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Cornell University Library 
 PS 1525.D7V5 1882 
 
 The vision of Esther / 
 
 3 1924 021 997 592 
 

M Cornell University 
 B Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tlie Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924021997592 
 
BY THE SAME AUTHOR 
 
 HESPERUS 
 
 AND OTHER POEMS 
 
 I Vol. 1 2 mo. 276 pages 
 
 THE VISION OF NIMROD 
 
 T Vol. i2mo. 262 pages 
 Clotk^ beveled edges, uncui^ $i-5o. 
 
THE 
 
 VISION OF ESTHER 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES DE KAY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON & CO. 
 
 LONDON 
 SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, SEARLE & RIVINGTON 
 
 1882 
 
A. '^H'^(p^ 
 
 Copyright 
 
 1SS2 
 
 By CHARLES de KAY 
 
 All rights reserved 
 
TO 
 
 THE GREAT SHADE OF 
 
 DARWIN 
 
 AND 
 
 TO THE LOFTY SPIRIT OF 
 EMERSON 
 
PREFACE 
 
 The Vision of Esther is a companion and in some de- 
 gree a continuation of The Vision of Nimrod. It has 
 the same structure and metre. Ah and Gourred, the 
 reformers, purposing to hear the rest of the story told in 
 the former book by the spectre of Nimrod, are forced to 
 listen instead to the tale of Esther his queen. The Turk- 
 ish Kadi of Hillah, the Hebrew slave-trader and the Der- 
 vish are of the audience. Before and after the appear- 
 ance of the spectre they discuss affairs of the present 
 century. The contrast between the modern and ancient 
 epochs exhibits the old truth that history repeats itself. 
 Yet it should also show the gradual improvement of 
 mankind even in the stagnant Orient. Ali surpasses 
 
Preface 
 
 Ahram ; Gourred is not only better but more womanly 
 than Esther. A fresh element is introduced at the last 
 in the character of Kaiomar Khan, libertine, braggart 
 and good fellow. 
 
 Although The Vision of Nimrod and The Vision of 
 Esther are oriental in scene and actors, they aim at 
 problems of the west to-day. Polygamy sits in the heart 
 of the United States. The status of woman in Europe 
 and America is unsettled. Hebrews are still treated 
 with gross or refined injustice. The American judiciary 
 is corrupt. The priest still aims at material conquests. 
 Dedicated to Darwin, the great student of nature with- 
 out us, and to Emerson, the believer in the ideal and 
 supernatural within, the second volume proceeds on the 
 assumption of the first, that always the study of nature 
 coexisted beside the study of God and never did the one 
 really invahdate the other. Only it needs to-day more 
 width of mind to bridge the gap made inevitably by the 
 progress of ideas in separate directions. 
 
 In the canto ' Chaldsa Revolts ' some curious allu- 
 sions are taken from discoveries among the old buried 
 
Preface 
 
 libraries of Mesopotamia which point to the origin on 
 the Euphrates of many of the famous myths of Greece. 
 The stories of Hercules, Actseon, Venus and Adonis 
 and others are seen in embryo and with a peculiar un- 
 Greek cast. In ' The Wrath of the Gods ' an origin 
 for the game of chess is suggested. Among oriental 
 and Celtic nations this game has always held a royal if 
 not a religious position. It will be noted that the seven 
 gods of the tower are considered as parallels of seven 
 Greek divinities. ' The Temple of the Hand ' calls at- 
 tention to the boldness of the architects of antiquity and 
 their vigorous use of symbolism. As to the actors, 
 Ahram has for Bitsu the contempt of the prophet for 
 priests of a low order of intellect. Bitsu wages against 
 Ahram the fight of conservative against liberal. One 
 is before, the other behind his age. Esther shows the 
 gradual abandonment of all moral principle by a per- 
 son originally good. 
 
 A word may be forgiven regarding the stanza : the 
 use of double rhymes in almost equal number with sin- 
 gle rhymes is not without deliberate intention. English 
 
Preface 
 
 is poor in double rhymes, and verse-makers usually ig- 
 nore them almost entirely. To obviate the somewhat 
 cloying note, which seems to come from their little use 
 rather than actual demerit, two short verses with single 
 rhymes follow each octave and close the stanza. 
 
 If in ' Nimrod ' the evolution of life on our planet is 
 roughly sketched, in ' Esther ' the problem of the col- 
 oration of races is attacked and the two main differences 
 attributed to the influence of great changes of climate, 
 in connection with geographical peculiarities only now 
 becoming partially clear to investigators of the remote 
 past. In this relation there is no need to mention the 
 daily unfairness of the white races to the dark-skinned, 
 especially in the United States. The flight of Ahram to 
 the westward is of a piece with the movement of peo- 
 ples and agrees with the ancient fables of the gardens of 
 the Hesperides, the land by which some think Spain was 
 meant, others Gaul, others Ireland, others the Azores, 
 others a sunken Atlantis, others America. Should the 
 public show interest in the venture, it is intended to 
 close the series of three volumes with The Vision of 
 
Preface 
 
 Ahram, dealing chiefly with ancient America. In their 
 widest sense the three visions -would form a com- 
 mentary on the great main current of humanity about 
 the globe. America is the land where to-day the flow 
 of that current is most rapid and striking. The vol- 
 umes, although oriental in cast, are American in motive. 
 
ARGUMENT 
 
 The Persian reformers, AH Mohammed and Gourred- 
 oul-Ayn {Consolation of the Eyes), are on their way to 
 meet again the ghost of Nimrod on his mound near the 
 site of Babylon, when they seek refuge in the ruins by 
 the road. They are joined by Hand-of -Sultan, the He- 
 brew slave-dealer , and by the Kadi, who are flying from 
 •the riot in the town of Hillah. The Dervish follows 
 them, for his own purposes. The ruins are those of the 
 palace of Esther, the queen of Nimrod. 
 
 The ghost of Esther appears and forces them to hear 
 her story. The expiation of her sins. Her life as the 
 wife of Nimrod. Her passion for Ahram, his prime 
 ■minister. The eunuch Bitsu cabals with Symbess, the 
 powerful seer of Ur. The idol of the moon-god. Anna 
 
Argument 
 
 the vestal. Ahram's tower shaken. The expedition to 
 regain the idol resolved on. Nimrod has an attack of 
 insanity. Esther jealous of Anna. Ahram gives her 
 the ideas for a series of temples. Ahram describes how 
 mtinkitid beca^ne divided into two main divisions, black 
 and white, in consequence of the Ice Age. 
 
 Departure of Nimrod and Ahram to reconquer the 
 idol of the moon-god. Belshamas, son of Nimrod, tries 
 to seize the throne in their absence. Defence of Babylon 
 by Esther. Return of Ahram and rout of Belshamas. 
 Ahram tempted. Esther's curses on and promises to the 
 goddess Ishtar. Bloody revertge of Esther on Anna the 
 vestal. Fears for Nimrod and his army. Ahravt 
 marches to his aid.. Esther s fear of Belshamas. The- 
 midnight conflagration. Conquest by Belshamas of the 
 larger part of Babylon. Siege of Esther in one quarter 
 of the city. Ahram returns with Nimrod, who is again 
 demented. His successes. Capture of Esther by Bel- 
 shamas. She lures Ahram to an ambuscade. He es- 
 capes, and the self-immolation of Belshamas. Grief of 
 Nimrod who has recovered his wits. 
 
Argument 
 
 The game of chess in the great hall before Nimrod. 
 The vestal Anna enters and tells her vision of the seven 
 gods of the tower, and describes Dibbdra, the fiend of 
 pestilence. The ruin of the tower. Omens and death in 
 the hall. Flight of the court. Nimrod' s final stroke 
 of madness. Ahram resolves to leave Babylon and seek 
 the unknown lands in the west. Esther's second trial 
 of Ahram s virtue. Thoughts of murder. Prayer of 
 Ahram to the moon. The plague in Babylon. 
 
 Departure of Ahram and pursuit by Esther and 
 Bitsu across the Arabian desert. Attack and repulse. 
 The singing sands and haunted botilders in the land 
 of thirst. The siege of Damascus. Pursuit across the 
 Lebation. Tyre the tricky. The mid-sea of the mid- 
 world. Battle of the plain and hymn to the m-oon. 
 Ahram conquers the ships he has bought and fires the 
 seaport of Tyre. Temerity of his men. Stratagem of 
 Bitsu. Interview between Ahram and Esther. Her 
 final repulse. Her exasperation, and disguise in the 
 armor of a son of Nimrod. The battle on the sands. 
 Wounding of Ahram by Esther and retreat of his men 
 
Argument 
 
 to the ships. Escape of the fleet. Esther and the 
 Tyrians pursue. The seaflght and farewell between 
 Ahram and Esther. He disappears in the sunset. 
 Dawn breaks and the ghost of Esther vanishes. 
 
 Comments of Gourred, Hand-of Sultan, the Kadi and 
 AH on the queen and minister of Nimrod. The Dervish 
 warns them that the Shah of Persia has sent Kaiomar 
 Khan, a courtier, with Turkman cavalry to seize the 
 reformers, and that he is at hand. Indignation of the 
 reformers at the treachery of the Dervish. Kaiomar 
 Khan the handsome and vain. The coffins for burial 
 at Kerbela. Stratagem of the Dervish to rescue the re- 
 formers. - Refusal of AH. The talisman. Parting be- 
 tween AH and Gourred-oul-Ayn. Finis. 
 
CONSOLATION OF THE EYES 
 
CONSOLATION OF THE EYES 
 
 Moon of the dusk, moon on the skirts of day, 
 
 Scimitar moon gemmed with the star of even. 
 Glad, as her cheek shyly from earth away 
 
 Turns in the dark a virginal queen of heaven : 
 Sweetly you laugh, watching the weary rover 
 
 O'er the rough wold open the low, dark door 
 And a fair ijiaid draw to her breast the lover 
 
 Whose image stands deep in her bosom's core 
 Moon of the trysting tree 
 Yellow of blee — 
 
Missing Page 
 
Missing Page 
 
4 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 You are as woman full of moods, and fickle 
 
 To turn each way. You shine with borrowed light, 
 Are seldom quiet, ever round or sickle ; 
 
 Still you are fresh, moving, and always right. 
 What though you gild the weary waste of ocean, 
 
 Or fill green glades with mystery and charm, 
 Or rouse in deserts a most awed emotion — 
 
 Majestic, unapproachable ... no warm 
 Lover is he and true 
 That loves not you. 
 
 Now ye, kind faces, that have laid your eyes 
 
 On Nimrod's boasting and on All's fortune, 
 Know that the Persians held to their emprise 
 
 Of meeting him who durst their ears importune 
 In lamentable and yet kingly fashion. 
 
 Ask ye what flowed from his great crime ? What end 
 Arrived for Ahram's and for Bitsu's passion ? 
 
 What life that was which Esther had to spend 
 Half-forced, half-willing bride 
 By Nimrod's side ? 
 
Consolation of the Eyes = 
 
 Listen. By moonlight greengold, variable, 
 
 Ali and Gourred on their errand stole, 
 Hoping that darkness with her plumage sable 
 
 Would blot their forms. Still in their inmost soul 
 Dwelt such a thirst for curious further tiding 
 
 Of that old world which braved its pristine day, 
 Though death should near, there might be no abiding 
 
 While Nimrod's ghost was left in lone dismay. 
 Softly, like spectres sped, 
 They now were fled 
 
 HiUah the anxious, where the lean bold dogs 
 
 Lay cowed and questioned if new foes were stirring ; 
 They prayed that clouds, or shadows, or that fogs 
 
 Might shade them. Now, across the open spurring. 
 They neared the mound-inclosure on the road 
 
 To Nimrod's hill. There, with the sense o'er-human 
 The hunted have, they knew a something strode 
 
 Behind them panting. Suddenly the woman 
 Reeled ; panic's cool wide paw 
 Touched them with awe. 
 
6 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 So All softly led to the inclosure 
 
 His comrade dear, and where the shades were black 
 Hid till the moon perchance would make exposure 
 
 If foe or goblin limped upon their track. 
 Fast came the feet ; a flowing caftan wavered 
 
 In the bright beam and on their very trace 
 Followed with mutterings that of danger savored 
 
 More to the one who ran so wild a race. 
 Bent was the haster, and 
 Full was each hand 
 
 With heavy purses, red and blue and yellow. 
 
 Anon he paused and stood in agony. 
 Twisting a long beard in the moonbeams mellow, 
 
 If sound he heard or any form could see. 
 Then in a feverish haste within the mound 
 
 Where ran a fissure, with a finger skinny 
 Delved he a hole and many an ill-got pound, 
 
 Coins true and false, silver both sound and tinny, 
 Thrust in with pain and haste 
 Like one hard chased. 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 7 
 
 And scarce was done, when, after hurrying fast. 
 
 Rode one like wind, who, the bent form espying, 
 His bulk rotund from off the saddle cast 
 
 Furious, it seemed, at one with booty flying. 
 "Where, Hand-of-Sultan, have you hid the treasure ? " 
 
 The new-come spake. Lo, 'twas the Kadi wise ! 
 " How durst you seize it ? Think you, my displeasure 
 
 And arm in Hillah dare not foe surprise ? 
 Where in this haunted mold 
 Lies the bright gold ? " 
 
 " I saved no money," roundly swore the trader 
 
 " By Abram's head, I was so dazed of sense 
 Through trepidation when I heard the raider 
 
 (Whom God may rot) crash through my brittle fence. 
 That forth I flew and left him our possession 
 
 Uncovered. Scarcely am I saved alive. 
 Be satisfied ; be calm. The hour discretion 
 
 Demands ; since now, like wasp-invaded hive 
 Hillah with long-pent woes 
 And wrath o'erflows." 
 
8 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " Discretion ! " raved the Kadi. " For you, better 
 
 To tell at once, where in the ghoul-curst mounds 
 Our gains are hidden ! May of my begetter 
 
 The tomb be outraged, if our hard-won pounds 
 You have not seized, our plunder, our extortion ! 
 
 Think you for that I stultified my soul, 
 Burdened the rich and gave the widow's portion 
 
 To you my partner, flayed the orphan, dole 
 Took from the half-starved throng 
 And dealt them wrong ? " 
 
 " By Jacob's god and Isaac's hear me swear," 
 
 Returned the Jew, " the gold I clutcht was little. 
 'Tis mine ; I kept our common gains, as fair, 
 
 In one place, mine in other. May the spittle 
 Of Christian soil my beard, if false I speak." 
 
 " Dog," cried the Turk, " too well I know that truer 
 Than you is every outcast. Nay, your squeak 
 
 Betrays the lie. Now, be they more or fewer, 
 What coins you brought I share, 
 Else, Jew, beware ! " 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 9 
 
 The while they wrangled, who were less aware 
 
 That footsteps light were toward their voices turning ? 
 As Dervish robed, one came with fox-hke care 
 
 Atiptoe toward that entrance, and, on learning 
 Cause of dispute, and who they were that cried. 
 
 His serious visage in a smile distorted 
 And patiently bestowed himself aside, 
 
 As who before had with such comrades sported, 
 Wise when the shade to seek, 
 When act, when speak. 
 
 But Hand-of-Sultan spake no word. For glitter 
 
 Of eyeballs fell upon him from the shade. 
 He cried aloud. Ali, who thought it fitter, 
 
 Calmly with Gourred toward the partners made. 
 " Hamza the Kadi and you, foolish man, 
 
 Who know no more than let your soul immortal 
 Damn for poor metals that beyond the span 
 
 Of life go not, we sought this ancient portal 
 Harassed by silly fears 
 In timorous ears. 
 
lo Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " Right glad am I to have a thoughtful word 
 
 With men of mark who take the world so coarsely. 
 You, Hand-of-Sultan, like the migrant bird 
 
 That hither-thither journeys, shrieking hoarsely, 
 All shores defiling on its way, and you 
 
 Hamza, that should be to your town ensample 
 Of probity and rectitude so true 
 
 Great Solomon had given you praises ample. 
 What boots ye now the wealth 
 Acquired^y stealth ? 
 
 " Above your own selves had ye loved your fellows 
 
 What hosts of friends would circle you about 
 Guarding from danger ! How the folk, that bellows 
 
 For blood of judge and usurer, would shout 
 With joy to see in troublous times a chief ! 
 
 But now, when all behooves you to be strongest, 
 Ye are most weak. For who dare trust a thief? 
 
 Ye deem yourselves long-headed ; but the longest 
 Is that in which the heart 
 Has equal part." 
 
Consolation of the Eyes ii 
 
 " Pshaw, prophet ! " sharply quoth the judge surprised, 
 ' ' The world you know not. Think you men are grateful ? 
 The more you give, the more are you despised ; 
 
 Nay, at the last you are to them so hateful 
 They know not how to turn for calumny 
 
 Enough audacious wherewithal to bicker ; 
 And while they praise with hollow lips, you see 
 
 The small black tongue, two-pronged and venomous, 
 flicker 
 
 With sudden word of truth 
 Sharp and sans ruth." 
 
 " Swords are no longer potent in our age, 
 
 The chink of coin is sweeter than the clatter 
 Of bills on helms. We Moslems used to wage 
 
 Great wars ; but now all fights are distant patter 
 Of deadly lead, and there you lie, a lump. 
 
 For me, I see naught in the world save power 
 That office brings and money. Since the trump 
 
 Of martial days was stilled, the rich bestower 
 Earns fear and hope for more 
 With his great store." 
 
12 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " Ay " muttered Ali, sadly toward the ground 
 
 His student face with blush ingenuous drooping, 
 " We know your argument ; its every sound 
 
 Agrees, alas, with life. Are all not stooping 
 Beneath the rapine of some spoliator ? 
 
 Yet where's the end, unless some few begin 
 To think of others ? Sooner falls or later 
 
 The thunderbolt, and he who herds with sin 
 Throws by the summit sum 
 Of joys to come." 
 
 " Then, prophet, you do know, how every Kadi 
 
 Must grind below to feed the insatiate maw 
 Of upper lords. Who, caught within a wadi. 
 
 Declines the terms of men that laugh at law 
 Ambushed along the upper heights ? or wavers 
 
 At life or death ? In Stamboul there is one 
 Sits autocrat. In my own town it savors 
 
 Of strangeness, if I be not lord and sun, 
 Spender of praise or blame. 
 Honors or shame 1 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 13 
 
 " But ye — who are ye, that still seem in league 
 
 With some base Dervish ? And where learnt ye manners 
 That thus ye travel only to intrigue 
 
 And talk of subjects that the smiths or tanners 
 Scarce mention — hardly decent, trivial surely ? 
 
 Women ? Why, here, a father shuns the bath, 
 Mourns by himself, or walks apart demurely, 
 
 Disgraced, because a girl-child's born. My wrath 
 Is moved, when one so learned 
 Loves what is spurned." 
 
 " Hold, graceless one," so Gourred interfered. 
 
 Who could not hold her peace, for she was woman. 
 " Consider deeper. Who are so endeared 
 
 To men as their own mothers ? and what foeman 
 Is equal to the second wives who come 
 
 As peer or slave dismay to families bringing ? 
 Anguish they bear to those who made the home. 
 
 From mother's hands the household sceptre wringing, 
 Because they can enmesh 
 A weak man's flesh. 
 
14 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " And that vain man, what virtue sticks in him 
 
 When thus he can his dearest kindred worry ? 
 Why should his sons be grateful, strong of limb. 
 
