he shows existence. For which seven 
 
 Seven Arabic letters stand. These are on earth 
 Mere pale reflections of the signs in heaven 
 
 He placed to chronicle creation's birth. 
 Force, 'Power and Will are seen in sun, moon, Mars; 
 
 In Mercury Action ; Jove means Condescension; 
 Glory in Venus ; by that sage of stars. 
 
 Old Saturn, Revelation first had mention. 
 These are to men and brutes 
 His Attributes. 
 
 "Last night with her, my adopted sister, friend 
 
 And true disciple I beheld the vision 
 Of Nimrod and, till darkness was at end. 
 
 Heard a strange tale of Ahram, whose old mission 
 Was like to mine, like to Mohammed's, like 
 
 To that sweet Christ's, whom Israel crucified ; 
 And then once more I felt that me shall strike 
 
 A similar fate, that briefly I shall bide 
 Within the incarnate span 
 Of mortal man. 
 
246 The Dervish. 
 
 " In Koufa's moldering mosque, where bled to death 
 
 AH the martyr, I was early witness 
 In vision of the saint who for the faith 
 
 Died which to those rude days had special fitness. 
 Methought I saw him hacked and disemboweled. 
 
 And a clear sound that seemed the lightning's voice 
 A like reward to the reformer voweled. 
 
 Whereat the foolish should once more rejoice, 
 Ignorant toward what seed 
 The martyrs bleed. 
 
 " But my great mission shall not be in vain. 
 
 We're God's own ; he is ours ; from him we borrow 
 Our wondrous robe of fleshly joy and pain — 
 
 And lay it back within the chest to-morrow. 
 He is unique, moveless, eterne, unseen. 
 
 None is but he. But I his prophet latest 
 Share that great glory with my saints eighteen 
 
 Whereof one is a woman. Thou that statest 
 Wise Gourred is a slave 
 Dost merely rave. 
 
The Dervish. 247 
 
 " She is so high above all women other 
 
 That when she dies of some terrific death 
 Her soul shall kindle in another Mother 
 
 Of Purity, and our eternal faith 
 Live on through persecutions ! . . . O high Gate 
 
 With sevenfold arch,through which the godhead enters 
 And lo, the world ! . . . O God-breaths early and late — 
 
 Each one a prophet in whose teaching centres 
 Some truth, to oversoar 
 One barrier more ! . . ." 
 
 So speaking, deeply the rapt prophet pondered 
 
 At the divan, nor was aware of aught 
 But his great subject, and still on had wandered 
 
 Back had not him the hoary Dervish brought : 
 " Hamsa the Kadi ! surely this is one 
 
 By look and speech of lofty race and learning. 
 I marvel that the case was e'er begun. 
 
 Dismiss it, and direct the Jew, for spurning 
 True Moslem, first restore 
 The chain she wore. 
 
248 The Dervish. 
 
 " And recompense this pretty boy, my son, 
 
 Who in your service beat his feet all bloody. 
 Ah viper ! " rose his voice, " hereafter shun 
 
 Plots of such scope, or you shall stake your body ! 
 Raven of ill that ere the dawn hast tried 
 
 To filch this treasure ; wolf in cunning ; greedy 
 As boar, and crafty as the fox ; cool-eyed 
 
 Tenacious as chameleons ! a speedy 
 Reward shall you obtain 
 But nothing gain ! 
 
 " Two-colored as the pie, and doglike fawning, 
 
 False as sheet-lightning and as locust swift, 
 You shall regret, ere comes another dawning. 
 
 Lies have been husbanded with such unthrift. 
 Think you a Kadi such as this could fail 
 
 To see she was no slave, nor ever bartered 
 For aught at all ? Think you the crazy tale 
 
 Will credence get ? Or are you of those chartered 
 Liars who are believed 
 By men deceived ? " . . . 
 
The Dervish. 249 
 
 Then as in vain the Jew to stop him struggled — 
 
 " Make way " he cried, " let these unchallenged pass ! 
 Come, boy, and show the Kadi what you smuggled 
 O'er hill and dale, through sands and river-grass ! 
 And since I'm poor, and this my son is fair. 
 
