Days and Dreams Part 14

So from the mosque, whose arabesques above-- The marvellous work of Oriental love-- Seen with new splendors of Heaven's blue and gold, Applauding all, he, as the gates are rolled Ogival back to let the many forth, Cries war to all the unbelieving North.

Soon have they pa.s.sed the tight bazaar; along Close, crooked streets, too narrow for the throng; The place of owls and tombs; the merloned wall, Camel and steed and a.s.s. Projecting all Its towering battlements, his palace gray, Seraglios and courts, against the day Lifts, vanishes. And now, soul-set on hate, From Mekinez they pa.s.s the scolloped gate.

Two dozing beggars, baking each a sore, Sprawl in the sun the city gate before; A leprous cripple and a thief, whose eyes-- Burnt out with burning iron,--as supplies The law for thieves,--two fly-thick wounds blood-raw, Lifted shrill voices as they heard or saw; Praised G.o.d, and flung into the dust each face With words of "victory and Allah's grace Attend our Caliph, Mouley-Ismael!

Even at the cost of ours his days be well!"

And grimly smiling as he grimly pa.s.sed, "While G.o.d most merciful, who is, shall last,-- Now by Es Sirat!--will a liar's word And thief's prevail or prosper?--Pray the Lord!-- What! at your lives' cost?--my devout intent!

Even as 't is bidden let their necks be bent!

Though words be pious, evil at the soul Naught is the prayer!--So let their prayer be whole.

Nay! give them gold; but when the sequins cease From the slaves' hands, by these my Soudanese They die!" he said; and even as he said Rolled in the dust each writhing, withered head.

And frowning westward, as the day grew late, Four bleeding heads stared from the city gate 'Neath this inscription, for the pa.s.ser-by, "There is no virtue but in G.o.d the High."

A PRE-EXISTENCE.

An intimation of some previous life, Or dark dream, in the present dim-divined, Of some uncertain sleep--or lived or dreamed In some dead life--between a dusk and dawn;

From heathen battles to Toledo's gates, Far off defined, his corselet and camail, Damascened armet, shattered; in an eve's Anger of bra.s.s a galloping glitter, one Rode arrow-wounded. And the city caught A cry before him and a wail behind, Of walls beleaguered; battles; conquered kings; Triumphant Taric; broken Spain and slaves.

And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's, Housed near the Tagus--squalid and alone Save for his slave, held dear--to beat and starve-- Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon, A burning beacon, westerns; and my bones A visible hunger; famished with the fear, Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him--I, who held Him soul and self, more hated than his G.o.d, Stood silent; fools had laughed; I saw my way.

War-time crops weapons; and the blade I bought Was subtly pointed. For, I knew his ways: The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems And bags of doublas--oh, I knew his ways.

A shadow, woven in the hangings, hid Till time said _now_; gaunt from the hangings stole Behind him; humped and stooping so, his heart Clove through the faded tunic, murrey-dyed; Grinned exultation while the grim, slow blood Drenched black and darkened round the oblong wound, And his old face thinned grayer than morn's moon.

Rubies from Badakhshan in rose lights dripped Slim tears of poppy-purple crystal; dull, Red, ember-pregnant, carbuncles wherein Fevered a captive crimson; bugles wan Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts; Fire-opals savage and mesmeric with Voluptuous flame, long, sweet, and sensuous as Soft eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed With talismanic violet, from tombs, Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans; Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of Golconda--This, a sandaled dervise bare Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun, Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon, Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held Of some wild tribe.... Bleached in the peris.h.i.+ng waste A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones, A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull One blazing eye--the diamond. At Aleppo Bartered--a bauble for his desert love.-- Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem jolting gem, Flashed, rutilating in the irised light, A rain of splintered fire; and his head, Long-haired, white-sunk among them.

Yet I took All--though his eyes burned in them; though, meseemed, Each several jewel glared a separate curse....

Well! dead men work us mischief from the grave.

Richer than all Castile and yet not dare Drink but from cups of Roman murra, spar Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold! spar sensitive Of poison! I, no slave, yet all a slave To fear a dead fool's malice!--Still, how else!

Feasting within the music of my halls, While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes, Diaphanous, more silken than those famed Of loomed Amorgos or of cla.s.sic Kos, Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed, Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolfsbane-slain!

BEHRAM AND EDDETMA.