 Valorous, forgiving, just, or less than sorry ? 
 And in the woman-ridden lands, where veils 
 
 They pose behind who rule (convenient curtain !) 
 How can the slave-born, tyrant-nurtured males 
 
 Of aught but slavish trickeries be certain ? 
 But men of weight like you 
 Unlike the crew 
 
 " Of crooked ones, should strive for something higher 
 
 Than power to gain a larger farm, a new 
 Armenian maid to clothe in rich attire, 
 
 With larger train a haughtier state pursue. 
 Were you more just, the women were mare wise ; 
 
 Were you more wise, the women were not master ; 
 Were you more chaste, the child would not despise ; 
 
 Were you more firm, there seldom fell disaster. 
 In highland tarn and lone 
 A little stone 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 15 
 
 " Drops from the cliff and circling ridge and hollow 
 
 Mirror the stars rocking from shore to shore. 
 Had we the eyes the widening rings to follow, 
 
 Acting and still reacting ever more, 
 What influences or for good or evil 
 
 Would we not find impressing many a trace I 
 So, as we choose the path of god or devil, 
 
 Leave we a fateful impress on our race. 
 Think, Kadi, what untold 
 Gladness you hold ! 
 
 ' ' The western wise men have a marvellous saying : 
 
 Behold the pinch of dust that thus I raise — 
 Out to the limits of the spheres is playing 
 
 The movement of my dust-pinch ! Naught betrays 
 The fact, yet man's intelligence can prove it. 
 
 Now, when you sin, when through the hapless boor 
 Your talons clutch, the whole world smarts. You move it 
 
 To hidden wrath, and in its entrails sure 
 Hatreds will hatch and breed. 
 Will match your greed." 
 
1 6 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 She ceased. Among the oblong squares of mound 
 
 They husht, and from the neighboring town a single 
 .Gunshot was heard. That was the only sound. 
 
 But how with golden moon-rays seemed to mingle 
 A fragrance odd ! Was it the distant meadow 
 
 Down by the stream ? Or yearned toward female dates 
 That bioom of loves which floats by light or shadow 
 Across the favoring gales from love-lorn mates ? 
 Her speech, the day, the hour 
 Had on them power. 
 
 Then spoke the Jew : " Had 1, O lovely Gourred, 
 
 Known what you were and who, I had not played 
 My game of intrigue, or with lies most horrid 
 
 Sought to entrap you. Rightly you upbraid 
 Hamza and me for wide-gangrening wrongs. 
 
 But what can I do ? In the Moslem nations 
 The Jew below the Christian dog belongs, 
 
 Friendless ; for us, however wiSe, no stations 
 Save those wherein by keehi 
 Trading we win I 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 17 
 
 " How should we Jews take firm and equal stand, 
 
 Get to us vineyards, farms, or dates and gardens 
 And drive root deep throughout the Turkish land, 
 
 When our sour gains, by those who should be wardens 
 Of honest folk, are torn from us ? When riots 
 
 Are stirred intentional to work us woe ? 
 When use is made of real or feigned disquiets 
 
 To squeeze our treasures ere they weighty grow ? 
 Jews must enjoy their wealth 
 Nightwise, by stealth. 
 
 "How many ages shall it please the Lord 
 
 Whose name we breathe not, his own folk to trouble ? 
 Our limbs are faint ; with stripes our backs are gored ; 
 
 Our hands must turn to merchandize ignoble. 
 Wealth in our tribes must jewels be, or gold, 
 
 Quickly from reach of plundering mobs transported ; 
 By deed and note our goods are bought and sold 
 
 And hid from sight. Thus, lowly, unescorted. 
 We pass in humble gown 
 From town to town. 
 
1 8 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " Filching the plunder from the men unjust 
 
 Moslem or Christian, who, for they are jealous, 
 Fain would reduce us to the beggar's crust ; 
 
 Revile us, poor, but hate us, rich ; and tell us 
 We cheat in trade ; who leave no other choice 
 
 Yet cry, ' How now, must usury be your passion ? ' 
 Then, when we close our doors against the noise 
 
 Of sneering tongues, reprove our narrow fashion 
 And, for a full redress, 
 Ask friendliness ! '' 
 
 To this what answer was there as they sate ? 
 
 The moon, upon the line of mounds descended, 
 Caught in the gap that was of old the gate. 
 
 Hung like a redshot pomegranate. Extended 
 Across his cloak the Kadi lay and sneered 
 
 To hear such trifling. " Have you done," demanded 
 The Turk and from his saddle-bow upreared 
 
 His bearded face, " Surely I seem new landed 
 Upon this earth, when so 
 Mad-bold ye grow ! 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 19 
 
 " Know ye, that Allah Christian, Jew and Persian 
 
 I 
 
 Made just for this — to serve the Turk as prey. 
 Lightly could Allah's prophet make conversion 
 
 Of all — but whom, then, were there left to flay ? 
 It is my fortune that I am a Turk ; 
 
 Yours that ye missed the only true salvation ; 
 Jews trade, and Persians are good craftsmen. Work 
 Your province is, and by some strange negation 
 Your wives will often bear 
 A girl-child rare. 
 
 " How dare ye 1 infidels, and Moslem worse 
 
 Than infidels, base Shyites, and schismatics ! 
 Why rail ye at our households ? Wherefore curse 
 
 The rules of life that wisest Asiatics 
 Have perfected for woman's law and letter ? 
 
 Know ye Koran ? And have ye learned perchance 
 That once Mohammed lived ? Ho, ye would better 
 
 The Only Book ? And what a pretty dance 
 Through public walks and games 
 Would lead our dames ! 
 
20 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 "Allah is great. What he has traced before 
 
 Upon the sky, that copy-book gigantic, 
 Can be by man's wit turned awry no more 
 
 Than tides along the Gulf. Then why so frantic 
 As hope to cast aside the fated yoke 
 
 About your necks ? Why, scholar, seek to meddle 
 With what the Pure Book has for all time spoke ? 
 
 Preach to your country sect of fools, that peddle 
 Their Persian corpses here — 
 And find a spear ! 
 
 " Still, as to women, were they oft, as you, 
 
 Gourred, both learn'd and quick of wit and clever, 
 I might be moved. But pish, how less than few 
 
 Can use their freedom rightly ! For they ever 
 Gabble, not talk. Are tyrants when they rule, 
 
 And still unhappy, ruling. Full of notions 
 And old- wife lore, they hate to go to school 
 
 To wiser heads. Grown children, from the potions 
 Of brainwork and its meats 
 They turn to sweets. 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 21 
 
 " Unbalanced, stuft with whims and naughtiness, 
 
 Thirsting for show, in pride of dress unbounded, 
 Teach them, and lo, they learn to use excess 
 
 In all their ways ; they grow not manlike rounded. 
 Harry them ; bind them by the foot ; and fetter 
 
 Their aimless wills by work and continence, 
 Keep from them perilous wisdom of the letter. 
 
 Turn them on things of dry material sense. 
 Or you will rue the hour 
 Woman won power ! " 
 
 " Who makes them so ? " exclaimed that lady zealous, 
 
 "The fooHsh men, the egotists who choose, 
 Because 'tis easier and because they're jealous. 
 
 To keep them ignorant ! For who'd abuse 
 One wiser than himself? Who cares to own 
 
 Slave far superior ? Who would be outwitted 
 By women, ay, outgeneralled and outshone ? 
 
 So short of sight, so base, are men, unfitted 
 To hold dominion coarse 
 Founded on force ! 
 
2 2 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 " Untaught, and falsely guarded by a sham 
 
 That lames the good deed and conceals the evil ; 
 Shamed and abused by husband, if a lamb'; 
 
 Shaming, abusive if she be a devil — 
 That is her fate ! And since ye men will blush 
 
 To hear the infamies of her ignorant jargon, 
 Why rail at her? why beat about the bush ? 
 
 Yours is the fault ; ye only win the bargain 
 Ye entered open-eyed 
 All for your side ! " 
 
 "Too warm of speech, O friend, and too indignant," 
 
 The prophet murmured. " Clashing brings forth light. 
 Female and male are earth and heaven. Malignant 
 
 They seem at times, yet both may move aright. 
 Are not the crystals, metals, elements 
 
 Male and not-male ? And through their fine collision 
 Lives not the earth ? Nay more, the world of sense — 
 
 What is it, save connection and division. 
 Contraction's, and, in course. 
 Expansion's force ? 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 23 
 
 "That Utter Unity within the whirl 
 
 Of stars, clouds, men, far as the eye can wander, 
 Must dual be before It moves. The pearl 
 
 Must differ from the pearl shell. We are fonder 
 Of our own comfort than to use endeavor 
 
 For truth at price of vanities and pride. 
 Nor man, nor woman rules the world forever. 
 
 Each rules in turn. And if too long the tide 
 Has set in man's way, swift 
 Back is the drift. 
 
 " Man's the provider, woman the enjoyer ; 
 
 Man the expansive, she the attractive force ; 
 He is the builder, woman the destroyer. 
 
 And from his weakness comes the child in course. 
 Man, woman, child — behold that Trinity 
 
 Which everywhere the heart of nature glasses, 
 Which speaks as well of herbs upon the lea 
 
 As those stupendous, unimagined masses 
 That swing beyond of men 
 The feeble ken. ..." 
 
24 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 His speech was cut by sudden entrance there 
 
 Of one the Kadi knew to his confusion. 
 " Hail, worthy sirs," so spake the Dervish rare, 
 
 " I seek the Sayid, but I fear intrusion 
 Now that these worshipful with him I see. 
 
 O generous Jew, O righteous Kadi, better 
 Are four men in this lonesome place than three. 
 
 But see, I took from one half dead a letter 
 Persian in look and smell — 
 Ah's, I spell ! " 
 
 " God quit you for this kindness," spake the seer, 
 
 And eagerly untied the fragrant missive. 
 "Alas," he cried, " and is the end so near ? 
 
 Gourred, to-morrow, if e'er yet submissive 
 To fate we were, to-morrow comes our test. 
 
 Our leader's taken. Turkmen without pity 
 That, swift as locust, do our Shah's behest. 
 
 Have come to hale us to the imperial city ; 
 Hither a secret raid 
 For us is made. 
 
Consolation, of the Eyes 25 
 
 " I see the streets. I feel the stones and blows 
 
 Of ruffian horsemen when to death I wander. 
 My hour is coming. Yea, your prophet goes 
 
 Before you, Gourred ; but not long to ponder 
 Upon my books shall you be left behind. 
 
 I see the room, where you, by women beaten, 
 Shall feel at last the grateful poniard grind 
 
 Its sharp tooth on that heart which longed to sweeten 
 Life for your sex ! O crime ! 
 O faith subhme ! " 
 
 " Nay, All," spake the Dervish with a mien 
 
 Traversed ; for once again the subtle schemer 
 Was troubled at the prophet. Ay, his keen 
 
 Nosing for lucre was by Persian dreamer 
 Strangely abashed. " Nay, we can hide you two 
 
 Where Persian hirelings not a trace discover. 
 Up, and away ! And let the judge and Jew 
 
 Be guard as well. I know a house that rover 
 Of ruins never found 
 Deep underground." 
 
26 Consolation of the Eyes 
 
 "Well could I trust you," sadly smiled the seer, 
 
 " But never yet have I been found in hiding. 
 My doom is sealed, and neither pride nor fear 
 
 Shall move me. Rather were I now deciding 
 Such thoughts momentous as the Kadi bold 
 
 Thinks one way, ye another. But behevers 
 In something higher than the precepts old 
 
 Koran once taught to heathens were deceivers 
 Were they to hide their light 
 Through pride or fright. ..." 
 
 So, still devising each a separate view. 
 
 They wore the hours, nor noted how the splendor 
 Of starshine thicker with that fragrance grew 
 
 Whereof unseen to eyesight was the spender. 
 Gourred of all was first to catch alarm, 
 
 For so narcotic was the scent increasing. 
 She roused herself, and, with uplifted arm 
 
 Gave Ali sign his descant to be ceasing. 
 Anger usurped a place 
 On her sweet face. 
 
Consolation of the Eyes 27 
 
 "Away," she murmured, " 'tis unwholesome here 
 
 To linger long in haunted mounds low-lying. 
 The peak is nigh whereto we ought, O seer. 
 
 To bend our steps. For there the ghost is sighing 
 For human comfort in his misery. 
 
 Who knows ? luxurious queens their influences 
 Here still may radiate with a sinful glee. 
 
 What odor dense my every nerve incenses ? 
 Why should this aimless hate 
 My bosom freight ? . . . " 
 
II 
 
 THE VISION OF ESTHER 
 
II 
 
 THE VISION OF ESTHER 
 
 Earth holds a crystal, which, before his eyes 
 
 When fixt aright, so charms the ominous lizard, 
 Nor heat he knows, nor cold ; he comes ; he flies, 
 
 Dancing or crouching as ordains the wizard. 
 Slave of his gaze, what boots it, though the curious 
 
 Sly beast shall drum with fairy claw the ground, 
 While on the green-gold of his side the furious 
 
 Heart-beats in sharpest agony rebound ? 
 By the strange radiance spelled 
 Fast is he held. 
 
32 The Vision of Esther 
 
 So sate those talkers suddenly o'ertaken 
 
 Within the mounds by thick narcotic scent 
 That moved each differently. The spot forsaken 
 
 Had Gourred gladly. But the Kadi leant 
 Entranced, and even Ali seemed to breathe 
 
 Voluptuous draughts. Behold, as she was speaking. 
 What roseate glow of color sought to wreathe 
 
 Its way from yonder mound ? What sight was seeking 
 Outlet, the gazer's mind 
 With blight to bhnd ? 
 
 A postern opened wide within the side 
 
 Of the mound largest looking toward the ocean. 
 A screen of clay appeared to stand aside 
 
 Noiseless, at once, as if it had not motion. 
 There lay a hall, soft lighted and most warm 
 
 With painted stone, and in the midst extended 
 On a divin there lay a woman's form. 
 
 Scarce on their lips the feathery words were ended, 
 Like the heat-lightning stroke 
 The vision broke. 
 
The Vision of Esther 33 
 
 No sound was heard. But were in deep-delved crypt 
 
 A hundred balls of musk and spikenard hoarded, 
 A sweeter, deadlier fragrance had not slipt 
 
 With sudden might upon the sense unguarded. 
 A scent too sweet and cloying came in wave 
 
 From her that lay there in a pose despotic ; 
 Ever on her were fixt their glances grave, 
 
 In sight immersed, and dulled by smell narcotic. 
 Along her crow's-wing hair 
 A red-gold pair 
 
 Of serpents lay in garland, and the arches 
 
 Of sandalled feet were bright with gems accurst, 
 Gems for which slaves had perished in long marches 
 
 By day and night across the Land of Thirst. 
 Disposed were garments all with trickery 
 
 To hint the lovely and to hide the ugly ; 
 Her eyelids stained, the skin that was to see 
 
 Shone foully bright, like cheeks of dames who smugly 
 Paint their poor timeworn jowls 
 And thatch their cowls. 
 
34 The Vision of Esther 
 
 She smiled. It made the heart revolve to note 
 
 The look of anguish in behind the lying, 
 As when a jest on shrivelled lips shall float, 
 
 The foulness known, and yet concealment trying. 
 A leaden grief was anchored in the eyes 
 
 Set in the smile that round about them wavered. 
 So Nature's miracles will bloom disguise 
 
 About the wreck of what was once well savored, 
 Ere sweet earth sucks the sting 
 From that loathed thing. 
 
 Not heeding Gourred, she transfixed the men 
 
 With suppliant look and turn of hand imperious. 
 Haughty and humble mixedly, as when 
 
 In gay assemblies by a force mysterious 
 A dame, who draws all gallants to her chair 
 
 With hidden hate all womanhood convulses ; 
 So, by a look, and gesture light as air 
 
 The silent spectre knew to sway the pulses, 
 To flatter or to vex 
 Each several sex. 
 
The Vision of Esther 35 
 
 " Ye shall not stir," insistently was heard 
 
 A shrill crackt voice from her who there was lying. 
 " I charge you wait until the matin bird 
 
 Shall scare the owl that all night long is crying 
 A whimpery note about my ancient home. 
 
 For I was Esther, and this cavern gloomy 
 Stands for my palace ; here one still might roam 
 
 Ever to meet a new hall square and roomy. 
 Fair am I yet ; behold ! 
 Ye think me bold ; 
 
 " But am I bold, if once a hundred years 
 
 Mine are three nights to catch an audience human 
 And lift by one confession made with tears 
 
 A thousand years of penance ? Only woman 
 Is harsh enough to her own sex to grudge it. 
 
 And yet to her, it may be, more than man 
 The story comes, unbuckled lies the budget. 
 
 Brief will I be, for many a time there ran 
 The tale that fills the spell. 
 Now listen well 
 
36 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " Whilst I review my marvellous career. 
 
 Many a king has laid his crown before me ; 
 And now that I for deeds of sin and fear 
 
 In penance live, I rouse full many a stormy 
 Unlovely passion in my victim souls. 
 
 When ye revolve a thought that hides from heaven 
 Its guilty face ; when dim lusts prick ; when moles 
 
 Are keener-eyed than consciences ; the leaven 
 Of vice thereunder I, 
 Esther, supply. 
 
 " I e.%% you on to shamelessness. I trifle 
 
 With. wanton jests. I stir the sleeping beast 
 Of sensuality that loves to rifle 
 
 Each flower of that which it can spare the least. 
 Why should I heed a pure mind's cry of need? 
 
 To force when I succumbed, did heaven then listen ? 
 Why should I care who grinds the human weed ? 
 
 Was I not crushed ? It boots not how you christen 
 The child whom planets pale 
 Have charged with bale. 
 
The Vision of Esther ^"j 
 
 " Sin is a quicksand. At its fair beginning 
 
 We seem to tread a wild, enchanted wood. 
 Dangers are merest spice and zest to sinning ; 
 
 Dormant emotions must be understood ! 
 Anon the thiclcet with its briery fingers 
 
 Hinders return, and lo, a sandy path 
 Beckons, and deep go silly feet ! Why lingers 
 
 The wand'rer now within the toils of wrath ? 
 Peace ; he has entered in 
 The quicksand, sin. 
 
 " And wrong I did ; but ah, was sinned upon 
 
 Far more than sinned. For could I dream of danger, 
 I, sworn to hold the fane of Babylon 
 
 Vestal untouched, and couching where no stranger 
 Might reach ; where only Ahram, or the lord 
 
 Of Shinaar and his eunuch could have entry ? 
 Was it my doing that the crime abhorred 
 
 Of Nimrod found my gates without their sentry? 
 Wherefore I say, too hard 
 My lot is starred. 
 
38 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " Why did I not destroy myself? Long after, 
 
 When Fate was kindly and I ruled in pride 
 All men save one, my insolent, wanton laughter 
 
 Husht suddenly. And then I fiercely cried, 
 Get ye from hence ! and quickly courts and garden 
 
 Whence all had fled traversing to the shore 
 Of holy Phraat, I there implored the pardon 
 
 Of him in whose eyes I might see no more 
 The old love passion-pale 
 That made me quail. 
 
 " O grassy leagues of dyked and channelled plain, 
 
 Blushing with one wide sea of generous flowers, 
 God-given, cast unstintedly, a main 
 
 Of waving loveliness ! Where now the powers 
 That once ye had to hold my soul in bondage 
 
 To purity and meekness ? Woe is me, 
 There was a day when in the tamarisk frondage 
 
 Whispers of fay had told me how to flee 
 The bold, unmaiden path 
 That ends in wrath ! 
 
The Vision of Esther 39 
 
 " I moaned, ' Ah wave opaque, that ceaseless wandered 
 
 From out my native hills, we both were clean 
 When at your nymph-delighting source I pondered 
 
 On him more slender than the cypress green. 
 A child, I dabbled with my guiltless feet 
 
 Your silvery sands ; next, a self-conscious maiden, 
 I turned me shyly from an accent sweet, 
 
 Most noble, clear, with buds of a passion laden. 
 And chid with angry start 
 My swelling heart. 
 
 " ' But where you leapt with crystal laughter down 
 
 The danksome rocks, his arm was once a cushion 
 To my lean cheek. I mind the little gown 
 
 That hid my budding womanhood. Discussion 
 Soft, long and low for many an hour ensued. 
 
 And, while I sat all blissfulness, his real 
 Far-reaching plans like fairy charms were brewed 
 
 Within the cauldron of that soul ideal. 
 O muddy wave, I fear 
 You are my bier ! 
 