 Young and straight-limbed, but torn and stained 
 with travel, 
 O, all ye true believers, do not spare 
 Your wealth, but give of largess, and unravel 
 The knots that spoil the grace 
 Of his sweet face ! " 
 
 A merry humor twinkled in the eye 
 
 Of that sad boy as with an eel-like motion 
 He ran from man to man. His courteous cry 
 
 Was scholarly and pressing. Now devotion 
 To thoughts sublime had kept the Prophet there, 
 
 Had Gourred not with dignity departed. 
 He followed ; on their way each head was bare 
 
 Some even kissed the skirt of him who smarted 
 
 Still from the cruel blows 
 
 Of former foes. 
 II* 
 
250 The Dervish. 
 
 And many a gift they had that morn received 
 
 From Hand-of-Sultan, in the boy did gather. 
 For all the Kadi's radiant look perceived 
 
 And his good luck, they hoped, their own would 
 father ; 
 And with deep groans the slaver doled a pile 
 
 Of silver, and the judge, not long entreated, 
 Gave a rich ring and gained a beaming smile. 
 Then at a nod the laughing youngster flitted 
 Off, and the Dervish sate 
 Serene, sedate. 
 
 " Come, Holy Father," quoth the Kadi then, 
 
 " Undo thy bag and show to all each jewel 
 For me brought, Hamsa, Kadi, chief of men I 
 
 To good men gracious, to the wicked cruel ! 
 I marvel whence they are ; from Ispahan ? 
 
 (Poor uncle, are you dead?) Or my 'decisions — 
 Have they so pleased rich men of Hamadan 
 
 They send me gifts ? I too have had my visions : 
 They were of much more gold 
 Than hands could hold ! " 
 
The Dervish. 251 
 
 Serene he smiled, that Dervish, and his beard 
 
 Gently caressed. " Jewels are here," he muttered, 
 " Richer than any you have seen or heard 
 
 Cited in song or e'er in elf-tales uttered. 
 Look but on this ! " . . . and from the sack he drew 
 
 A little scroll and read : The life As short 
 Of the voracious beast. . . The scroll he threw 
 
 Into the judge's lap. " Heard you report 
 Of pearl," asked he, "more rare, 
 More rich, more fair? 
 
 " And see this diamond : He who digs a pit 
 
 For others often falls therein ! ". . . Scroll second 
 Fell on the Kadi's robe. But him a fit 
 
 Of fury strangled, for he saw he'd reckoned 
 Without his host. He rolled his greedy eyes 
 
 Like swine in yard tormented, toward the mocker 
 In helpless wrath, o'ercome by quick surprise. 
 
 Grotesque he leaned and goggling, like the knocker 
 Of bronze Franks mould like boars 
 To deck their doors. 
 
252 The Dervish. 
 
 Now when the keen-eyed Dervish saw returning 
 Speech, and the thundercloud about to burst, 
 Quoth he : "I fear my jewels you are spurning. 
 
 Yet here is Take no bribe among the first. 
 But hush, no word ! I have within my budget 
 
 News that ye dream not : — The Great Sultan's 
 dead! 
 Ha, there is news ! nor do I longer grudge it. 
 Fly Jew and Kadi ! Ruffians, fly ! o'erhead 
 Hang the long-treasured blows 
 Of lifelong foes ! 
 
 " Hillah's in secret ferment and conspiring 
 
 With shut bazaar ! Bad news flies fast ! The road 
 To Bagdad is beset ! Hear ye that firing? 
 
 Old bloodfeuds knock for you at each abode !" . . . 
 He said no more, for at the signal shot 
 
 The whole divan — Jew, Kadi, Arabs — tumbled 
 Out from the court, as though upon the spot 
 
 Where devils dance they had unwitting stumbled ; 
 And while each hurried fast 
 Forth slowly passed 
 
The Dervish, 253 
 
 The Dervish blithe, and presently discovered 
 
 A ruinous house, apart, and foul to see. 
 But entering, there he found a carpet covered 
 
 Before the fountain with a banquet free, 
 With wine and coffee, fruits and tender meats, 
 
 Succulent roots and all that warms the senses, 
 And there his well-robed boy the Dervish greets. 
 
 Then down they sit and banquet like to princes, 
 Quaff and drown care with sups 
 From oft-drained cups.. 
 
 Against the outer gate there was a knocking. 
 
 Behold, 'twas Gourred, seeking for the seer 
 Asylum. Lo, and there the Dervish, mocking 
 
 With goodly feast his piety austere ! 
 " Well met," he cried, '■'■ Come to the banquet ; bless 
 
 Allah who cast me in your way this morning. 
 Your theory's fine, but give me worldliness ! 
 
 Ho, boy, more wine ! Nay, Prophet, be not scorning 
 Safety, good food, and cheer ! 
 You see me here 
 
254 The Dervish. 
 
 " The only man in Hillah cool and happy. 
 