Against each prince now she had held her own, An easy victor for the seven years O'er kings and sons of kings; Eddetma, she Who, when much sought in marriage, hating men, Espoused their ways to win beyond their worth Through martial exercise and hero deeds: She, who accomplished in all warlike arts, Let cry through every kingdom of the kings:-- "Eddetma weds with none but him who proves Himself her master in the push of arms, Her suitor's foeman she. And he who fails, So overcome of woman, woman-scorned, Disarmed, dishonored, yet shall he depart, Brow-bearing, forehead-stigmatized with fire, 'Behold, a freedman of Eddetma this.'

Let cry, and many princes put to shame, Pretentious courtiers small in thew and thigh, Proud-palanquined from princ.i.p.alities Of Irak and of Hind and farther Sind.

Though she was queenly as that Empress of The proud Amalekites, Tedmureh, and More beautiful, yet she had held her own.

To Behram of the Territories, one Son of a Persian monarch swaying kings, Came bruit of her and her noised victories, Her maiden beauty and her warrior strength; Eastward he journeyed from his father's court, With men and steeds and store of wealth and arms, To the rich city where her father reigned, Its seven citadels by Seven Seas.

And messengered the monarch with a gift Of savage vessels wroughten out of gold, Of foreign fabrics stiff with gems and gold.

Vizier-amba.s.sadored the old king gave His answer to the suitor:--"I, my son, What grace have I above the grace of G.o.d?

What power is mine but a material?

What rule have I unto the substanceless?

Me, than the shadow of the Prophet's shade Less, G.o.d invests with power but of man; Man! and the right beyond man's right is G.o.d's; His the dominion of the secret soul-- And His her soul! Now hath my daughter sworn, By all her vestal soul, that none shall know Her but her better in the listed field, Determining spear and sword.--Grant Fate thy trust; She hangs her hand upon to-morrow's joust, A prize to win.--My greeting and farewell."

Informed Eddetma and the lists arose.

Armored and keen with a Chorasmian mace, Davidean hauberk came she. Her the prince, Harnessed in scaly gold Arabian, met; So clanged the prologue of the battle. As Closer it waxed, Prince Behram, who a while Withheld his valor,--in that she he loved Opposed him and beset him, woman whom He had not scathed for the Chosroes' wealth,-- Beheld his madness; how he were undone With s.h.i.+ning shame unless he strove withal, Whirled fiery sword and smote; the ba.s.sinet Rushed from the haughty face that long had scorned The wide world's vanquished royalty, and so Rushed on his own defeat. For like unto A moon gray clouds have caverned all the eve, The thunder splits and, virgin triumph, there She sails a silver aspect, vanquished so Was Behram by his blow. A wavering strength Swerved in its purpose; with no final stroke Stunned stood he and surrendered; stared and stared, All his strong life absorbed into her face, All the wild warrior, arrowed by her eyes, Tamed, and obedient to lip and look.

Then she on him, as condor on a kite, Plunged pitiless and beautiful and fierce, One trophy more to added victories; Haled off his arms, amazement dazing him; Seized steed and garb, confusion filling him; And scoffed him forth brow-branded with his shame.

Dazzled, six days he sat, a staring trance; But on the seventh, casting stupor off, Rose, and the straitness of the case that held Him as with manacles of knitted fire, Considered, and decided on a way....

Once when Eddetma with a houri band Of high-born damsels, under eunuch guard, In the walled palace pleasaunce took her ease, Under a myrrh-bush by a fountain side, Where Afrits' nostrils snorted diamond rain In scooped cornelian, one, a dim, h.o.a.r head,-- A patriarch mid gardener underlings,-- Bent spreading gems and priceless ornaments Of jewelled amulets of hollow gold Sweet with imprisoned ambergris and musk; Symbolic stones in sorcerous carcanets, Gem-talismans in cabalistic gold.

Whereon the princess marvelled and bade ask, What did the elder with his riches there?

Who, questioned, mumbled in his bushy beard, "To buy a wife withal"; whereat they laughed As oafs when wisdom stumbles. Quoth a maid, With orient midnight in her starry eyes, And tropic music on her languid tongue, "And what if I should wed with thee, O beard Grayer than my great-grandfather's, what then?"

"One kiss, no more, and, child, thou wert divorced,"

He; and the humor took them till the birds, That listened in the spice-tree and the plane, Sang gayly of the gray-beard and his kiss.