40 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " 'Take me away, as once they downward hurried 
 
 Those flowers he pulled, those flowers for luck I cast, 
 Hurry me down and let my bones be buried 
 
 In coral grove, anchored so deep and fast 
 Earth shall forget a woman who was molded 
 
 For cheerier ways, but who by destinies 
 Dismal, despotic, is each day enfolded 
 
 In meshes new of loathly infamies, 
 Bear to an unseen grave 
 Your playmate, wave ! * 
 
 " I could not drown me. 'Twas to leave the land 
 
 Of wealth and power, of Nimrod's care and passion, 
 Ay, and of him whose lightest breathed command 
 
 Was more to me than living. I would fashion 
 My days to tending of the goodly plants 
 
 On high-piled mounds that Nimrod, kind and eager, 
 Bade rise for me, when once I looked askance 
 
 And chid his plain for prospect flat and meagre. 
 And oftener still with me 
 Bitsu would be, 
 
The Vision of Esther 41 
 
 " Bitsu the eunuch, most disdained by Ahram, 
 
 In the hot months beguiled the weary term 
 With tale and song and to his monarch's harem 
 
 Was friend and comrade, yet a judge most firm. 
 Woe to the lord that overstepped the mark ! 
 
 Death to the lady by love's daring shaken ! 
 His hapless fate had crushed the smallest spark 
 
 Of pity for a lover. Yet mistaken 
 
 Were they that deemed him sad, 
 Cruel or bad. 
 
 " Some petty vanities of lengthened tresses, 
 
 A love of sweets, a womanish rolling gait, 
 Fondness for woven work, and games, and dresses, 
 
 Envy and obstinate sharpness in debate. 
 These were his foibles, vastly overborne 
 
 By kindliness and courtesy, that even 
 To those befell whom others held in scorn. 
 
 His staring eyes, broad face and gems had given 
 Chance for a man to smile, 
 But not revile. 
 
42 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " Yet Ahram loathed him and the king derision 
 
 Could not suppress, because he was, forsooth, 
 By others' crime a eunuch. 'Tis a vision 
 
 Clear to me still, yet strangely gilt, in truth, 
 That time when in my ear three minds most jarring 
 
 Poured their complaints. Wife, leman — which was I ? 
 Friend, or all three ? My feelings all were warring 
 
 For Ahram ; Nimrod was my firm ally, 
 While to the eunuch kind 
 Grew my strange mind. 
 
 " For know, that I of women all was highest 
 
 On Shinaar plain, was goddess both and queen, 
 Priestess to boot and could by right be nighest 
 
 The sunfane glittering with its dangerous sheen. 
 In Ishtar's hall, or where the moonstone glowed 
 
 I awed the curious of the pilgrim nations ; 
 Took their rich gifts and trumpery bestowed ; 
 
 Or drove them forth in my divine impatience ; 
 So quick was I to learn 
 A bearing stern. 
 
The Vision of Esther 43 
 
 " And all moved smoothly. Ahram's even sway 
 
 Upbore the King, and as a wild-beast charmer 
 Walks 'mid his pets so long as watchful play 
 
 His eyes, and still they cringe before their harmer ; 
 Thus did he walk among the priests that sprang 
 
 From the swart race of Bitsu or their victor. 
 Whilst each divan with his own praises rang 
 
 And whilst each priest served gladly as a lictor, 
 Hatred and envy green 
 Gnawed at their spleen. 
 
 " And I ? Would God, my sight had lost its ray. 
 
 My sinews snapped, my tongue at root had rotted, 
 Before I yielded to the downward way ! 
 
 For what are we, by jealousies besotted, 
 But beast or demon ? In his loneliness 
 
 No help was I to Ahram ; but the rather 
 A foe than friend ; and, in his worst distress 
 
 Mine was the task about his head to gather 
 The clouds that breed and well 
 From depths of hell. 
 
44 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " On the first day of seven the suppliants 
 
 Might not approach the temple seven times storied. 
 Be sure on such a day it was not chance 
 
 That found me in the moon-fane. Bitsu -worned 
 My mind with hints mysterious, full of terror 
 
 To one who cared for Ahram. It was noised 
 That Symbess holy as a message-bearer 
 
 Had come from towns Chaldsean, full advised 
 On points of public weal, 
 Black, full of zeal. 
 
 " For fifty years no mantle of the gloaming 
 
 Settling on Ur had failed to find him there 
 In the moon's gloomy triple fane, the coming 
 
 Of each new star with strange marks to compare 
 Made on soft brick by wise men of the past. 
 
 Wherefore so grew his fame among the nations 
 His word seemed law. Not Nimrod dared to cast 
 
 On the star-gazer contumely, whose patience 
 Of planets caught the tunes 
 And read their runes. 
 
The Vision of Esther 45 
 
 " Men tell how once, when hill-tribes strong and cunning 
 
 Invested Ur and on the citadel 
 Poured their grim hordes, victorious warriors running 
 
 With glut of wounds along the temple, fell 
 Remorseless on the close-packed fugitives. 
 
 But when they came where Symbess gazed unguarded 
 Unheeding on the star-points, for their lives 
 
 The cut-throats fled. Not one was so heart-harded 
 To strike, or bind, or ask 
 What meant his task. 
 
 "Wherefore with crush and popular adoration, 
 
 To Nimrod bitterer than a pompous train. 
 The folk to surly Symbess made ovation ; 
 
 Ahram to meet him at the gate was fain. 
 Then in Jove's house, because at Babylon 
 
 Jove was the patron, there ensued a greeting, 
 And then it was for me my boldness won 
 
 A place beside my husband in the meeting. 
 Since I as priestess came 
 None dared to blame. 
 
4-6 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " By Ahram's look (it sent no more the glow 
 
 Of old on mine) I saw the event might jeopard 
 His marshalled plans ; and well I guessed the foe 
 
 That lurked behind the Chaldee, as the leopard 
 Slinks by the house to catch the watch-dog sleeping. 
 
 Cloudy was Nimrod, and the stolid face 
 Of Bitsu had a twitch that sent a creeping 
 
 Up to my hair. With ceremonial grace 
 The established phrases made, 
 Thus Symbess said : 
 
 " ' Nimrod, your father knew me. It was I 
 
 Who taught you runes from bricks by ages mumbled, 
 And how to read the portents of the sky, 
 
 Of men upraised to heaven, of demons humbled. 
 I am your kinsman. If a paler tribe 
 
 Has crossed your veins, your swarthy father's nation 
 Is mine. I know them. From the crown to kibe 
 
 I know each chief of whatsoever station, 
 Know what they hate and fear, 
 What gives them cheer. 
 
The Vision of Esther 47 
 
 " ' They grumble. Not at you nor at the state 
 
 Set up at Babel, for that state's your pleasure. 
 But that through alien hand a pitiless fate 
 
 Swoops from the sky, and lo, their every treasure 
 Of gold is robbed ; their brass by rust is eaten ; 
 
 Their cattle starve ; their wives destroy the child ; 
 With soundless whips their backs at night are beaten ; 
 
 By clammy ghosts their virgins are defiled ; 
 Their strong boys puny grow 
 Pined by some woe. 
 
 " ' Wrath, wrath ! woe, woe, to folk of plain and mountain 
 
 Who change the throne-rank of the heavenly kings ! 
 Great Ahram's pyramid has proved a fountain 
 
 Of pains of flesh, of fear of mind that stings 
 More horribly than adder. How ! the rover 
 
 Who, first-born and most cruel, rules the night 
 Below the sun and air abased ! moreover 
 
 As woman worshipped ! Such is now the plight 
 Of that bright god who spelled 
 Great lore to eld. 
 
48 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " ' Fear ye nought, then, that, worse than ghoul-hyena 
 
 Which upturns graves, confounds the ranks of dead, 
 The moongod he insults on this arena 
 
 Where all the gods are offered fane and bed ? 
 Whence the new solar lore that ranks him lower ? 
 
 Are ye prepared to brave his coming wrath ? 
 Know ye not, centuries have proved his power 
 
 And, for far less, my mighty sovereign hath 
 Broken to fragments those 
 Subjects or foes ? 
 
 " ' Listen. For soon the cycle of Sixty Years 
 
 Shall close and twice I'll Saturn see resplendent. 
 Thrice in the vault an awful sign appears 
 
 Pointing to slumbering Saturn, whose descendant 
 Was Kush, your father. I am here to warn 
 
 Your city that he nears the time of waking. 
 Fear ! should he find the moongod held in scorn 
 
 We all are lost ! What then will boot your quaking ? 
 Your victims what will boot 
 Human or brute ? ' 
 
The Vision of Esther 49 
 
 " Then Ahram moved to answer, but the eunuch 
 
 Cried boldly, ' Peace, the King of Kings would speak ! ' 
 A heavy sigh that shook his purple tunic 
 
 Forewarned me why fierce Nimrod's mien was meek. 
 ' Symbess,' he spake, ' and you my wise vizier, 
 
 Esther my queen-wife and mine eyeball's apple, 
 Last night I dreamed a dream. Lo, standing here 
 
 I saw the moon beyond the wargod's chapel 
 Barred like a golden cage ! 
 Tell me, O sage, 
 
 " ' What that portends ! Anon it made approach 
 
 Slowly and surely through the night-air floating 
 And see, one sate, as I in royal coach 
 
 Within, but frightful visaged he, and gloating 
 With outthrust tongue and fiery'roUing eyes ! 
 
 It was a cage, and lo, without no longer 
 I sat within, long-robed, in woman's guise, 
 
 Hemmed by the circling bars. But still the stronger 
 
 I willed to burst away. 
 
 The stronger they. . . . ' 
 3 
 
50 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " Quick spoke the starman: ' That dream was from god, 
 
 The awful god for whom I hold my vigils, 
 Burn the first-born of house and herd and clod, 
 
 Rasp my poor limbs with redhot, brazen strigils. 
 That was a warning of the moongod's wrath 
 
 Because, most male, you worship him as woman, 
 But, since another brought you from the path. 
 
 He wills in mercy by such means to summon 
 His servant, King of Kings, 
 Before he flings 
 
 " ' All pity by ; and, as th' afreet that founders 
 
 Our well-pitched barks a little while withdraws 
 In a dark cloud, then on the white-wave bounders 
 
 Crashes with weight of mountains ; but his paws 
 Rend the tough sail and with the slim yards battle, 
 
 Drag at the seams and hurl the oars aw^y, 
 Pound the long masts, and in the balast rattle. 
 
 Nor can his wrath man's curse or seacraft stay — 
 Such a clear bolt from the blue 
 Soon shall smite you.' 
 
The Vision of Esther 51 
 
 " ' Whither to turn ? ' cried Nimrod, pale as ashes. 
 
 Ah, at that word what loathing overcame 
 Me that was queen, the former slave whom lashes 
 
 Might well have greeted, had fate willed the same ! 
 Ahram I worshipped ; but for Nimrod kind 
 
 Till that fell hour I nursed a princely passion, 
 Deeming him royal both in heart and mind. 
 
 But now — what now ? — in low ignoble fashion 
 He paled, all pride forsook, 
 He quailed, he shook. 
 
 " There stood the man who, not in royal way 
 
 But like a thief had seized upon my jewel. 
 I saw it all. He did not kinglike say : 
 
 ' Esther and all is mine ; I'm kind or cruel, 
 Just as I choose. But fear ! why fear's a feeling 
 
 I know not of ! ' God ! There he stood, a king, 
 And knocked his knees to, as he would be kneeling 
 
 To that thin monster, that black, shrivelled Thing 
 That called itself a sage 
 Chaldsean mage ! 
 
52 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " Then my indignant glances ran for aid 
 
 From face to face ; lo, Ahram's firmset features. 
 My heart leapt in me. He was not afraid ! 
 
 That saw I, and before him all these creatures 
 Of bulky limbs and tawny skins appeared 
 
 Mere flimsy rags, mere scarecrows, ay, mere empty 
 Wineskins aright for nothing save be steered 
 
 Inflated o'er the rivers. Though he dreamt, he 
 Had nerve a trembling spell 
 By sense to quell. 
 
 " ' Beware, O Nimrod,' weighed the protest steady 
 
 Of Ahram, ' lest of this you make too much. 
 Symbess is zealous for his god. Already 
 
 Stout Bitsu seizes on a chance to grutch. 
 'Tis true the moongod shrines below the sun, 
 
 But more magnificently. Not Chaldseans 
 Alone ruled Kush ; by might another won 
 
 And wit for sungod precedence. Our paeans 
 Alike arise to heaven 
 For each of seven. 
 
The Vision of Esther 53 
 
 " ' But moonrites old so bloody were, so fiendish. 
 
 They maimed the kingdom with their murderer stress. 
 Now, when we bid them here to sup, a clean dish 
 
 Their palate suits not, used to loathsomeness. 
 Wherefore they seek to frighten you with fables 
 
 Of coming wrath. It may be, wrath is nigh. 
 But if it be, the horse to bear it stables 
 
 In these same walls. It is not you, nor I, 
 Nor god, nor sage, nor town 
 Shall bring you down. 
 
 " ' 'Tis your own self, your appetites unruly, 
 
 Worse than all foes or friends, all outer ills, 
 Asian horse-tribes, or jinn that falsely, truly. 
 
 Grips at the throat, the life-blood slowly spills. 
 There lies your sickness. Not because a mage 
 
 Of Chaldee, worn with fasting and disjointed 
 With actual life, has spelled some lying page 
 
 Of ancient dreamer, nor because, anointed 
 With costlier oils, in heaven 
 One envies seven ! ' 
 
54 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " At that there shook a sudden spasm the tower 
 
 As if, below, a demon raised his hand 
 In yes or no. Again with horrid power 
 
 The building swayed as though it were a wand. 
 Then a third time so violently was shaken 
 
 The fabric strong, that from their places fell 
 Tripods and cornices. Their flight had taken 
 
 All priests and underhngs. With frightful yell 
 Outward the doors they swept 
 And earthward leapt. 
 
 " And, pale through olive skin, and hurrying downward 
 
 Came Anna, virgin vestal of the fane 
 That, highest reared, looked ever plain and townward : 
 
 ' Ahram,' she cried, ' Fly, ere we all are slain ! 
 Long have I known that some unearthly badness 
 
 Taints all this pile and waits occasion sure 
 To help the fiends abhorrent of all gladness. 
 
 Long have I known it, but I hoped by pure 
 Prayers and a blameless life 
 To lame the strife ! 
 
The Vision of Esther 55 
 
 " ' It has begun. Hence ! Save yourselves, O queen, 
 
 Bitsu-and Nimrod, ere the ruin crashes ! 
 Flee ! As for me, if my poor life can screen 
 
 Yours from a quick extinction, can my ashes 
 Hope for a nobler monument ? Despair ! 
 Will ye not fly ? ... ' 
 
 To her then Ahram fearless : 
 ' Nay, courage, Anna ! Fear not, ye that share 
 Fright at this trembling ; ye may all be careless. 
 It comes not from the god, 
 But from the clod. 
 
 " 'Beyond this plain, below the distant mountains, 
 
 Are realms of flame that sometimes smite their bounds 
 And solid roofs, and sometimes rise in fountains 
 
 Of molten metals ; but the level grounds 
 Shake with that uprush. Thus it fares to-day. 
 
 Not differently from what has happed beforetime. 
 Banish your pallors ; drive your frights away. 
 
 Before you lies perchance a different sore time, 
 Than earthquake sorer far 
 Or angry star ! . . . ' 
 
56 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " But when in woodland loneliness to braves 
 
 Come sounds for which their minds want categories — 
 Groans, or loud clashings, or the dash of waves 
 
 That seem ghost-made — terror is up ! Who glories 
 In courage then ? Where now the undaunted front 
 
 Of boasters, where the heart that fears no spirit ? 
 Then turns each face, and, victims in a hunt 
 
 Where none pursue, the hunters fly — and swear it 
 Was Pan whose awful force 
 Hurried their course. 
 
 "The words of Ahram were as useless now. 
 
 Nimrod by fright insensate was disabled 
 From rational thought. His late imperious brow 
 
 Was wrinkled two ways. At a danger fabled 
 He gazed around, as if at elbow stood 
 
 Avenging ghosts, and miserably he stuttered: 
 ' See that our god be sated. He is good. 
 
 He will not slay the king through whom was uttered 
 Full many a sigh and groan 
 Before his throne ! 
 
The Vision of Esther 57 
 
 " ' Useless to hope that he will stay his horrid 
 
 Avenger sword, crooked like the baleful moon, 
 Knobbed with a star, the edge whereof was quarried 
 
 From the first flinty heart of the world, now grown 
 Soft and too crumbly ! Find we what he asks ! 
 
 He may not be relentless. Ye bestowers 
 Of wisdom, ponder what this portent masks 
 
 And give advice to turn the fate that lowers 
 With visage drear upon 
 His faithful son ! ' 
 
 " Whereat glad Bitsu proffered this, most eager : 
 
 'I know the means to turn him to your friend, 
 O King of Kings ! For many a month a leaguer 
 
 Lay round the walls of holy Ur ; the end 
 Whereof was this : our ancient foes that nestle 
 
 In Elam's hills made breaches and the town 
 Took by the sword. What cared we that each vessel 
 
 And gem they seized ? The city's pride and crown 
 
 They captured where the slain 
 
 Blocked the high fane. 
 3* 
 
58 The Vision of Esther 
 
 " ' The effigy it is of that high king 
 
 Who rules the night, in blackest ebon suited ; 
 Thick-limb and great-head, with a batlike wing 
 
 For either ear ; 'tis knock-knee and splay-footed ; 
 Below the breastbone hangs the disky vizard 
 
 Swelled in grimace, with thick and grinning jaws, 
 Puft cheeks, the rheumy eyeballs of the grizard 
 
 Whose looks affright in tender children cause, 
 Midst of the which is hung 
 A broad red tongue 
 
 " ' Lolled through four tushes of an elephant. 
 
 His hairs are worms ; his chaplet two grim meeting 
 Constrictor snakes ; below his kneepans gaunt 
 
 Woven of serpents lies a fallen sheeting. 
 But he is naked. From him ugliness 
 
 Spurts like a sword and pierces to the marrow. 
 Foes are undone, and yet his sight will bless 
 
 The barren woman in her lonely sorrow. 
 The child to deck her tomb 
 Leaps in the womb. 
 
The Vision of Esther 59 
 
 " ' This effigy, O King of Kings, has long 
 
 From Ur been missed. The walls are higher builded, 
 Brighter the gems, and lordlier dance and song. 
 
 Still victims bleed ; the shrines are richer gilded. 
 But the great god loves not his fane ; since ever 
 
 He haunts his image far beyond the hill 
 With savage men, who know not how by clever 
 
 Devices new his hungry maw to fill. 
 Hence the poor race that begs 
 He hates and plagues. 
 
 " ' Now I advise, and trust that holy man 
 
 Symbess the saint will meet my counsel fully, 
 That we nor rest, nor sup with couch and fan, 
 
 Till we chastise the Elamites unruly. 
 Wresting the image of the potentate 
 
 Of awesome night from farthest fane and borough 
 Among their hills, and, answering hate with hate. 
 
 Appease the moongod with atonement thorough, 
 With what he most doth prize — 
 Man-sacrifice ! ' 
 
Ill 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF THE HAND 
 
Ill 
 
 THE TEMPLE OF THE HAND 
 
 "Now all the town with stir of preparation 
 
 Hummed like the caves where bees begin to swarm. 
 Mourned all the tribe of Ahram. What elation 
 
 Felt priests and warriors at the approaching storm ! 
 These were for increase of their too great power ; 
 
 Those were for booty in defenceless lands ; 
 Nimrod, unstrung, did naught all day but lower, 
 
 Save when he mustered haggard-eyed his bands.. 
 Who was to hold the sway 
 No man might say. 
 