 And why? Because with twice-filed tongue I've 
 drawn 
 That juice from wood time-seasoned both and sappy — 
 
 I mean the gold fools hold for me in pawn ! 
 I have no house for which to tremble. Taxes 
 
 I levy ; never pay them. And the star 
 I worship best is that which wanes and waxes 
 Reflected in the wine from yonder jar. 
 The round heaven of my soul 
 Is you, O bowl ! " 
 
 Then AH woke as one who starts from dreams 
 
 And found sweet Gourred going. " It is fated," 
 Quoth he, " this frank deceiver, who now seems 
 
 Only for fleshly vanities created, 
 Shall zealous be for our great faith beyond 
 
 All others ; who, in his mere sport and leisure 
 Freed you and me from insult and from bond, 
 
 Shall find in martyrdom his keenest pleasure. 
 Sit we, and seek to gain 
 This master brain ! " 
 
The Dervish. 255 
 
 So, while all Hillah is aquake with fears — 
 
 Each gun at rest, who's Sultan no one knowing — 
 These earnest sit till the lean moon appears 
 
 Yellowing apace while the night's breath is blowing. 
 The Prophet rose : " I rank you now as one 
 
 Of mine, though obstinate. My teaching ponder. 
 For as each comet to the hearth of sun 
 
 Returns at last, how far soe'er he wander, 
 You, O most deep and bold, 
 Shall join our fold. 
 
 " We must depart to comfort Nimrod worried 
 
 By fearful crimes. We can no longer stay. 
 Perchance we ne'er shall meet on earth. Yet Gourred 
 
 And I shall love you, though from far away. 
 Meantime, farewell my brother martyr! When 
 
 At your grim hour of trial flames are lapping 
 Your weary feet, hold fast in memory then 
 
 How on this day the grace of God was wrapping 
 You — thus I say, select — 
 You, the elect !".... 
 
256 The Dervish. 
 
 They passed as pass the roebuck and the hind 
 
 Shapely, deep-eyed, a perfect man and woman. 
 The Dervish pondered. Ail the world seemed rind 
 
 Without the melon ; all our pleasures human 
 Stale ; then a horror of his former life 
 
 Of naught and naughtiness with power possessed 
 him — 
 The folly, groping and the aimless strife — 
 Till half he had of shallowness confessed him. 
 So, brooding on God, he paced 
 Forth to the waste. 
 
 J 
 
THE EPILOGUE 
 
THE EPILOGUE 
 
 Farewell, sweet friends. The kernel of the tale 
 
 Shows not in books, nor is at shops for sale. 
 
 The frame around about is history learned 
 
 From scholar-statesman Gobineau, who earned 
 
 Honors enough from his fair Mother France. 
 
 Reckless is she, yet eager for advance 
 
 hi arts and letters — Genius with a torch 
 
 That radiates clearly from her pillared porch 
 
 Central among old Europe's varied fanes ! 
 
 259 
 
26o The Epilogue. 
 
 The fate of the reformer thus contains 
 Fates of old Nimrod, as in Chinese box 
 Carved by sloiv craftsmen withoiit lids or locks 
 An inner form of kindred shape is seen. 
 I give you symbols. For whatever has been 
 Exists to-day in those two caskets strange, 
 This earth and our smooth brain ; 7ior out of range 
 Are future marvels in behijzd the eye 
 And here below the blue skull of the sky. 
 
 Now should ye long to know the second trance 
 Of wailing ghosts and all the sad romance 
 Of A li and his Gourred — zvho more glad 
 Than Charles de Kay ? But should ye find it bad, 
 Right well he can console himself, be sure ; 
 Blithely your censure or neglect endure ; 
 And ne'er regret the days of thankless toil 
 And fruitless spending of the midnight oil 
 Risked on the chance his country's folk to please. 
 
The Epilogtie. 261 
 
 For poets sing like ivind amo7ig the trees 
 
 Now high, then low ; nozv szveetly, then most ill ; 
 
 And as, to writing, there is need of quill 
 
 And paper too ; as wind is naught sans leaves; 
 
 Even so the singer who no praise receives 
 
 Is pen sans paper ; breeze sans tree ; a hand 
 
 Without the harp ; a king that lacks of land ; 
 
 A nerveless lion ; a trustee disgraced ; 
 
 An actor mouthing grandly toward the waste. 
 
V. 
 
LBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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