Then quoth the princess, "Thou wilt wed with him Ansada?" mirth in her two eyes' gazelles, And gravity bird-nestled in her speech; And took Ansada's hand and laid it in The old man's staggering hand, and he unbent Thin, wrinkled brows and on his staff arose, Weighed with the weight of many heavy years, And kissed her leaning on his shaking staff, And heaped her bosom with an Amir's wealth, And left them laughing at his foolish beard.

Now on the next day, as she took her ease With her glad troop of girlhood,--maidens who So many royal tulips seemed,--behold, Bowed with white years, upon a flowery sward The ancient with new jewelry and gems, Wherefrom the sun coaxed wizard fires and lit Glimmers in glowing green and pendent pearl, Ultramarine and beaded, vivid rose; And so they stood to wonder, and one asked As yesternoon wherefore the father there Displayed his Sheikh locks and the genie gems?

--"Another marriage and another kiss?-- What! doth the tomb-ripe court his youth again?

O aged, libertine in wish not deed!

O prodigal of wives as well as wealth!

Here stands thy damsel"; trilled the Peri-tall Diarra with the raven in her hair, Two lemon-flowers blowing in her cheeks, And took the dotard's jewels with the kiss In merry mockery.

Ere the morrow's dawn, Bethought Eddetma: "Shall my handmaidens, Teasing a gray-beard's whim to wrinkled smiles, For withered kisses still divide his wealth?

While I stand idle, lose the caravan Whose least is notable?--My right and mine-- Betide me what betides."...

And with the morn Before the man,--for privily she came, Stood habited as of her tire-maids In humble raiment. Now the ancient saw And knew her for the princess that she was, And kindling gladness of the knowledge made Two sparkling forges of his deep dark eyes Beneath the ashes of his priestly brows.

Not timidly she came; but coy approach Became the maiden of Eddetma's suite; And humbly answered he, "All my old heart!"-- Responsive to her quavering request-- "The daughter of the king did give thee leave?

And thou wouldst well?--Then wed with me forth-right.

Thy hand, thy lips." So he arose and gave Her of barbaric jewelry and gems, And seized her hand and from her lips the kiss, When from his age, behold, the dotage fell, And from the man all palsied h.o.a.riness; Victorious-eyed and amorous with youth, A G.o.d in ardent capabilities Resistless held her; and she, swooning, saw Gloating the branded brow of Prince Behram.

THE KHALIF AND THE ARAB.

_A Transcript._

Among the tales, wherein it hath been told, In golden letters in a book of gold, Of Hatim Ta's hospitality, Who, substanceless in death and shadowy, Made men his guests upon that mountain top Whereon his tomb grayed from a thistle crop;-- A tomb of rock where women hewn of stone, Rude figures, spread dishevelled hair; whose moan From dark to daybreak made the silence cry; The camel drivers, being tented nigh, "Ghouls or hyenas," shuddering would say But only girls of granite find at day:--

And of that city, Sheddad son of Aad Built mid the Sebaa sands.--A king who had Dominion of the world and many kings.-- Builded in pride and power out of things Unstable of the earth. For he had read Of Paradise, and to his soul had said, "Now in this life the like of Paradise I 'll build me and the Prophet's may despise, Knowing no need of that he promises."

So for this city taxed the lands and seas, And Columned Irem, on a blinding height, Blazed in the desert like a chrysolite; The manner of its building, it is told, Alternate bricks of silver and of gold: How Sheddad with his women and his slaves, His thousand viziers, armored troops as waves Of ocean countless, G.o.d with awful flame-- Shot sheer in thunder on him--G.o.d, his shame Confounded and abolished, ere his eyes Had glimpsed bright follies of that Paradise; Lay blotted to a wilderness the land Accursed, and the city lost in sand: Among such tales--who questions of their sooth?-- One is recorded of an Arab youth:

The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik Hunting one day, by some unwonted freak Rode parted from his retinue and gave Chase to an antelope. Without or slave, Amir or vizier to a pasture place Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace, Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came The antelope drew off, with mouth of flame And tongue of fire to the youth he turned Shouting, "Ho! fellow! in what school hast learned!

Seest not the buck escapes me? worthless one!

O desert dullard!"

Rising in the sun, "O ignorant," he said, "of that just worth Of those the worthy of our Muslim earth!