64 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 "Then took I counsel of my soul and, asking 
 
 For Ahram, decked myself in glittering weed ; 
 Thinking to broach a thought, had long been tasking 
 
 My untrained wits. Long had I seen the need 
 Of some great temples, than the tower other, 
 
 Temples less tall, but easier of access. 
 And chiefly sacred to the heavenly mother 
 
 Of gods, mysterious Chaos, at whose stress 
 Sprang the great gods to life. 
 To love, to strife. 
 
 " I was a wife. But ah, the gods capricious 
 
 Gave me no more. The humblest palace wench 
 A son might bear and hear the cries delicious 
 
 That hail his advent. She might proudly quench 
 Her love for praise, that thirst which always harries 
 
 The childless wife to gaze upon her own, 
 The son whose piety a little parries 
 
 The vengefulness of ghosts when she is gone. 
 Wherefore against my harm 
 Planned I a charm. 
 
The Temple of the Hand 65 
 
 " One brain could help me. But from Ahram's palace 
 
 Came word that he within the tower had stayed. 
 Wherefore well-pleased and neither sad nor jealous 
 
 Thither fared I. But never a fane displayed 
 His well-known form, straight-backed, with clean, broad 
 curvings 
 From neck to crown, and that wide head in dome. 
 The puissant chin, eye-sockets whence no swervings 
 But clean rays shot, the brow for Jove a home ! 
 Quite to the moon-fane borne 
 I stood forlorn. 
 
 " Hoarsely arose the chant of moving swarms 
 
 From pilgrims who, about the tower faring, 
 Sunwise from right to left renewed their charms, 
 
 Trod and retrod their circle, not despairing 
 To win god's ear by infinite repetition. 
 
 Their litanies vexatious moved my spleen. 
 Their senseless prayers and abject dull contrition 
 
 Roused a strange fury that endowed my mien 
 With wrath at which each maid 
 Cowered afraid. 
 
66 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " Then, for my sins, I listened. From above me 
 
 His accents fell, and all at once it seemed 
 The earth spun round. The man who scorned to love me 
 
 Had other loves ! The maid I had not dreamed 
 Could rouse a passion was his confidant, 
 
 Heard his deep voice, and in his friendship revelled. 
 For know, the upmost air-fane could not want 
 
 Its virgin bride and when my crime had levelled 
 Me to a lower sphere 
 They found a mere 
 
 " Mask of a girl, a very child, the swarthy 
 
 Spawn of an Ethiope ; hostage of a king. 
 She, when her father warred again, unworthy 
 
 Of death was deemed, a young and useless thing. 
 How comes it ? Trifles can o'erthrow our mind 
 
 And steep our heart with rage that flares the higher 
 The more one knows it foolish. Blind ; not blind 
 
 Because we see our blindness ; in the mire 
 Of hate we flounder on, 
 Most lost, least won. 
 
The Temple of the Hand 67 
 
 " I dared not further go ; but full of wrath 
 
 My voice came while his dearest name I uttered. 
 Then first I heard myself and knew the path 
 
 I trod was wrong ; for in the sound there fluttered 
 The note of harshness that disturbs your ears. 
 
 And so I cried. But he with fixt attention 
 Heard not at once ; whereat my silly fears 
 
 Doubled, and huskily I scarce could mention 
 My want for angry shame 
 When down he came. 
 
 " He stared upon my rolling eyes and quivering 
 
 Rebellious chin, as who could understand 
 But would not. Quietly himself delivering 
 
 Of earnest speech : ' Queen of the sea and land, 
 I know your wish. There lies no harm to others 
 
 In further fanes, if souls thereby are drawn 
 From these sad rites and filthy which my brothers 
 
 Of Chaldee favor. They so scare and fawn 
 They thrust the king and folk 
 Beneath their yoke.' 
 
68 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " But coolness such as that inflamed the wound 
 
 Of my poor pride, and from my lips a torrent 
 Of imprecation and invective found 
 
 A foaming birth. Though listening self-abhorrent 
 I poured great wrath on Anna, when, in sooth, 
 
 No cause had I on her to spill my poison. 
 Save that untouched by blame she passed her youth 
 
 While rank for me was grown the deadly foison. 
 'Tis hard to cool the brew 
 Of wrath that's new. 
 
 " The more I raged, the colder grew the seer. 
 
 ' How dare you toy with her ? ' — ' Great queen, such 
 phrases 
 Become you not as sovereign, nor as mere 
 
 Kinswoman mine ! ' — ' Tis you whose pride amazes 
 All Babylon ! ' — ' I care not for the chatter 
 Of dusky street folk, or the palace clack. 
 My heart is fixed on many a lofty matter 
 The steadier now, because about my track 
 You help the gins to lay 
 That me shall slay.' 
 
The Te?nple of the Hand 69 
 
 " ' 'Tis false,' I cried. ' But you aside are turning. 
 
 I speak of Anna whom you keep so chaste.' — • 
 ' Rail not,' he cried with visage hotly burning, 
 
 ' For souls exist who live not when disgraced.' — 
 ' What ? do you taunt me ? ' — ' I but speak the truth 
 
 And will not hear the innocent degraded ! ' 
 Gone was my patience. With the cry uncouth 
 
 Of lioness, her lionets invaded, 
 I sprang insensate toward 
 That form adored 
 
 " While from my hair a long bright needle whipping 
 
 Iron-adamant, forged by a secret art, 
 I rushed on Ahram, my keen weapon gripping 
 
 With fatal clutch. Till then to every part 
 My furious eyes were rolling ; but his own 
 
 Evaded had, ashamed to meet them squarely. 
 Rage lent them force. I looked — and on me shone 
 
 Two tranquil stars whose beam unflinching fairly 
 Stayed my infuriate hand, 
 My onrush banned. 
 
70 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' Esther,' quoth he, all sympathy intone, 
 
 ' What change is here ? Alas, how sharp, untender 
 Must I have been if wrath like this be shown ! 
 
 Forgive me. Ah, I do not treat the gender 
 Of fitful women as they will and ask. 
 
 To me, dull, careless one, they seem enigmas ; 
 Though I can read beyond the starry mask, 
 
 They trouble me. But still the vulgar stigmas 
 I take not. 'Tis for me 
 To find the key.' 
 
 " But I, unnerved and cast myself upon, 
 
 Much by his glance, more by his gracious phrases. 
 Found vent of tears and thence to smiles I won. 
 
 So blackest cloud about the bright sun raises 
 Its leaguer soon. Hardly could I confess 
 
 The joy I knew, the comfort in that weeping. 
 'Twas as in spring on fields that bore the stress 
 
 Of icy mail : their burthen cracks, and sweeping 
 Streamwards across the lea 
 Seeks the far sea. 
 
The Temple of the Hand yi 
 
 " So peace returned, and, parting from the tower 
 
 With Ahram nearest by my palanquin, 
 I sought my house and there whate'er in dower 
 
 Of grace was mine I used his heart to win. 
 On my own cushion must he strictly lean. 
 
 For him the costliest love-cup was uncovered, 
 And near at hand, and scarce behind the screen, 
 
 I sat, while maids and slaves about me hovered 
 Watching for a sign or glance 
 His ease to enhance. 
 
 " ' O queen, all dearer for the slender strain 
 
 Of kindred blood that streaks your veins of azure, 
 A year has gone. 'Tis error to refrain 
 
 So long from friendly converse, when the pleasure 
 Is doubly felt. But serious is my mind. 
 
 Awkward my neck and always to our courtly 
 Prostrations were these shoulders disinclined. 
 
 Perchance I err when sneering at the portly 
 Eunuch to see him cringe 
 Like well-oiled hinge. 
 
7.2 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' Perchance I err a thousand ways. The haughty 
 
 Are often foohshest when most they glow 
 With indignations bravest ! Ah, the naughty 
 
 Inherent traits that in our being flow ! 
 How much is us ? How much do we inherit 
 
 From curse ancestral ? Who will walk that road ? 
 Whose fault our sins ? Whose claim our seldom merit ? 
 
 Such problems hound me like the hawks that goad 
 The silly mountain sheep 
 Down the sheer steep. 
 
 " ' Consider Nimrod, who to his own pack 
 
 Must add the nameless doings of his sires. 
 Must he not blench, when, with a sudden crack, 
 
 His tower shudders, and from unseen fires 
 Rolls a strange sultriness about his town ? 
 
 Why should not he, when for myself I shudder, 
 Ay, and for you ; since mortals all but drown 
 
 Daily in sin ? A death by fire, or flood, or 
 By sand blast's gnawing burn 
 Right well they earn.' 
 
The Temple of the Hand y;^ 
 
 " 'Nay, nay,' I soothed, ' no more upon that sorrow ; 
 
 For I am weak and only long to hear 
 Tales of your journeys ; let the mournful morrow 
 
 Consume its sadness, but to-day is near 
 For happier themes. Let politics be banished ; 
 
 Let morals go ; let milk once spilt be spilt. 
 I am so gay ; my anger all is vanished. 
 
 Tell of the temples that repair all guilt, 
 And liberal givers bless 
 With fruitfulness ! ' 
 
 " Quoth Ahram : ' They who worship most the moon 
 
 Lack learning taught within the temple college 
 By Nile's broad flood. For though in many a rune 
 
 'Tis writ that tribes of Egypt got their knowledge 
 From men of Chaldee ; yet the moss of ages 
 
 Passed in reflection on the soul of things 
 Has burgeoned there a family of such sages 
 
 As Asia knows not. Every moment brings 
 Its lesson deep and true 
 With symbols new. 
 
74 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' And though the sun be high, or travelled far 
 
 Below the horizon, every hour is holy 
 And has its name, a temple, priest and star 
 
 To hallow it. Yet are they melancholy. 
 They think too small. The memory is stifled 
 
 With names of the sun, his attributes and times. 
 
 Ah, wondrous lore, that has, unwieldy, trifled 
 With its own wealth ! Their thought no longer climbs ; 
 O'erfraught by useless things, 
 Down droop its wings. 
 
 " ' I viewed their halls and gateways grandiose, 
 
 Vast pillar forests, walls with statues gilded, 
 Rough shaped and polished by a myriad blows 
 
 Of chisels small by gentlest craftsmen wielded. 
 Brilliant with stuffs and painting were they, too ;■ 
 
 But how unhuman, how remote from passions 
 Of men, how hard to love or fear the crew 
 
 Of gods their lifeless symbolism fashions 
 When full of art and song 
 The pilgrims throng ! 
 
The Temple of the Hand 75 
 
 " ' For us none such. Hear. I once thought to follow 
 
 As architect a plan which thus I framed : 
 At yonder hill I had design to hollow 
 
 The patient earth. If memory be not lamed 
 I can expose the full device. Hereafter 
 
 Should leisure serve and Nimrod give the aid 
 That plan may live ; each pillar, wall and rafter 
 
 Shall move in place as though for that 'twere made. 
 Thus shall we build your fane 
 The gods to chain : 
 
 " ' First through the mound we open up a tunnel 
 
 Paces three hundred and a path align 
 Called Way of Reason ; be it like a funnel 
 
 To pour in light upon the broad design. 
 From midst whereof at angles right we open 
 
 Another path one hundred paces twice, 
 Then all the square which thus the paths have shopen 
 
 Shall be made smooth and laid with bricks in dice — 
 Which second path of state 
 Is called, of Fate. 
 
76 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' The square shall be a central courtyard merely 
 
 Whereon shall stand six temples low and tall. 
 Now at the great gates when you stand, and clearly 
 
 The whole review, against the righthand wall 
 Abuts the largest temple, that of Venus, 
 
 Squared true and reared on columns multiplied 
 And triple-tiered, nor ever of the genus 
 
 Of slender fanes, but always deep and wide. 
 And, next, without a stain, 
 The lunar fane 
 
 " ' Half triangle and semicircle half. 
 
 Whereof a portico is all the former ; 
 The latter, one tall penthouse nave. The staff 
 
 That carries Nimrod's banner-sign, the stormer 
 In battle stress, may never reach its ceiling. 
 
 But from the gateway, leftward as you come, 
 The two-domed fane with which at first you're dealing 
 
 Is Jupiter's, and next is Saturn's home 
 In sand-glass figure shown 
 That lies o'erthrown. 
 
The Temple of the Hand jy 
 
 " ' And Saturn's fane be windowless, a dark 
 
 Thick mass of lofty pillars and ogival 
 Arches, the like of those that in the stark 
 
 Dense winter-woods frown in their gloom primeval 
 Weighted with tons of overspreading snow. 
 
 But by it, poised in air above the trouble 
 Of crawling men and casting down a glow, 
 
 A sphery dome, light as the buoyant bubble, 
 That half appears divine 
 Yet firm of line. 
 
 " 'That one shall be, like Jupiter's six-sided 
 
 And hold the sun, thus making temples five, 
 Three to the west and two to the east provided, 
 
 The lordliest cells within the heavenly hive. 
 The sixth, a long low building at the ending 
 
 Of Reason's path and meant for Mercury, 
 All pillars, never a wall to stop the wending 
 
 Of man or breeze, its every corner free. 
 There shall the merchants meet 
 To trade and cheat. 
 
78 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' The seventh god shall have no fane at all, 
 
 But in the court, eastward the Path of Reason, 
 His camp shall pitch, nor have a pillared wall, 
 For he is Mars and what cares he for season, 
 What wants for rooms, what needs he roof-tree even ? 
 
 Build you for him two slender towers on high 
 Shall jut with long, fine, spear-shaped heads toward 
 heaven. 
 Whence for long leagues the watchmen may descry 
 The 'larm-fire's distant glow. 
 The march of foe. 
 
 " ' What's more to say ? The threefold tiers of Sun, 
 
 Jupiter, Venus, each shall symbol clearly 
 Soul, brain and body, downward one by one. 
 
 There shall from Venus run to Mercury sheerly 
 A transverse path entitled Healthfulness. 
 
 And, from the gates, past broad stairs that have entering 
 To Jupiter, Sun, Saturn, there shall press 
 
 A walk toward which all footsteps shall be centering, 
 Called, as all walks above. 
 The Walk of Love. 
 
The Temple of the Hand 79 
 
 " ' This more. The colors given to Nimrod's pile 
 
 Might different be. For, say a crystal's taken 
 And sunbeams filtered till in hues they smile ; 
 
 How many can that crystal clear awaken 1 
 How surely ranked, how gently interfused 1 
 
 So, by that guide let Jupiter be ruddy, 
 Pompous, rich-colored, brilliant and enthused, 
 
 But Saturn brown, since dreams are all his study; 
 The Sun of fecund brain 
 Orange in stain. 
 
 " ' Yellow be Mercury for his joyous craft ; 
 
 Green the Moon's house, her dews the grass make 
 hving ; 
 Blue shall be Venus, for through her have laughed 
 
 The April skies. Thus are we violet giving 
 To Mars the blood-stained, whose broad fencing-ground 
 
 Shall so be stained. Thus shall the rainbow colors 
 In rightful rank about the court be found, 
 
 From Jove's red pomp to violet-cloudy dolors 
 Of Mars — yet, in God's sight 
 One beam, all white 1 
 
8o The Temple of the Hand 
 
 " ' Nay, smile not at my projects. They are earnest 
 
 And full of meat. And whither better turn 
 For lessons new than toward the glories furnaced 
 
 Within the sun, that in God's iris burn ? 
 The folk must have a god for every pang 
 
 That stung each limb, for every trade, and every 
 Broad stream or sea, for each new wind that sang 
 
 A different tune. They grasp not yet the savory 
 Nectar — that each is stole 
 From one great whole ! 
 
 " ' I see you'd speak. But give me farther leave 
 
 To show our plan. If for their hues I levy 
 On secret chemics of the sun, perceive, 
 
 The ground-work's human. In the sevenfold bevy 
 Of god-heads manifest not one there is 
 
 Whose sign is wanting to the human being. 
 Ay, before babes have felt their mother's kiss, 
 
 Ears are unlocked, or eyes alive and seeing, 
 Their small fists bear concealed 
 Signs duly sealed. 
 
The Temple of the Hand 8i 
 
 "' It is no dream that every concept human 
 
 Is penned on vaults celestial with a reed 
 Shod with a diamond, dipped in gold, to illumine 
 
 The night with proof of what the day decreed. 
 It is no dream that in the palm is writ 
 
 The reflex of that lore for them that rightly 
 View the whole world and neither daze their wit 
 
 By trivial tricks, nor for their lusts unsightly 
 The heavenly chapters spell 
 With gloss from hell. 
 
 " ' So, moving through the portals wide, and roaming 
 
 With pipe and lute along fair Reason's walk 
 And past Mars' field of clashing harness coming. 
 
 Your pomp quite through the Hermes fane may stalk. 
 Or, turning rightwards, wind among the boles 
 
 Of moonfane's porch, high-roofed, with triple corners ; 
 Or, leftward bent toward gently swelling knolls, 
 
 By Path of Fate may reach those mighty scorners 
 Of all gods else above, 
 Saturn, Sun, Jove. 
 
82 The Temple of the Hand 
 
 • 
 
 " ' And, lest one day you might this plan desire 
 
 And I be dead by natural ways or foul, 
 A broad tile shall the outline bear, and fire 
 
 Make fast the same. It grieves my very soul 
 To see you sad, much more to note how little 
 
 Of self control is found in one who knows 
 I am a friend who moves no jot or tittle 
 
 Save that respect to Nimrod's queen he owes. 
 Anon you raged, but now 
 You smile, you glow ! ' 
 
 " I smiled, 'tis true, for marvellous was the sight 
 
 Of Ahram's face the while, his project telling, 
 Were seen those fanes by him, their doors laid right, 
 
 Were traced on palm each line and curious swelling. 
 For so it was, in spite of age and learning 
 
 He seemed as simple as that lovely boy 
 Who, years before, had set my bosom yearning 
 
 To be all his, through sadness and through joy. . . . 
 Ah, that a queen like me 
 So poor could be ! 
 
The Temple of the Hand 83 
 
 " Yet even I did not esteem him fully 
 
 For all his worth, since in my lusty veins 
 The body's virus, passions of earth that sully 
 
 The clearest tide had marked me with their stains. 
 Something of anger, something of disdain 
 
 Had raised their heads with thought of him to mingle ; 
 I felt me change and yet might not unchain 
 
 The bonds ignoble, since no longer single 
 And pure of heart was she 
 That looked so free. 
 
IV 
 
 THE FIRST STROKE 
 
IV 
 
 THE FIRST STROKE 
 
 " What demon urged, to break that blissful spell ? 
 
 Alas, my evil angel, now so rooted 
 Within, he lightly might the good expel. 
 
 Quoth I : ' The smile comes at a question mooted. 
 How Ahram, great, and white, and noble, can 
 
 Find rest or comfort in the unmeaning chatter 
 Of a black slave girl. ..." Even as the accents ran 
 
 Trippingly on, I saw how grave a matter 
 I touched with finger Hght 
 Meant scarce in spite. 
 
88 The First Stroke 
 
 " We cannot learn, we women. Let the fire 
 
 Burn us, we wail. But always to the charge 
 Returning, harm ourselves again. We tire 
 
 Our kindred with our wisdom-pretence large, 
 Yet question things that men have long made sure. 
 
 ' Let well alone,' that is no word for women. 
 We drive the steed until he drops ; endure 
 
 A thousand ills before we think to summon 
 Reflection that makes staid, 
 Sure, unafraid. 
 
 " ' Anna,' quoth he,, ' may wear the swarthy vizard 
 
 God gave her, but that only makes her soul 
 Whiter by contrast. Nor is need of wizard 
 
 To read her palm. Upon her brow the whole 
 Of her pure character is writ. Temptation 
 
 Has come, but lost the day. Perchance not great 
 Her trials, but sufficient to her station ; 
 
 Therefore she is for princes more than mate. 
 Why scoff, then, from your throne 
 At her alone ? ' 
 
The First Stroke 89 
 
 "'I scoff? Not I. Be sure it is at you, 
 
 Who so degrade yourself ! Or do you really 
 Dream that blacks equal us ? Or is it true — 
 
 Men say, with you it is a fiction merely 
 Whereby you labor to be singular, 
 
 Seeking by all means differently to venture 
 And pass your mates, the hypocrite you are ! 
 
 Anna the slave-wench is too base to censure 
 By me all white of sheen, 
 By me, the queen 1 ' 
 
 " ' Nay, queen by rank, but oh ! in word unqueenly,' 
 
 Quoth Ahram, steadfast in rebuke and gaze. 
 ' What imp compels, that you, of late serenely 
 
 Conversing here, now plunge in new affrays ? 
 Is Anna black ; what then ? Are limbs and features 
 
 Clean cut and fine the worse because of hue ? 
 ■But were she gross and hideous like the creatures 
 
 Of Farther Africa, but still heart-true, 
 I would most gladly sit 
 To hear her wit. 
 
90 The Firsi Stroke 
 
 " ' Why should we whites be still ourselves conceiting 
 
 The claim of virtues quite beyond the range 
 Of mundane men ? In one race are not meeting 
 
 All qualities. Each tribe however strange 
 Has its own worth wherefrom we may be learning 
 
 Lessons of life. Then wick'd how piteous small 
 Is that soul's flame which puffs itself for burning 
 
 Brighter than neighbor candle-ends — and all 
 Because it lights a lamp 
 With clearer stamp ! ' 
 
 " ' If season serve, give ear with thoughtful care, 
 
 While I shall tell you of a mighty vision 
 That once befell me ; for it happed that there 
 
 I learned the past, and straightway saw decision 
 Between the various-tinted tribes of men. 
 
 Perchance your bubbling spirit by recital 
 Will calm. Perchance from out the narrow pen 
 
 Of prejudice, all eagle-winged and vital 
 With truth, your soul may rise 
 And greet the skies ! ' . . . 
 
The First Stroke 91 
 
 " Little recked I his thought in words inherent ; 
 
 But, rang so sweet the music of his tune 
 It lulled me quite. My love-steeped wits were errant 
 
 About a dim and happy thought. Commune 
 With him was rare, but ah, how dear ! I slumbered 
 
 On an abyss and waved love's pinions wide, 
 Dreaming not how the hours of peace were numbered. 
 
 All of a turn we sat as petrified 
 By this unheard of thing : 
 Behold the king 
 
 " Unheralded, not asking leave, the stiff 
 
 Formality of h^rem doors unheeding, 
 With rolling gait, and locks of one in grief 
 
 Loosened and filletless ! Thus Nimrod, speeding 
 Came as a virgin seldom viewed by man 
 
 Being caught abroad will often turn and quickly 
 Bestow herself within. His face, now wan, 
 
 Now flusht by shame, again with fright was sickly. 
 Surprised-like, not unkind, 
 He spoke his mind : 
 
92 The First Stroke 
 
 " ' What make you here, O Ahram ? Know you not 
 
 This is the harem, where 'tis rash to venture ? 
 I chide not, but beware ; for 'tis a spot 
 
 That Bitsu rules, and oft by us his censure 
 Is felt when we would peep without the doors. 
 
 For we are women here, and sternly guarded. 
 Yet sit a while. Nimrod is deep in wars 
 
 And for a seer it were a treatment sordid 
 To drive so great a man 
 From our divan ! 
 
 " 'Once Nimrod off, we women can be kinder. 
 
 I hate these broils. Far dearer to my mind 
 Are silks and cushions. She who makes reminder 
 
 Of noisome duty shall be sorely fined. 
 Who vexes me, her queen, with word or show 
 
 Of seriousness ; who weeps, or frowns, or sighs, 
 I'll have her comrades trip her and bestow 
 
 Lashes of slippers on her tender thighs. 
 I'm not a man, to pore 
 O'er plots and war ! ' . . . . 
 
The First Stroke 93 
 
 " Oh woeful sight ! When life is fled, we mourn 
 
 In final sorrow ; but alas, how shocking. 
 How more than sad to see a frame forlorn 
 
 Of human wit, and every function mocking 
 A living death ! A bark that drifts the main 
 
 With seeming aim, and yet the masts and rudder 
 Broke — gone the hands that hurled it through the skein 
 
 Of weaving waves ! What wonder at the shudder 
 That shook us all with fright 
 At Nimrod's plight ? 
 
 " ' Belike,' he cried, ' ye tremble since I wear 
 
 These manly robes. Fetch me my own attire. 
 Bring henna — mirrors — quick ! What gaze ye there 
 
 Pale, mute and pulseless ? Ye shall feel my ire. 
 Bestir yourselves, ye vixens ! I've enough 
 
 Of masquing like a man. Hand forth the garments 
 Seemly for queens and of the choicest stuff 
 
 That Nimrod owns, lest he devise you torments 
 If thwarted I am seen, 
 I, favorite queen ! 
 
94 The First Stroke 
 
 " ' Ho, ho, 'tis well. I like men bold. But you 
 
 Fair Ahram, handsome Ahram, are much bolder 
 Than suits your health. For hark, I whisper true, 
 
 Nimrod is jealous ! Let me have your shoulder 
 To lean on, sweet. I love you. But beware 
 
 Of Bitsu and my royal mate. The former 
 Hates you so deadly you're his only care ! 
 
 Nimrod not so ; yet sometimes when he's warmer 
 I cool : then, all for me 
 He hateth thee. 
 
 " ' How now ? what wits are mine ? To have forgot 
 
 Our meeting planned by Bitsu ! I'll be going. 
 O marvellous Bitsu ! O most intricate plot ! 
 
 I pray you, love, no farther. By bestowing 
 Your time on me most radiant do you render 
 
 A wretch that often, ai, ai, weeps like this ! 
 For one shoi't hour farewell. And be they tender 
 
 Those thoughts of thine". But scarcely shall you miss 
 Your true love, ere she glide 
 Back to your side ! ' 
 
The First Stroke 95 
 
 " Like swallow swift he fled again. Just heaven, 
 
 What hide you not for them in secret stores 
 Who break your rules ! Mixing the bitter leaven 
 
 With the sweet grinding from the world-mill's floors. 
 What starts undreamt you take, what leaps and turns ! 
 
 But I, on Ahram fixed in trepidation. 
 Begged him like one whose gate of language burns 
 All parched with drought, or her whom once the 
 Thracian, 
 
 Cruel, to hide his wrong. 
 Bereft of tongue. 
 
 " But pale he too ! Ah, at his face of omen 
 
 My courage shrivelled as when juicy blooms 
 In ocean caves are touched upon. My women 
 
 In deadly fear began to fill the rooms 
 And cedar roofs with screams and senseless wailing. 
 
 Then Ahram thundered ; then with voice of queen 
 I chid them quiet. Hardly so, the ailing 
 
 Misfortunate king was on the threshold seen, 
 Hideous and changed with fright, 
 Strange to the sight. 
 
96 The First Stroke 
 
 " ' No, no,' he gibbered ; ' not that, no, not that ! 
 
 It was not I ; 'twas Bitsu gave the counsel ! 
 Grind not your teeth. Back. I defy your threat ; 
 
 I shall not beast-like feed on grass and groundsel. 
 Bah ; do your worst ! Who says I fear ? Alas 
 
 For Nimrod ! What ? Call this who boy-like trembles 
 Me, Nimrod ? No, it could not come to pass 
 
 That him, they say the god of war resembles, 
 Spectres should daunt and dare, 
 Phantasms of air ! 
 
 " ' Oh, oh, oh, oh ! I fear me 'tis too true 
 
 That I am I, poor Nimrod, and no other ! 
 Leave, frightful pursuivants, whate'er ye do. 
 
 Leave me my mind ! Forbear with frights to smother 
 My struggling wits ! Grant me but this. I vow 
 
 My crime to avenge. . . . Oh no, no, no, the meshes 
 Of their dark nets still onward, onward flow, 
 
 And soon that sword within the victim fleshes 
 A blade that blood nor spills, 
 Nor life — yet kills.' 
 
The First Stroke 97 
 
 " Up Ahram sprang and out, in sad emotion. 
 
 We, clustering round that witless prattler soothed 
 And humored him. We got him couched. A potion 
 
 Of poppy-juice his wrinkling fancy smoothed. 
 Smooth sleep, most unlike death, O comrade sleep 
 
 That once was mine, you feign not death, but rather 
 Life in a clime beyond the dreadful deep. 
 
 Sent to poor man that he from dreams may gather 
 A hint of kingdoms far 
 Beyond heaven's bar ! ' 
 
V 
 
 THE CHRYSTAL'S RUNE 
 
V 
 
 THE CHRYSTAL'S RUNE 
 
 " More touching what, and what more grace-anointed 
 
 Than sudden harmonies of jarring men 
 When an invisible hand of air has pointed 
 
 A victim out, and shipwreck follows ? Then 
 The nobler's uppermost and war is madness. 
 
 But if a ruler of the folk succumbs. 
 Being loved, a wave of agonizing sadness 
 
 Sweeps through each breast. The people seek for 
 crumbs 
 
 Of comfort early and late 
 At the king's gate. 
 
I02 The ChrystaVs Rune 
 
 "Nay, though he cruel be as Indian pard, 
 
 For him they kneel to hideous god or altar 
 Deafning the sky. The tyrant grows less hard 
 
 In his distress, and loves with words to palter 
 Of honeyed gentleness. In Nimrod's town 
 
 And far beyond among the satraps cunning 
 The scheming ceased until that storm was blown. 
 
 And Bitsu too, the seer no longer shunning 
 Seemed for a little while 
 To lose his guile. 
 
 " I, in those days of Nimrod convalescent 
 
 A pure joy tasted for the last sad time. 
 He willed me near. The cares and wiles incessant. 
 
 To ease and please him formed a task sublime. 
 Ahram must come ; and Bitsu, nothing loth, 
 
 Must furnish spectacles and bring buffoons 
 That stir to mirth with counterfeits of sloth 
 
 While masters rail, cheating the laboring moons 
 With dice and pranks and japes — 
 Slippery as apes. 
 
The ChrystaVs Rtcne 103 
 
 " Again, 'twas Eitsu who must phrase a tale 
 
 Of eldest eld, as how the sea survivor 
 First of Chaldaeans sought his friend to bail 
 
 From stronghold of Khumbaba, fiend and river 
 Of human flesh ; how generous Izdubar 
 
 Passed the four streams of air, earth, ooze, and fire 
 And slew the fiend, and laid upon his car 
 
 The corpse of his great teacher. Should he tire 
 'Twas Ahram's turn to tell 
 Some wondrous spell. 
 
 " And so befell, that I by chance was minded 
 
 Of that strange promise Ahram made the day 
 That Nimrod first came raving. It had winded 
 
 Its way obscurely through my brain, and lay 
 Dreaming unthought, but all alive. Relation 
 
 It bore to Anna and her swarthy skin. 
 But she was one who ever held a station 
 
 In my dim thoughts ; and like a pricking pin 
 Jealousy there was set 
 Lest I forget. 
 
I04 The ChrystaV s Rune 
 
 " ' Know then, O king ' quoth Ahram well entreated 
 
 ' That question rose between me and the queen 
 Regarding Anna. Is she justly seated 
 
 In her high fane ? Does her dark visage mean 
 That she is base ? and have we put dishonor 
 
 On Father Anu, making her his nun? 
 My thoughts flew backward, eagerly a Conner 
 
 Of past adventures. List then to the one 
 I promised to relate 
 To ears less great. 
 
 " ' Amongst my wand'rings in the search of lore 
 
 Of ages past and future's dim forecasting 
 None was more freighted with a golden store 
 
 Than that which led me, sore of foot and fasting, 
 By trackless hills of India to the caves 
 
 Where wise men dwell. For there I met a master 
 Robed yellow, barebreast, called The Slave of Slaves. 
 
 His words were slow, because his thought was faster 
 Than tongue could keep anear. 
 He lived austere 
 
The Ckrystal' s Rune 105 
 
 " 'But boasted never. In the hollow rock 
 
 His dwelling lay, yet helpmeet was not lacking 
 Nor humble cheer. But ever on the flock > 
 
 Of various men, their paths before him tracking 
 He pondered pleased. At times his head he raised 
 
 As if he saw, far futurewards, a pageant 
 Of joys to come, and then some god he praised 
 
 By secret name and hailed each coming agent 
 Who, learning to obey. 
 Advanced that day. 
 
 " ' Upon a time the sage led silently 
 
 In lieu of many answers to a garden 
 Most lovely. There was every plant to see 
 
 And every beast, from ants that play the warden 
 Of insect slaves to elephants gigantic. 
 
 By fragrant paths we reached a tower that shone 
 Beyond a cave, and nearby twin romantic 
 
 And gemhke pools. Then he : ' Set foot on one ! ' 
 And lo, it was like glass, 
 Smooth, green as grass. 
 
io6 The ChrystaV s Rune 
 
 " ' But in the middle gleamed a dark round well 
 
 Brilliantly bordered with a rim of azure. 
 ' Look down,' quoth he. How, I could never tell, 
 
 I reached the edge, and gazed as men for treasure 
 Will scan the frightful valleys of the East. 
 
 It was no well, for down below was lying 
 A lovelier than the garden of the priest. 
 
 But when the sage with questions I was plying, 
 I slid, I reached the abyss 
 Sans hurt, sans miss. 
 
 " ' There fallen, I wended onward through a land 
 
 And reached a globe of crystal in a meadow 
 So marvellous, that there my steps were banned, 
 
 So clear it was, so pure, hardly a shadow 
 It threw beneath. But in its lucent side 
 
 Great realms were mirrored by the spell of magic. 
 Tribes wandered past. Nations and armies dyed 
 
 With colors strange marched on by moves choragic. 
 But I seemed suddenly left 
 All sense-bereft. 
 
The ChrystaV s Rune 107 
 
 " ' For thus I marked it : Did the mind demand 
 
 To view a continent — behold its features ! 
 Or scan a boat beyond a distant strand^ 
 
 Quick — there she lay ! Nor were the smallest creatures 
 Too small to see. For, as the human eye 
 
 One instant notes an insect on the digit, 
 The next speeds off across a plain, to spy 
 
 A troop of horse ; far clearer mount or midgit 
 Were caught within that glass 
 To stay or pass. 
 
 " ' I longed. I stood within upon a mountain 
 
 Whence there were seen the earth's remotest bounds, 
 All nations noted to the farthest fountains 
 
 Of Nile and northward still, where frozen mounds 
 Tell of hushed waterfalls. And then it seemed 
 
 Before me lay all Africa and Asia, 
 Europe, the seas that are earth's margin deemed ; 
 
 Vast China's plain ; the battlefields of Moesia 
 Where wars no sooner done 
 Are new begun. 
 
io8 The ChrystaV s Rune 
 
 " ' But this was oddest, that the well-marked shapes 
 
 Of lands to-day traversed were quite distorted 
 Save Africa, which, nearly true by capes, 
 
 Lay there as now. "The ocean India courted 
 On every side. And half the plains of morn 
 
 Were Asian straits, Europe to westward fencing. 
 But this in many an island group was torn 
 
 While fiords and snow-capped hills were seen com- 
 mencing 
 
 Majestical to roll 
 From the North Pole. 
 
 " 'Then marked I through that virtue telescopic 
 
 The men who dwelt on every farthest main. 
 Lo, those of north from them beyond the tropic 
 
 Differed but little. All were of a strain 
 Rugged and hairy, neither white nor black, 
 
 Of goodly port, and of approved valor. 
 Yet some were wiser the wild beasts to track. 
 
 Some delved the soil, some dwelt in caves of squalor, 
 Yet of one race they seemed 
 Or else I dreamed. 
 
The ChrystaV s Rune 109 
 
 " ' Their name was Adam ; for their common hue 
 
 Was reddish black. Now when the history-tellers 
 Speak of Adamu in the tongue that grew 
 
 Original here before those dark race-quellers 
 Kush and his chieftains bore upon this land, 
 
 That word as not of one first man related, 
 But of the whole race you must understand. 
 
 The dim tradition of mankind created 
 To figures was refined 
 To fit the mind. 
 
 " ' You, Esther, in our mountain fastnesses 
 
 Have seen the winter from the ranges sally 
 In march majestic. Nimrod great and these 
 
 His household, reared in many a southward valley, 
 Have yet to view the snow-peaks trailing down 
 
 Their cloaks of ice below their giant shoulders. 
 Hiding for leagues the green and russet gown 
 
 That clothes their feet stupendous, their gray boulders 
 Torn from the clifi", their burns 
 That wave with ferns. 
 
I lo The ChrystaVs Rune 
 
 " ' No wild beast lives so deadly fierce as winter 
 
 Descending from the northlands open-jawed 
 When pines uprooted lie and rocks asplinter 
 
 Break with a shout ; when springs and rivers awed 
 Congeal to steely hardness, stay their courses, 
 
 Hang pendent wrapt in veils of stony tears, 
 Or tear their banks with superhuman forces. 
 
 Grind channels, undermining bridge and weirs. 
 And with remorseless might 
 Move but to spite. 
 
 " ' Man, wretched man, the victim of a demon ! 
 
 For beasts may dream, and birds fly far, and snakes 
 Embalm themselves in sleepy slime. But we men. 
 
 Naked and weak before his fine snowflakes. 
 Must fight him still with fire, or else benumbs 
 
 Our torpid wits a sleep that has no morrow. 
 Alas for him who to his charm succumbs 1 
 
 And never will, for winter's care and sorrow, 
 Man's pain completely cease 
 And win to peace. 
 
The ChrystaV s Rune 1 1 1 
 
 " ' Nor you, O Nimrod, nor your cruel father 
 
 In worst of days might cause to tribes of man 
 Terror so sickening. Would not you much rather 
 
 Be killed, or maimed, warm in life's midway span, 
 Than, day by day, mark among blood relations 
 
 All strength consume, and from dear faces wan 
 Catch the appeal for fire and food that patience 
 
 Incredible, nor craft, nor anguish can. 
 Nor force, nor wisdom draw 
 From winter's claw ? 
 
 " ' Yet who shall look behind the back of evils 
 
 And read what's there ? Perchance on that reverse 
 True luck is writ. Who dares to say that devils 
 
 Make angels possible ? Or that a curse 
 Is doubled by a blessing ? Let us keep 
 
 Such subtleties for hours when thought flies weaving. 
 Mark only now what marvels 'gan to creep 
 
 Within that crystal like the eye deceiving. 
 And what more was the spell 
 Deep in the well. 
 
112 The Chrystal's Rune 
 
 ' ' ' For changes fell, slowly, aye slowly creeping 
 
 O'er the wide continents and isly meres. 
 To northward, by some force that had been sleeping 
 
 Below, the archipelago uprears 
 Surely its lines above the waves. And ever 
 
 On snowy hills the solid ice-beds grow. 
 Cascades of ice fill up the vales that sever 
 
 Hilltop from hill, and block the straits that flow 
 By channels mile on mile 
 About each isle. 
 
 " ' And as the sky within its northern zone 
 
 Will sometimes slowly broader broader whiten, 
 The veil of snow was ever wider blown 
 
 Across the norland upland. Still these heighten 
 Their plateaus o'er the sea, and still the crags 
 
 Groan piteously, being ground until they quiver. 
 The solemn glacier violently drags 
 
 By scarf and cliff, moaning, relentless river, 
 Boulders that deadly shocks 
 Tore from the rocks. 
 
The Chrystal's Rune 113 
 
 " 'While every puff of moisture-laden air 
 
 And every dewfall, every cloud discharging, 
 Augments the weight the isles of Europe bear, 
 
 While each ice field, its bounds the while enlarging, 
 Crawls, the most reckless of the dwellers there 
 
 Must note gaunt famine, white of robe, enthroning 
 Upon the peaks. Then slowly a despair 
 
 Of life invades them. Some, war songs entoning, 
 March south in bands to flee 
 Across the sea 
 
 " ' Far from that demon of the Pole, they know 
 
 Who dwell to-day on shores that see in motion 
 Cliffs of clear ice in radiant files that go ' 
 
 Stalking in glittering silence down the ocean. 
 A beard of snows, a cruel smile and fixed 
 
 In eyes that are, one azure blue, one dusky ; 
 Great paws of ermine, where the soft is mixed 
 
 With marrow-searching iron ; and a husky 
 Unbearable sweet breath 
 That is but death ! 
 
114 The Chrystal's Rune 
 
 " ' Have you e'er seen Cashmere the unsurpassed 
 
 When winter from his summer slumber rousing 
 Uphfts his head and lightly blows a blast 
 
 Of careless breath across the orchards drowsing 
 Beneath her ambry moon ? Upon the sward 
 
 Still marked with outlines of the banquet lovers 
 Have held with rose and nightingale for guard 
 
 The morn that rises after rain discovers 
 Alas a piteous wreck ! 
 The boughs to deck 
 
 " ' That bower of love are underfoot. The golden 
 
 And shimmering globes that shone as fruity lamps 
 Through the tense air hang still and ice-enfolden, 
 
 Caught in a crystal tomb that nothing cramps 
 Their beauty, yet is death while life in seeming. 
 
 Glisters the mail that fetters twig and limb, 
 Purple the fig and gold the orange gleaming, 
 
 And all with splendors doubly radiant swim 
 Save that the tell-tale rose 
 Pales where she grows. 
 
The Ckrysial's Rune 115 
 
 "' So Europe's island-continents, enchanted 
 
 Beneath the wand of norland conjurer 
 Lay like a dream whose outlines clear are haunted 
 
 With sense of this, that when those traits shall stir 
 Puff — all is ruin ! Or like figure rosy 
 
 Of tender maid, whom balmers of old Nile 
 Embalm like life within a coffret cozy : 
 
 Open it not, for she that wears a smile 
 A phantasm is that must 
 Vanish in dust. 
 
 " ' By that strange spell, and by the horror goaded 
 
 Of sure extinction, and by change of clime 
 Subtly and radically moved, and loaded 
 
 With crushing care of living, on the crime 
 Of robbery some fell ; in others madness 
 
 Roused her wild head ; but more in silent rage 
 By various planes descended to that sadness 
 
 When men will brood and on themselves will wage 
 The war called suicide. 
 And thus they died 
 
ii6 The Chrystal' s Rune 
 
 " 'Defiantly. So, when the scorpion finds 
 
 On every side him pathless embers glowing 
 Heaped by his foes, his barby tail he winds 
 
 About his back, in wrath resolved, and throwing 
 A spear of venom deep in his own flesh, 
 
 Dies in despite. Even so the nerves unfitted 
 Of men whom demons of the Pole enmesh 
 
 Are struck awry, unstring'ed, undone, unknitted; 
 They curse their God on high. 
 Blaspheme, and die. 
 
 " ' But they that lived were forced to build them towns 
 
 Delved deep in earth where seldom light could enter 
 And wrap them close in thick voluminous gowns 
 
 Of fur of beasts. And devious care must centre 
 On stores of food to meet obsessions long 
 
 Beleaguering them. But ever while they tarry 
 Shut from the sun, the ruddier still they throng 
 
 And ever white with whiter intermarry, 
 Until they seem to grow 
 Candid like snow. 
 
The ChrystaVs Rune 1 1 7 
 
 " ' But southward see, where human myriads swarm_ 
 
 On Afric plains, and Indian hills and valleys, 
 A tenfold heat begins the folk to storm ; 
 
 There sun the easiest with the darkest dallies, 
 But fair men perish parched beneath his rays. 
 
 Wherefore complected swarthier and still darker 
 The southmen turn before my very gaze. 
 
 Hairless they singe, their nudeness ever starker 
 While sloth and glut of food 
 Make manners rude. 
 
 " ' Ay, so unmercifully the world creator 
 
 Assailed those men of southern continents. 
 Who turned not black was murdered soon or later 
 
 By golden dart of myriad vehemence. 
 Only in thickest woods of hairy men 
 
 Was left a remnant most debased, which ever 
 Sank by long stages till to brutes again 
 
 They turned, yet thoughtful still, and quick, and clever 
 To hide, or fly, or slay 
 The beasts of prey. 
 
ii8 The Chrystal's Rune 
 
 " ' The northern islanders for very life 
 
 Battling with snowstorm and with sojls ungrateful 
 Great craft evolved and strength from harshest strife, 
 
 As perfumes are distilled of objects hateful. 
 The southmen, leading a most charmed existence 
 
 Made headway slow, fitful, or none at all. 
 Incentive was not for the ripe persistence 
 
 That furthers character, while filling stall 
 With kine, and heaping barn. 
 And weaving yarn. 
 
 " ' Now in the flight from the ice-demon's vigor 
 
 The greater crowd was buried in the sea. 
 By shipwreck some, by war's unbending rigor 
 
 Died others, and the remnant peacefully 
 With swarthier tribes were mixt at last and done. 
 
 So, ever wider spread the sharp division 
 Betwixt the two in color ; but in bone 
 
 The likeness dwelt although a slow elision 
 Of color met each band 
 That changed its land. 
 
The Chrystal' s Rune 119 
 
 " ' Enough. Time serves not for each curious history 
 
 By me perceived within that crystal glassed. 
 Let this suffice. Nor do I know the mystery 
 
 Of how I came there, how from thence I passed. 
 I stood again beside the silent master 
 
 In upper air, and, bold through vanity, 
 Plied him with queries that were plied the faster 
 
 The longer dumb he stood. But finally 
 Sitting in thought, while sun 
 His course had run : 
 
 " ' " Mighty the woes of men where color varies," 
 
 Spake he. " What bloodshed, outrage, lingering death ! 
 What apt excuse for him who daily harries 
 
 His wretched serf, when to himself he saith 
 Slaves are not man's kind ; they are beasts of burden. 
 
 Ahram, too old am I to see the light 
 Of better days, but youth may earn the guerdon 
 
 Of hero-life by laboring for the right 
 Of men of every skin 
 To claim their kin. 
 
I20 The Chrystar s Rune 
 
 " ' " Beyond the sea, beyond the Afric Ocean, 
 
 Beyond the islands of the western main 
 Lands lie enormous, of the which a notion 
 
 To us is not. Yet there of that old strain 
 Live men in color neither black nor white. 
 
 Be bold, O youth. When you at even sunward 
 Turn, never fail upon your heart to write 
 
 The promise new, that if fates yield, right onward 
 Sailing you seek the trace 
 Of that old race. 
 
 " ' " But long shall roll the record of the years 
 
 Ere charity with common good combining, 
 Crushes the barriers wet with helpless tears 
 
 Between the races. Yet by my divining 
 Know I the day comes when the skin of man 
 
 Shall not cry caste, but soul shall form the standard. 
 When, mingled back along the pristine plan, 
 
 Each blood, each hue shall join to form a wandered 
 Clean-witted race of men 
 Forceful for ten." 
 
The ChrystaVs Rune 121 
 
 " ' Thus raved that mind unusual. Every grade, 
 
 O Nimrod, from the black of jungles torrid 
 To red-haired male and saffron-curled maid, 
 
 Ay, to those monsters, ghastly pale and horrid 
 With eyeballs pink, all are our kin and kith. 
 
 Not Esther only, but the Lybian virgin 
 And Bitsu swarthy are you cousin with. 
 
 The skin may lie, but the wise toiling surgeon 
 
 Sees the ancestral line 
 
 That meets with thine.' 
 6 
 
VI 
 
 CHALD^A REVOLTS 
 
VI 
 
 CHALD^A REVOLTS 
 
 " Scarce Ahram done, my answer came too quickly : 
 
 ' Keep to your kinship, then ; 'tis not for me. 
 The vestal's not of my blood. Running thickly 
 
 A sluggish pitch within her veins I see.' 
 But more spake not ; for on the eunuch's features 
 
 An anguish grew that stayed my luckless tongue. 
 It seemed my lot the trustiest of my creatures 
 
 By my own arrows should be stabbed and stung ; 
 For as my anger grew 
 Sick Nimrod drew 
 
126 ChaldcBa Revolts 
 
 " By sympathy a strange disquiet from me 
 
 But wlien I calmed, lie too was marvellous cheered, 
 As when the spirit of a stream to foamy 
 
 Emotion whirls the upper springs, a weird 
 Confusion reigns along the lower courses, 
 
 Vibrant to turmoil that is far away 
 Nor understood. Or, as when clear-skinned horses. 
 
 Half conscious of their rider's mind, are gay, 
 Listless, or swift to flee 
 Through sympathy. 
 
 " But how can I attune my lips of woman 
 
 To martial things, and tell the pomp and pride 
 Of grisly war which Nimrod's name could summon 
 
 From fen and marsh, from hill and desert wide ? 
 The subject kings, the satraps, governors 
 
 Of towns the keys of countries, drew detachments 
 From their best troops inured to distant wars, 
 
 Haughty, most fierce, each by a separate hatchment 
 Marked, to be known, if slain, 
 Or fled, or ta'en. 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 127 
 
 " Only from Ur which o'er the mighty marsh 
 
 Looks from the battlements upon the shimmer 
 Of that long sea, whose waters hot and harsh 
 
 Make from the Indian Ocean, nor does grimmer 
 Whale's-path exist nor one more paved with wreck — 
 
 From Ur came soldiers none. Although the saintly 
 Symbess dwelt there, and there to hold in check 
 
 Those sly Chaldaeans, should rebellion faintly 
 Stir, the king's eldest son 
 Held a great throne. 
 
 " Belshamas, offspring of a sudden passion 
 
 Which seized the monarch for a dame with spouse 
 Too slavish greedy to dispute the fashion 
 
 Tyrants will ever set in alien house. 
 A satrapy for him. For Nimrod burning 
 
 With guilty love the soon discarded wife ; 
 Who, found with man child, knew the insolent turning 
 
 Of favor back. The mother kept her life 
 The child was reared most rare 
 For Nimrod's heir. 
 
128 Chaldcsa Revolts 
 
 " So forth it marched in pride, the set array 
 
 Of spears and bowmen, chariots that were brilliant 
 With paint and ivory, all the haught display 
 
 Of horse in squadrons, cuirassiers resilient, 
 Painted on cheeks and vying with the sun, 
 
 So were their greaves and cyclic shields resplendent ; 
 The veteran troops that round the standard run, 
 
 And last of all, the while a shout ascendant 
 Shook the high towers, the car 
 Of midmost war. 
 
 " There Nimrod sat. He looked as hard, unwinking 
 
 And deadly as the grimmest idols were 
 With fierce delights that seem forever, thinking 
 
 Of griefs of men, to gloat on their despair. 
 Upon the garden terrace near the gate 
 
 I stood with Bitsu and the harem, waving 
 A gay farewell. But sometimes there would grate 
 
 A cry of woe, or one who had been braving • 
 The most would turn aside 
 Her tears to hide. 
 
Ckaldcea Revolts 129 
 
 " The rusty crow, a messenger of malice, 
 
 Croaked on my left. But up the blue arose 
 A hawk in spirals. From the silent palace 
 
 There fled along with him the prayer that flows 
 From hearts, ah, palsied by the chill of danger. 
 
 Would he return ? Might, for an omen sure. 
 Drop toward the right that fate-ordained sky ranger ? 
 
 What had I given for a hawker's lure 1 
 But no, the blue he cleft 
 Far toward the left. 
 
 " And back I turned me, slow and heavy hearted. 
 
 To weary ease and thoughts of distant war. 
 For solace I to mimic bricks imparted 
 
 The order sketched by Ahram ere that far 
 He followed war unwilling. All the plan 
 
 I then rehearsed, and fixed the right equations 
 Of that great system which all men could scan • 
 
 Long after Nimrod's tower from the deep foundations 
 
 To crown was seen o'erthrown. 
 
 Disrupt, far strewn. 
 6* 
 
130 Chaldtza Revolts 
 
 " Nay, I began the tunnel in the mound 
 
 Ahram had noted wisely for emplacements 
 Most favorable, whereon, from country round 
 
 My range of fanes, from domes well-nigh to basements, 
 Were clear against the horizon line to see ; 
 
 When a fleet runner gave to Bitsu tidings 
 Of a great host that most miraculously 
 
 Had filled the southern highways, sprung from hidings 
 In reeds and deserts lone 
 Where hoepoes moan. 
 
 " They called themselves the Chaldee army brought 
 
 By Prince Belshamas to support his father 
 But strangely stern and purposeful they sought 
 
 The ways toward Babylon. When I could gather 
 Thus much I knew the sequel. ' Rise,' I cried 
 
 ' Ye sluggards Babylonish ! Chief of eunuchs, 
 Call forth your guards and close the gateways wide 
 
 That look toward Chaldee. Spare not broidered tunics, 
 With rank and lands repay 
 Them that obey. 
 
ChaldcBa Revolts 131 
 
 " ' O staunchest souls ; ye bold men of the city, 
 
 Away ! 'Tis sly Belshamas who has laid 
 A plot to seize on Babel. 'Twere a pity 
 
 If town so great of him should stand afraid ! 
 Sound the war-gongs and cry the market closed ; 
 
 Line all the walls, and from the heads of traders 
 Choose them for chiefs in whom is trust reposed ; 
 
 Let heralds cry that beggarly invaders 
 Are here from southern fen. 
 Fishers, not men ! ' 
 
 " And none too soon the direful voiced alarum 
 
 Shook the vast place from dreams of selfishness. 
 By hasty-armed, by soldiers of the harem 
 
 The gates were seized and towers manned. The press 
 Of gaping citizens were ranged along 
 
 Defenceless walls to simulate a battle. 
 We raised such clouds as rise when horsemen throng 
 
 To war, by hurrying droves of peaceful cattle 
 Across the sunbaked squares. 
 The man who dares 
 
132 Chaldcea Revolts 
 
 " May gain what odds ! Belshamas had but then 
 
 To sound the charge and slay the few defenders 
 And we were lost. A moment's thought — but when 
 
 He pondered, we had won ! For crown-pretenders 
 Must move like light that comes one knows not how, 
 
 Ere dark is gone, before the sun is risen. 
 He thrives whose quick advance will not allow 
 
 Debate. All's finished. Foes are marched to prison, 
 The factious killed, the bold 
 Made friends by gold. 
 
 " What cared I for his siege, or proclamation 
 
 Thus couched : ' Ye subjects of the royal house 
 Of Kush, I come to take the throne and station 
 
 Are mine by right. Ye know the law allows 
 Sons only to inherit, contrary 
 
 To common law affecting persons common. 
 'Tis not the mother's, 'tis the father's tree 
 
 Ye look to. But great Nimrod by a woman 
 Has been bewitched and fast 
 In bondage cast 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 133 
 
 " ' Of a magician, of an alien slave. 
 
 O people Babylonian, since my father 
 No longer lives but as thin ghosts that rave 
 
 And on some plea has been removed, the rather 
 That aliens might his throne administer, 
 
 Arise, my folk, and that my soldiers deadly 
 Of Chaldee spoil not our fair town, transfer 
 
 In peace to me the kingship — or a medley 
 Of bricks may lie with blood 
 Where Babel stood ! ' 
 
 " But, while he temporized, the citizens 
 
 Fired by my voice and burning with a martial 
 Enjoyment, ay, and loathing of the fens 
 
 Those cruel tribes, with shouts of help impartial 
 Toiled at the walls and, piercing many a bank, 
 
 Guard of their well-tilled fields, destroyed with ardor 
 Great crops, and many a palisado sank 
 
 And wall piled high. For me they labored harder 
 Than offering up their ease 
 The king to please. 
 
134 Chaldesa Revolts 
 
 " Belshamas saw the exit farcical 
 
 His envoy made in rags, witli lovelock shaven, 
 And watched me o'er the gateway on the wall, 
 
 Consume with fire the mandate royal graven 
 On thick papyruses with purple reeds. 
 
 Then, Charge ! he cried. Too late. The ocean waves 
 Beat ineffectual on the yellow beads 
 
 Of the sweet water that our city laves. 
 So did his onset find 
 That constant mind 
 
 " In men of Babel as I had not dreamed. 
 
 Anon with loss upon our works advancing 
 He beat again. Again the lightning gleamed 
 
 From clashing spears. Again the slingers lancing 
 Their leaden hail and bowmen bolts of bronze 
 
 Darkened the sky. But courage now was seated 
 On every rampart. Valiantly, like sons 
 
 Of Mars the folk received them. Me they greeted 
 With shouts. My marrow warmed 
 The while they stormed. 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 135 
 
 "That was the first day of a month of siege. 
 
 But next, the morning broke, and lo, a tiding 
 That all were gone ! And next a trusty liege 
 
 Half-dead of haste and thirst. Then Ahram, riding 
 Like mad before a little troop. And then 
 
 War-trumpets, musterings, and the southern portal 
 Wide, and the arsenals full of hurrying men 
 
 Launching the war-craft. And with more than mortal 
 Swiftness a following planned 
 By stream and land. 
 
 " And first the horsemen harrying on the rear 
 
 Compelled them halt. Then swiftly car-borne bowmen 
 Camped on their left. And through the night-shade steer 
 
 The close-crammed barks in silence, till the foemen 
 Are marked and passed beyond the utmost fires. 
 
 Then quick these grope their way to land. At morning 
 A mighty shout, while trumpets bray. Aspires 
 
 A burning arrow for a distant warning — 
 Ah then, three ways assailed 
 Belshamas quailed ! 
 
136 Chaldcza Revolts 
 
 "Slaughter and slaughter. Till the torrid noon 
 
 They hack and stab. One band with force abhorrent 
 Breaks to the river and by valor soon 
 
 Seizes on barks — as well resist a torrent. 
 Slain are the rest or bound. Belshamas pines 
 
 A captive, who must curse the god of battles. 
 His wreath of war on Ahram's helmet shines. 
 
 Upon his car the bright and glorious chattels 
 Of all his camp forlorn 
 In pomp are borne 
 
 " Through the wide gates, while Babel's acclamations 
 
 Rock the high towers and fill the peopled pass 
 Of Babel's avenues beset with nations 
 
 And quartered guilds, down to the quays of brass. 
 Before the fabric that his geomancy 
 
 Had reared for Nimrod, in a hollow square 
 Of ivory chariots decked by artful fancy 
 
 With plumes and gold, upon a marble stair 
 Pink as soft flesh, arrayed 
 As queen, I stayed. 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 137 
 
 " And Ahram, at the head of chiefs of choice, 
 
 Advanced at pace along the mainways throbbing 
 With a vast sound, that roared and hushed, as noise 
 
 Of billows green which stalk with secret sobbing 
 Calmly across the purple seas of Inde, 
 
 But nearing shore, sapped by the deadly suction, 
 Pause for a space to view their fate unkind, 
 
 Before they crash in utmost dire destruction 
 And strew the shattered shore 
 With one wave more. 
 
 " ' This wreath I add, O Ahram, to your helmet,' 
 
 So spoke I low, while he before me kneeled, 
 ' Marks your true fate. You may not overwhelm it ; 
 
 It holds you firmly. To a throne you're sealed. 
 Now is your chance. Look how the chiefs adore you. 
 
 See what a pride within the people blaze 
 On you and me. I love you. I implore you 
 
 To grasp this realm before a sudden craze 
 Of Nimrod mar the plan 
 That you began. 
 
138 Chaldcea Revolts 
 
 " Up sprang my love and looked me in the face. 
 
 ' Queen of Great Nimrod,' loud he spoke and coldly, 
 ' Well shall he learn how you have held the place 
 
 Where stand his gods, and how a woman boldly 
 Struck as few men, though they be men of mark. 
 
 Dare for their households, for their king and altar ! 
 Nimrod, O braves of Babylon, shall hark 
 
 How his great people know not how to falter 
 Should traitors eye his throne 
 When he is gone. 
 
 " ' That throne too far above all thrones must stand 
 
 For littler men, and be they royal princes 
 To clamber there. Behold. Your civic band 
 
 Led by a queen who's queen indeed, evinces 
 The foolishness of those who so presume.' . . . 
 
 Still more he spoke. But me the current frigid 
 Of baffled hope sunk in a settled gloom 
 
 And, turning thence, I set my features rigid 
 Toward the high tower to gain 
 The second fane. 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 139 
 
 " And as I strode, the fiend that sees all bloody- 
 Rose from my heart and clutched me in the gorge. 
 
 With wrath I strangled. Ishtar's fane was muddy 
 And blurred about me. Scarcely could I forge 
 
 Articulate speech. But now the scattered words 
 Come trickling forth as o'er the ordered mountains 
 
 Men raise for dams, a foam as white as curds 
 First breaks, and next the long- retarded fountains 
 Hurl their enormous mass 
 Through the torn pass. 
 
 " ' Isktar ! Ungrateful/ Get you now another 
 
 Priestess and a hajtdmaid for your house of prayer. 
 Ishtar ! Accursed ! Not are you the mother 
 
 Thoughtful and benignatit in our blank despair. 
 Goddess not supernal, nor of line celestial. 
 
 Father had you never in the heaven s lord, 
 But from fie7id infernal, demon worse than bestial, 
 
 In the lowest hell rings zcas your birth abhorred ! 
 Well T know the history 
 Shameful of your tree. 
 
140 Chaldcsa Revolts 
 
 " ' You it was, vile one, who your lovely falcon 
 
 Smoothly sly caressing with a velvet paw, 
 Worried in the nightshade changed to fierce grimalkin, 
 
 You it was, dog-eyed, who your stallion saw. 
 Proud of you, curvetting, and ivith hand of lily 
 
 Dropped upon his manger fruits with poisoned core. 
 You it was that hunted in the regions hilly 
 
 With a favorite lion whom you crippled sore. 
 Men shall cry the history 
 Shameful of your tree. 
 
 " ^ To that lovelorn monarch what a woe and anguish. 
 
 Whom you once assaulted with your siren storm. 
 When your wand was lifted and he fled to languish 
 
 Torn by dogs and beaten, leopard-like in form ! 
 And for servant lowly what a pay and portion 
 
 After years of service at your glittering shrine, 
 Trembling at your love-looks and his love's extortion 
 
 Whom in pillared muteness you compelled to pine ! 
 Well I've read the history 
 Of your shameful tree ! 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 141 
 
 " ' Base one ! Your lover ! How can you unblenching 
 
 Think of him, the prince and partner of your joys. 
 Whom zvith cups of poison yearly you are drenching. 
 
 Yearly bringing life back which the year destroys ? 
 How repeat from day spring even to the gloaming 
 
 Infamies that Ishtar on her darlings wrought ? 
 Ishtar ! Accursed! Be for ages coming 
 
 Fane of yours by givers of fair gifts unsought. 
 Mindful of the history 
 Of your shameful tree / ' 
 
 " Some ease my bosom felt. But on the wall 
 
 The effigy of Ishtar seemed to simper 
 And then a silvery laughter through the hall 
 
 I fancied run. Though women storm and whimper. 
 Though men despair and dash them from the cliff, 
 
 Or howl, or hate, what cares for them the goddess ? 
 A sudden thought with anger rendered stifif 
 
 My curling locks and at my jewelled bodice 
 My fingers fumbled for 
 A dirk I bore. 
 
142 Chaldcea Revolts 
 
 " That laughter ! Was it of a god ? The laugh 
 
 Was't not of Anna toward the air fane passing ? 
 Once all was mine ; but now the dregs I quaff 
 
 Of degradation, and now folk are classing 
 Me with the outcast, though I sit a throne ! 
 
 Then up I sprang, and, breathless and dishevelled, 
 And frantic, clomb the spiral of that cone, 
 
 Until I reached the terrace that was levelled 
 Before the sun's clear fane. 
 Gold without stain. 
 
 " ' Ishtar, the ruthless, you that hates engender 
 
 Deadliest of the hates that plague the race of man, 
 Ishtar, I call you. Steel my heart, and render 
 
 Strong as oak my sinews for a deadly plan. 
 Ishtar of battles under roof, and murders 
 
 Rending peaceful homes with sudden craze of death, 
 Ishtar, my torments shall befall the girders 
 
 At your fane, and wretched shall they draw the breath. 
 Grand shall rise your canopy 
 If you fight for jne ! ' 
 
Chaldcea Revolts 143 
 
 "Then . . . Ah, what then ? I only know I passed 
 
 The sun's fane safe, and scarce the room had footed 
 That once I held, and given a glance, my last. 
 
 At couch and walls — when there lay Anna, suited 
 In oozing blood ; there was my dirk in hand 
 
 All bloody ; robes all ruby- red in spatter ; 
 Red lay the vestal's ivory spotless wand ; 
 
 Red whirled the walls . . . ay me, why should it matter 
 What she or said, or knew, 
 Who came and slew ? 
 
VII 
 
 STROKE THE SECOND 
 
VII 
 
 STROKE THE SECOND 
 
 " One marked me well and guessed my frantic flight 
 
 And Bitsu, deft with wounds unusual, hurried 
 To save the maid. For many a frightful night 
 
 Life lay a-balance, while in shades I buried 
 My guilty face. At last, I hardly know 
 
 If I was glad, a secret word was written 
 That Anna lived, 'spite of the bitter blow, 
 
 (Ah, it was I, not she, not she, lay smitten !) 
 And, pressed, would not disclose 
 Who dealt the blows. 
 
148 Stroke the Second 
 
 " But Rumor ! O, not cruel-visaged she. 
 
 But fairy-like, in myriad form, like bubbles 
 Clear as clear air, like germs that quit the tree 
 
 On tiny wings, like thread-borne spiders, troubles 
 Wide scatters she with smiling aspect. View 
 
 A town at peace whereon the sun is laughing 
 While children shout in glad and noisy crew. 
 
 There Rumor from her unseen cup is quaffing 
 The poisoned wine she brewed 
 From seed she strewed. 
 
 " Rumor cast forth her innocent-seeming brood 
 
 And soon the folk that erst on me was doting. 
 Grew marvellous cool. There lacked not of the rude 
 
 Who muttered curse, or, from a vantage floating 
 An air-borne cry reviled the murderess. 
 
 Gone was their gratitude and gone my merit. 
 What though I sought to cover my distress ? 
 
 What though in rage my guards would turn to ferret 
 The offender out ? The folk 
 Hated and spoke. 
 
Stroke the Second 149 
 
 " And so Belshamas, in a loose confinement 
 
 More prince than prisoner deemed his chance aright 
 To catch the fame by arts of sly refinement 
 
 Which might not spring from prowess in the fight. 
 Soon the cabal, that, like a secret vice, 
 
 Invades a host, and slowly undermining 
 Trust in the laws, allures them with a spice 
 
 Of mystery and half-danger, countersigning 
 And teaching craft, began 
 To plot and plan. 
 
 " To plot and plan, to hint with brows uphoisted, 
 
 Looks that force questions, smiles of every grade ; 
 Shrugs, meaning words on loyal phrases foisted, 
 
 Condolences for service poorly paid. 
 Frank outbursts of a heart so patriotic 
 
 It braves e'en death ! Appeals to pride of race. 
 Warnings in future of a sway despotic 
 
 Beneath a woman's or a eunuch's mace. 
 
 Oaths, prayers, and tears, and sighs, 
 Promises, lies. 
 
150 Stroke the Second 
 
 " Now while men looked for news of Nimrod north 
 
 Came clamors grievous from the westward valleys 
 That Sossian hills their hordes were pouring forth. 
 
 Whereat men paled. For 'tis a land that rallies 
 Brigands accurst against our realm, whene'er 
 
 Our arms are tarnished and our braves outnumbered. 
 Were Nimrod safe, they ever in the lair 
 
 Would lurk, as still as if they worked and slumbered 
 Happy in humble cot, 
 Pleased with their lot. 
 
 " Whence anxious Ahram grew. With all his troop 
 
 He sallied forth to gain of Nimrod tidings ; 
 But, ere he went 1 bade him hold and stoop 
 
 From saddle, nor had I a heart for chidings, 
 But ever pleaded : ' O my Ahram, grant 
 
 That you, or wait for what the gods have given 
 And watch in Babylon a poison-plant 
 
 That may be springing, or let me be driven 
 Car-borne with ypu to war, 
 The soldiers' star. 
 
Stroke the Second 151 
 
 " ' They love me since the city I defended. 
 
 But hate now glows in vulgar burgher breasts. 
 Belshamas, even as Bitsu spied, attended 
 
 By strange Chaldaeans, ever watchful rests. 
 He laughs too much. His face is red with hope. 
 
 Knows he of Nimrod secretly disaster ? 
 Gloomy the folk. With silent steps we grope 
 
 Toward an abyss, and when we fall, the master, 
 
 tell me, will be who ? 
 
 1 not, nor you ! 
 
 " * And if for me you have regard no longer, 
 
 Then think of Nimrod. Better keep secure 
 His capital, for, though you're mighty, stronger 
 
 Is love for change that hides in souls demure. 
 Turn but your back ; how long then will it be 
 
 Ere sly Belshamas, by the moon-priest prompted. 
 Drop his thin mask and conquer, spite of me, 
 
 This realm subHme and teach his father, dompted 
 By his own whelp, the way 
 Cringing, to obey ? 
 
152 Stroke the Second 
 
 "'And then. . . there's Anna'. . . Fury flashed within 
 
 His steady eyes and red rose indignation. 
 ' Revolt can her harm less than crimes that spin 
 
 Their hideous web in peacetime round her station ! ' — 
 ' Nay, judge me not without one proof! ' — ' 'Tis true,' 
 
 Quoth he, ' I know naught save by hearsay only.' — 
 ' To blame unproved is not for men like you ; 
 
 I vouch for Anna and shall aid her, lonely. 
 Because your friend is she 
 Friend now to me ! ' 
 
 " ' Well said, O friend, and queenlike said,' he cried. 
 
 ' It is not safe to leave you here unguarded, 
 But I must forth. My army shall divide. 
 
 By captains trustiest shall your gates be warded 
 Till I bring Nimrod back, alive or dead. 
 
 Strange, how I grow to relish war untender, 
 Who deemed' it infamous men's blood to shed ! 
 
 And can it be that Nimrod's cause can render 
 The good man bad, the brave 
 A tyrant slave ? ' 
 
Stroke the Second 153 
 
 " So northward through the Median gate paraded 
 
 His haughty bands, as if to meet the king 
 In triumph. But the enormous town invaded 
 
 A strange disquiet. As our dials fling 
 At nightfall shadows faster o'er the terrace ; 
 
 As, ere defeat, there shrills an ominous sound 
 In soldier's ears from out his hollow cuirass ; 
 
 As fright foreruns the upbreak of the ground ; 
 Darker, and murmuring low 
 Did Babel grow. 
 
 "Anon, 'twas bruited about, the passes 
 
 Of northern hills had seen an overthrow 
 Of Nimrod such, that streams were blocked with masses 
 
 Of faithful warriors. He was slain or so 
 Disastrously in flight none knew his path. 
 
 Whence the fell news ? Or were there channels hidden 
 From Bitsu ? Or is air in days of wrath 
 
 Electric and the gales of heaven are ridden 
 
 By couriers few will heed 
 
 Yet some can read ? 
 7* 
 
154 Stroke the Second 
 
 " Ye who are native here may understand ; 
 
 Ye who are foreign know not all the fury 
 Of rain and wind that beats upon this land 
 
 When the sky's doors are wide. Nay more, be sure ye 
 Have never seen the uproar and the terror 
 
 That night whereon Belshamas chose to try 
 One throw for empire, when the least wayfarer 
 
 Was housed and those securest lodged would cry 
 Awakening on their gods 
 Between their nods. 
 
 "About the tower of Ahram shrieked the wind 
 
 Seven-toned and answered by the spirits seven 
 Of seven dried skeletons of chieftains pined 
 
 Seven days with thirst, who perished cursing heaven. 
 They caught with arms in jagged nails that ended, 
 
 Batlike, the portals of the fanes and shrines. 
 Curses and screams with claps of thunder blended. 
 
 The high tower rocked, from apex to the mines 
 Deep down where gates were made 
 And floods were stayed. 
 
Stroke the Second 155 
 
 "About Avere readings, turmoil and convulsion. 
 
 Below, as if the soil itself upheaved, 
 Softened to marsh beneath the -swift emulsion 
 
 Of sheeted rain. At last when seemed reprieved 
 Both town and tower, and up my terrace stair 
 
 Being come, we viewed the truce in warfare dismal. 
 While nature lay all dark and weary there, 
 
 A meteor light across the black abysmal 
 Began to bulge, and soon 
 Rose like a moon. 
 
 " Midnight was on. And from the teeming hearth 
 
 Of human souls. aslumber, loving, quakipg, 
 Floated the webs of human thought from earth, 
 
 The blurry skeins of dreams. From parent waking 
 With instinct marvellous for an ailing child 
 
 A prayer. The curse, or uttered or unspoken 
 Of gambler of his heritage beguiled. 
 
 Love's purest vow. The shapeless phrases broken 
 In wine. And joys, and fears. 
 Thoughts chaste ; plots ; leers. 
 
156 Stroke the Second 
 
 " Sudden : a blare across that web fantastic 
 
 Of soundless clarions from the conqueror flame ! 
 Fire, fire, a restless architect with plastic 
 
 Untutored hand, that moulds as if in game 
 Fagades dun agate, domes all silver-shining, 
 
 Pillars of topaz and an architrave 
 Where above jambs and walls of gold are twining 
 
 Sculptures of men and demons. Fire, the slave. 
 Opening the carnivale 
 Of blood and bale. 
 
 " Fire : 'Tis a monster shifty-limbed and vivid 
 
 With lives Protean, thousand-tongued and arm'd, 
 Crowner with roses of a victim livid, 
 
 Saver of him the king of frost has harmed. 
 Fire : He is beck'ning with enormous crest 
 
 From peak to peak of mountains ; now the warmer 
 Of tender palms ; now sports at man's behest ; 
 
 Now is at man's word swift relentless stormer 
 Of towns and awful scourge 
 And god-sent purge. 
 
Stroke the Second 157 
 
 " By his dread form supported and concealed 
 
 Belshamas and his emissary torches 
 Plunged the wide town in tumult. Then there pealed 
 
 From temple gong, and trumpet brayed from porches 
 Of palaces that whirled with panic fear. 
 
 And while man stared, or all at random hurried. 
 The brazen water-gates were opened clear 
 
 And in rushed bands of men that live half buried 
 In fen and rushy haunt, 
 Horribly gaunt. 
 
 " Like famine, like the pestilence they fell 
 
 On hapless folk, and when had dawned the morrow 
 Half Babel was or ruined or in spell 
 
 To bold Belshamas. Ah, the dawn of sorrow ! 
 And, gathering force by promise or by threat, 
 
 He headway made toward Nimrod's castle palace. 
 Where slim but desperate was resistance set. - ' 
 
 Ay, then was placed against my lips the chalice 
 Of wrath that waiting stood 
 Half fire, half blood! 
 
158 Stroke the Second 
 
 " To night of blood, a morn of dust and ashes. 
 
 The season cool of darkness and sweet sleep 
 
 Lit with a glare and intershocked with crashes 
 
 Of falling floors. But when the sunbeams creep 
 Forth most reluctantly through smoke and cloud, 
 
 The lovely day with darkness intermingled. 
 And dead or fled full half the mighty crowd 
 
 Through whom of late their thousand life-bloods tin- 
 gled— 
 
 Gone the slow gotten wealth 
 Of work or stealth ! 
 
 " So there we lay, the queen against the claimant 
 
 Of Nimrod's throne. The heart of Babylon 
 Was cut in twain. Ah, when in wrath his raiment 
 
 A monarch tears, what skill can make it one ? 
 Two towns made war and raised against each other 
 
 Contiguous walls and from the barricades 
 Made sallies oft, or sought old friends to smother 
 
 In sulphurous fumes, and planned revengeful raids 
 To shock with sudden fear 
 The wing or rear. 
 
Stroke the Second 159 
 
 " Thus travailed Babylon in anguish sore, 
 
 A city marked for strength so overweening 
 It seemed the citadel whereinto war 
 
 Might push its snake's head never. Little meaning 
 Is now to towers and giant walks and quays, 
 
 Since through each vein and artery runs the poison 
 Of civil strife and ruin's deadly craze 
 
 Impests the folk, till woman's hand will moisten 
 With blood and grasp the sword 
 For deeds abhorred. 
 
 " But slowly, surely drew the Prince a ring 
 
 Of conquered streets around about the palace. 
 When ground was lost, a new defence would spring 
 
 By night from lines of houses. Then the malice 
 Of fate showed forth. For Ahram, with the lees 
 
 Of Nimrod's army at his back, debated 
 A chance to strike. For now Belshamas flees 
 
 No more, and Ahram, with the knowledge weighted 
 All's in the balance, tries 
 At first with spies. 
 
i6o Stroke the Second 
 
 " But Ishtar's doves their timid natures prove 
 
 In flights through smoke and din of siege and under 
 The plumage soft while swift the air they groove 
 
 Bear messages. Sweet birds ! And did they wonder 
 At man, insensate, filled with hatefulness ? 
 
 Alas, to bear, in lieu of phrases tender 
 Whereby love might a life-long union bless, 
 
 Words of sharp fate, the which the deed engender 
 Which leads to death, and sounds 
 The trump to wounds ! 
 
 " So, fixt the hour, and gathered all the train 
 
 Of valiant ones, we raise the signal fire. 
 'Tis answered ! forth we sally might and main, 
 
 Before our braves the startled foes retire 
 Only to meet with grimmer blows behind. 
 
 Thus till the dawn. But now the circle grievous 
 Of siege no more our famished braves can bind. 
 
 Nor in his toils can sly Belshamas weave us, 
 For, marshalled, band by band, 
 Adjoined we stand. 
 
Stroke the Second i6i 
 
 "But why lags Nimrod ? To my question eager 
 
 No answer was. But up the avenue 
 With armor strewn and dead men in their rigor 
 
 A car wheeled slowly, guarded by a crew 
 Of solemn mutes. What means the gilded cage ? 
 
 Alas, what lion of the waste is prisoned 
 By massy bars that yield not to his rage ? 
 
 What burly man, O God, with features wizened, 
 Is borne, a ghastly freight, 
 In hideous state ! . . . 
 
VIII 
 
 BELSHAMAS 
 
VIII 
 
 BELSHAMAS 
 
 " In love and war alike are plans confounded 
 
 Of hopeful man. He stumbles, bites the dust, 
 Gathers him up, and, weeping, bruised and wounded, 
 
 Holds to his course. A child full-grown, he must 
 Act childishly. To one he offers apples. 
 
 Accepted, 'tis a friend. Rejected, all 
 His thoughts are wrath, and for revenge he grapples 
 
 A deadly steel to slay and cool his gall. 
 In love and war is range 
 For sudden change. 
 
1 66 Belshamas 
 
 ' ' The sunlike disk of fortune's face was turned 
 
 From off Belshamas. While with sword and fire 
 We girt him in his quarter, slew and burned 
 
 Through Chaldee troops of horsemen who for hire 
 Come from the North and tribes of cruel Gog. 
 
 The Sossian king was beaten back ; the wizard 
 Arabian and his spearmen chased, as fog 
 
 Flies from Euphrates, when descends the blizzard 
 From out the snowy pass 
 Cold, clear as glass. 
 
 " But still the half of Babel lay untaken, 
 
 Wall-girt, provisioned, full of desperate men 
 Who sallied oft, and were by storms unshaken, 
 
 And in their walls for inmost lair and den, 
 Took for a citadel what was my palace. 
 
 And there Belshamas ruled with pomp, and saw 
 His guards defile, his banners wave, the jealous 
 
 And envious band of eunuchs use their law 
 About the harem's crew 
 As monarchs do. 
 
Belshamas 167 
 
 " Well could I mark his state superb, for once 
 
 When watchmen slept, and men foretold surrender, 
 An onslaught sudden left me for the nonce 
 
 Unguarded. Quickly slaughtered lay the gender 
 Of martial men, but I and every maid 
 
 Were hurried off. Ah, then to hear the clamor 
 From trembling throats ! But neither slight, upbraid 
 
 Nor wrong us would Belshamas. When the tremor 
 Of all at last was still 
 He showed his skill. 
 
 " Slender, and grave with thoughts beyond his years, 
 
 Belshamas leaned with glances sympathetic. 
 Seeming to share and honor deep our tears. 
 
 He spoke us courage with a voice magnetic. 
 And from the throne descended me to greet. 
 
 A long fine nose, a beard both young and curling. 
 Large eyes, a mouth where craft and kindness meet. 
 
 Long features, and a bashful trick of twirling 
 His baton royal — thus 
 He smiled on us. 
 
1 68 Belshamas 
 
 " ' Most lovely queen,' and by his side he seated 
 
 Me, his dire enemy, ' who dares to quarrel 
 With fate that my great father should have treated 
 
 You as a monarch ? In the worst apparel 
 That slaves wear, you are queen. But when superb 
 
 You sit the throne, your beauty soars in splendor. 
 No, not for me your glorious reign to curb 
 
 Who am but slave the first ! I would be mender 
 Not breaker of this realm. 
 I take the helm 
 
 ' ' ' Because great Nimrod is no more. Speak you, 
 
 That are all wise as beautiful ! Existent 
 Is he who paces a life's remnant through 
 
 Like wild beast up and down a cage ? Persistent 
 In love and war, I honor you. But come. 
 
 Luck is now my way. You are not a mother. 
 And who is heir if I be not ? Should some 
 
 Stray child of his, some obscure younger brother 
 Inherit, where's the gain ? 
 I would be plain : 
 
Belshamas 1 69 
 
 " ' Consider how the empire falls to wrack 
 
 By inner strife. Anon the bold invader 
 Will strike us hard from Elam ; at whose back 
 
 Will come the Caspian hordes, and next the raider 
 From out the desert's teeming womb. But see 
 
 How soon, peace made, or I, or skilful Ahram 
 Will heal all hurts, by awe or clemency 
 
 Subdue and guard my people from alarum 
 And make them whole and stout 
 Within, without. 
 
 " ' You are too young to stay my mother. Laws 
 
 (They may be altered) now forbid a marriage ; 
 But you and I as queen and king applause 
 
 Could win as regents, should in pompous carriage 
 We traverse Babylon united, whole. 
 
 Revolve my words and furthermore bethink yo 
 To gain much good, you may allow your soul 
 
 A small deceit ; and though from wiles you shrink, you 
 Must grieve that hates are fanned 
 Throughout the land. ..." 
 
1 70 Belshamas 
 
 " Such arguments and flatteries honey-sweet 
 
 Beguiled me soon, alone and quite forsaken. 
 Then at his hint with Ahram I would treat 
 
 And on a night such secret steps were taken, 
 Ahram and I should seek a ruined house 
 
 Stamped by the soldiery and torn and broken, 
 A banquet hall where wolves alone carouse 
 
 And what their meat is cannot well be spoken. 
 Nerving my soul, the grave 
 And ghouls I brave. 
 
 " And he, more reckless yet, stands there attended 
 
 By one chief only and with gladsome cheer 
 Meets my glad face. Ah, could I then have wended 
 
 My way that hour, all had been right and clear ! 
 But what to do, when, like a wall of flint 
 
 The will of Ahram 'gainst Belshamas towers 
 When all my urging not one line can print 
 
 On his hard sense ? When prayers and tearful showers 
 Find but this word untender : 
 ' Let him surrender' ? 
 
Belshamas 171 
 
 " Half angry now, and half-way toward despair : 
 
 ' Give over, Ahram ; 'tis the spirit hateful 
 Of pride that blocks the way of every prayer 
 
 From those that love the people. Think how grateful 
 Will peace and laws established be to all. 
 
 Think, oh most cruel, what for me is fated 
 If unsuccessful I shall tread his hall ! 
 
 Cold, hard, implacable, because unmated 
 Of soul, you walk your path 
 Reckless of wrath.' 
 
 " ' Peace, cousin, peace,' and with a gesture waved 
 
 His comrade to a distance. ' Fate is teeming 
 Big with events. And now that all is save 
 
 Now that Belshamas must resort to scheming, 
 Would you ask weakness ? 'Twas for you alone 
 
 I ventured here, against all prudence common. 
 Say, I am safe ; yet, were the knowledge blown 
 
 Of this through Babel, 'twould an enemy summon 
 Like rats from every hole 
 Whither they stole. 
 
172 Belshamas 
 
 " ' Each would cry treason. This in soldier eyes 
 
 Would treason seem. Ah queen, I ventured, hoping 
 A hint to gain wherethrough by some surprise 
 
 Or mighty rush, or spies at midnight groping. 
 You should escape ! ' ' Ahram ! ' 'Be sure 'twas that.' 
 ' What have I done ? ' ' Nay, what forebodes this 
 anguish ? ' 
 ' Ahram ! I am not that I seem. Oh what 
 A wretch am I, that well deserves to languish 
 In dungeons triple deep 
 And starve and weep ! ' 
 
 " Following my glances, Ahram sees the burnish 
 
 On arrow-bolts converged against his form 
 By twenty bowmen whom the ruins furnish 
 
 With vantages. Then how my treacheries storm 
 Against his heart and summon from his face 
 
 The currents, all aghast at me the traitor ! 
 But, loving peril, quickly back they race. 
 
 His eyes flash. Then, not cooler, not sedater 
 Stood he by Nimrod's throne 
 Than there, alone. 
 
Belshamas i 'j^, 
 
 " ' Ay, well said, wretch ! ' he answered soft and low, 
 
 'Not for my death, but for your deep damnation. 
 Must I be strong for this whole world ? Bestow 
 
 Love the most lofty on a vain creation ? 
 Crush enemies within and outward? Nerve 
 
 My pulses unto honor, all to lavish 
 Fortune on ingrates whom 'twere better serve 
 
 With offals, so their heart and soul are slavish ! 
 Fools, can you not descry? 
 I dead, you die. 
 
 " ' Know you not, each one of our kith and kin 
 
 Lives but through me ? The crust we foot is tender : 
 One break — and all is over. Foemen spin 
 
 Forever plots, and while they're young and slender 
 I break them through. O curious mind of man 
 
 That hate them worst who most for them adventure. 
 Who that is not of godlike issue can 
 
 Assist them safely ? But beyond all censure 
 Are you that know mine aims — 
 Ay, beyond shames ! 
 
1 74 Belshamas 
 
 " ' What madness caught you, so to cheat ? ' '0 pardon, 
 
 I deemed it sure that you would yield.' 'Weak soul. 
 Were you coerced ? ' ' No, let me bear the farden 
 
 Of your contempt, for I deserve the whole.' 
 ' If living I am taken, what's your gain ? ' 
 
 ' None, none.' ' If slain, how shall you be rewarded ? ' 
 ' Nay, crush me, Ahram, not with your disdain, 
 
 If you die, life is over.' ' 'Tis a sordid 
 And slender pay you win 
 For so great sin.' 
 
 " Red flusht his face ; and firmly clencht his jaw. 
 
 Suddenly rang his captain-voice imperious : 
 ' Down with your bows ! About and march ! ' I saw 
 
 How like machines the order sharp and serious 
 Those bowmen as from their own chief obeyed. 
 
 The moment used, and with reproach appealing 
 In mournful look, great Ahram and his aid 
 
 Were gone. My way in double darkness feeling, 
 I drew, and knew not where. 
 The midnight air. 
 
Belshamas 1 75 
 
 " But now the trumps and dismal jar of drum 
 
 Ring through the town, and in the night o'ervaulted 
 Have braves the walls and from their cups. have come 
 
 The chiefs surprised, rallying their troop assaulted, 
 Shouting and surging outward where the walls 
 
 Are weakest held, and placing men in order 
 To hand the spears. A very sea of calls, 
 
 Oaths, cries, commands of infinite disorder 
 - Swings with a rush and roar 
 From shore to shore ; 
 
 " And, caught from house to house, reverberates 
 
 Through the vast town and strikes the low-hung welkin, 
 Returns again and with its panic freights 
 
 The nerves of sleepers webbed about in silken 
 And soothing dreams. So vast the town e'en then 
 
 It wakened slowly. One man was not slumb'ring. 
 All day the fates had hidden from his ken 
 
 His fortune's tide, but at the evening's umb'ring 
 The scales were straight. Ere dawn 
 All hope was gone. 
 
1 76 Belshamas 
 
 " Nor me Belshamas cold or fiercely greeted : 
 
 'O queen,' he spake, courteous and still in tone, 
 ' Once Ahram overcame me. Twice he meted 
 
 A punishment, and thrice now for the throne 
 I've cast my lot. 'Tis over. Come with me 
 
 And view my stern confession made in Babel. 
 Though conqueror never, still I know to be 
 
 A not all fameless scion of that rebel 
 Great Nimrod, though a son 
 Whose thread is spun.' 
 
 " Then by the hand he led me through the halls 
 
 Once ruled by me, — and in the one all golden 
 A mighty dais piled with cups and shawls 
 
 Of price, and arms and jewels that embolden 
 Great men to crime, and store of fragile things 
 
 Rich, priceless, in the which a burning feather 
 Falling, would raise flames quenchless, saddles, rings, 
 
 Armlets and turbans, statues heaped together 
 With piles of gums and spice, 
 Flasks and clean rice ! 
 
Belshamas 177 
 
 " And midst the wealth that lay there for some rite 
 
 Were inlaid couches, on the which were seated 
 The rows of wives wan with a deadly fright 
 
 Half dazed with poppy-juice. But him they greeted 
 With one low shriek, more pitiable to me 
 
 Than all the tumult nearer borne and nearer. 
 Nerved by sublime belief in his decree 
 
 They watched for death, since death with him was 
 dearer 
 
 Than life that conquerors gave 
 To stay a slave. 
 
 " Proudly he smiled and slowly upward mounted. 
 
 ' Esther, farewell ! And if my father turn 
 To life again, I ask to have recounted 
 
 What road I chose. He rather would I burn 
 Than bend the knee to any sword but his. 
 
 To Bitsu hail. To Ahram my defiance. 
 To you I leave the serpent-filled abyss 
 
 In minds of guilt whereon there's no reliance : 
 
 Death would but ease the strife 
 
 That tears your life ! ' 
 S* 
 
lyS Belshamas 
 
 " From form to form I saw him go and bending 
 
 With lover's look bereave them of such life 
 As opium left. And as each breath was ending 
 
 Down fell the corpse, glad of a rid of strife ; 
 And like a lamb the next wife held her throat 
 
 To his sad steel. The low cries and vibration 
 Of that huge mound, would that I need not note ! 
 
 And their poor eyes — ah, could I spare narration 
 Of all that horrid dream 
 Wherethrough they gleam ! 
 
 " I saw a flame, a little flickery flame 
 
 Peep forth and with its adder's tongue aquiver 
 Lick at the gauds. A rumble after came 
 
 A swirl, a roar ! The wide hall swims, a river 
 Of fiery waves, that eats the cedarn beams 
 
 Like charts and makes the tiMd floors to shrivel. 
 And through the flame-sheets bright and brighter gleams 
 
 Belshamas armed. But, sober 'mid the revel, 
 His eyes glow bright, are glassed, 
 Vanish the last ! 
 
Belshamas 1 79 
 
 " And I, benumbed with woe and pity, nearly 
 
 Was slaughtered too, when Ahram came with speed 
 And Nimrod next, his visage red and cheerly 
 
 As wont was when the fit of warlike deed 
 Was on and all his nature craved the battle. 
 
 Before which two no foe on earth, could stand 
 So fierce their look, so merciless the rattle 
 
 Of golden mails. But on that burning grand 
 They looked surprised, deterred 
 From questioning word. 
 
 " At length great Nimrod, from whose brow was fading 
 
 The flush of war : ' That rebel, where is he ? 
 Belshamas, my dear son ! I'd be upbraiding 
 
 Your treason ! Esther ! Speak loud ! Went he free ? 
 Nay, do not speak ! No, no, not dead. Dead — dead ? 
 
 O gods, not dead ! Say it, I'll not believe you. 
 Tell me he's wounded, like a coward fled, 
 
 Esther, sweet Esther, did I ever grieve you ? 
 Then tell me that my son 
 From hence has flown. 
 
i8o Belskamas 
 
 ' ' ' What ! there lies all that was so brave and brilliant 
 
 In mind and form ? O whelp of lion's line 
 Too proud to beg, who with a flame resilient 
 
 Showed for his end a more magnific sign 
 Of haughty mood than any king of earth ! 
 
 Gone, my proud son ? Gone ? And I still existent? 
 Where shall I find an heir of half your worth ? 
 
 It cannot be. Tis false. Methinks persistent 
 As always, rebel sweet, 
 You join your fleet ! 
 
 " ' Nay, point not you ! Let us away. The heap 
 
 Of changing coals draws to a ghastly figment 
 Of something his — the arms — the head. . . and keep 
 
 A form o'ermantling with a sulphurous pigment. 
 Belshamas ! Would 'twere I — I dead already ! 
 
 Esther, forgive ! O gods, what blows you deal ! 
 I come, I come. Help. I am weak, unsteady. 
 
 No counsel, Ahram, this can ever heal. 
 Belshamas, O my son, 
 Undone, undone ! ' 
 
IX 
 
 THE WRATH OF THE GODS 
 
IX 
 
 THE WRATH OF^ THE GODS 
 
 " To prop a state attained by mortal illness, 
 
 To nerve a people formed of bronze and clay, 
 To quell the outbreak and to hear in stillness 
 
 The new plots forming, forming, night and day ; 
 In fawning faces note the desperations. 
 
 To treat as friend the foeman pale with hate. 
 To watch a fabric reared with terrible patience 
 
 Yawn and collapse by law and rule of fate : 
 What soul is formed that care 
 Unmoved to bear ? 
 
184 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " An empire, knit and raised by Ahram's will 
 
 Through Bitsu's, mine, and ffver new defections, 
 Crumbled and reeled. A more than human skill 
 
 Must work when through the people creep dejections 
 That have no cause, and sap the liveliness 
 
 Of speech and fancy. In the ruined quarter 
 What wonder sadness dwelt ? But when the dress 
 
 Was deftly laid of marble, bricks and mortar. 
 Why should the subtle stain 
 Of gloom remain ? 
 
 " For all were sullen, from great Nimrod down, 
 
 Who passed the day in sloth, the night carousing, 
 Down to the slaves who in the wicked town 
 
 Lived shamefullest. But they the great ones, housing 
 In walls of wealth, forgot the common laws 
 
 Of shame and decency, infect with madness 
 For costly orgies ; who, without a pause 
 
 From vice to vice, as if to flee from sadness 
 Hastened with hollow cheer 
 And scoff and jeer. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 185 
 
 " Days of discomfort, nights of causeless tears ! 
 
 With Bitsa frequent were my incantations 
 Against the quaking demons that with fears 
 
 Unmeaning fill the body. What relations 
 Unholy heard I from the eunuch sly ! 
 
 For he had dreamed that when the tower were finished, 
 Should the last brick be put in place, the sky 
 
 Would fall, unless the wrath divine diminished 
 By living victims lay 
 Sated with prey. 
 
 "Wherefore alive he walled men up, unknown 
 
 To Ahram, since of all things Ahram hated 
 Man-sacrifice ; but ere the tower was done 
 
 Pried out one brick and thus the gods placated. 
 The tower, unfinished, was in safety held. 
 
 The tower, complete, was entrable of devils. 
 The tower, once shaken by demoniac spell. 
 
 Forewarned that whirlwind of a war which levels 
 All Babel to the dust. 
 Just with unjust. 
 
1 86 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " And verily amongst the folk at large 
 
 The tower itself was deemed an awesome idol. 
 They kneeled far off and to the tower in charge 
 
 Gave hopes and secrets. Nor could Ahram bridle 
 Their lust for worship of the senseless thing. 
 
 And fortune-tellers, wizards, cheats, magicians 
 Throve merrily, who could the changes ring 
 
 On all its phases and behold in visions 
 If one or other mood 
 Were bad or good. 
 
 " On misty mornings when the topmost shrine 
 
 Stabbed the white fog like tip of warrior's bonnet 
 They told the votary he should dig a mine 
 
 Of hoarded gold ; then singing him their sonnet 
 And praying Sun, would, where the gold bars lay. 
 
 Divine with straws. Again, the steady flicker 
 Of nooning sunrays on its face would say 
 
 The hour of sailing, when a galliot quicker 
 Ceylon the rich might gain 
 Across the main. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 187 
 
 " By shades of eve, or when the moon was half 
 
 Behind a cloud, among the folk a fancy- 
 Curious was this : the tower became a staff 
 
 Of some great god, and by a necromancy 
 Was gone, though seeming firmly planted there. 
 
 Nay, seen it was in Ararat, transported 
 To Ahram's home ! Across the desert bare, 
 
 Men whispered, it was known to move, escorted 
 Upon a starlit night 
 By angels bright. 
 
 "And in the folk as nickname Ahram bore 
 
 The name of Tower of Nimrod, since his presence 
 And forceful character the building wore. 
 
 Brilliant and stable. Slaves and lowly peasants, 
 Marking far off the glitter of its crown. 
 
 Made sign of awe, drew breath of satisfaction, 
 Because the greatest in the cruel town 
 
 Most righteous was, avenging swift infraction 
 Of justice if the chiefs 
 Should work them griefs. 
 
1 88 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " Now thus befell that in his palace hall — 
 
 Redbeamed it was and carved with gay procession 
 Inlaid and painted — Nimrod sat in stall 
 
 Of Indian teakwood. But their several station 
 His living chessmen took upon each square 
 
 Before him on the tiles. A combat royal 
 Of four kings and their household armies, where, 
 
 When four ways battle met in wily trial 
 Of wits, was aid withheld, 
 Giv'n or compelled. 
 
 " Ages before the ancestors of Kush 
 
 Rose in their hills, the winds they were of heaven 
 That ruled the earth. From out the North would push 
 
 A grievous demon in the whom no leaven 
 Of mercy was. And from the South sea flew 
 
 A gentle god, but full of bale. And Eastward 
 In deserts dry there dwelt a monster crew 
 
 Of imps whose lord his soul turned ever beastward ; 
 But each green thing oppressed 
 Wind of the West. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 189 
 
 " And horrible the wars these half-gods levy 
 
 Each other on. And now in equal rage 
 Two meet, and down go forests ; but the bevy 
 
 Of harmless wood beasts, caught in timber cage 
 Die miserably, and up the seas are scooped. 
 
 Till fishes stem their element most deadly. 
 Anon, when East wind and the South are cooped 
 
 By West and North wind in a fearful medley 
 Within a gorge, complete 
 Is their defeat. 
 
 " But on the soul of trembling mortal stamped 
 
 That uproar is. Men meet for banquet yearly 
 Delaying not till mimicry has tramped 
 
 Semblance terrestrial of the wind-war, merely 
 That gods may smile and pass, their flatterers by. 
 
 And thus grow deep the rites religious, written 
 In subtle moves that brain and patience try. 
 
 Secrets for chiefs, teaching the way that smitten 
 Should foes be, how decoyed, 
 Soothed, or annoyed. 
 
I go The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " A war for wit. But conqueror Nitnrod never 
 
 Could mastership in that sly game achieve. 
 Nor Ahram, passing Nimrod, yet could ever 
 
 The eunuch beat however he might grieve. 
 For, without breathing, stir of hair, or inotion 
 
 The slightest, Bitsu like a lizard basked 
 In that chief's game, whereto went his devotion : 
 
 He loved it more, the more the moves were masked. 
 Chess and his queen : the two 
 He worshipped true. 
 
 " A sport whence many a varied gam.e of chance. 
 
 With forethought mingled, to this day descended ; 
 Now Ahram first resolved the sacred dance 
 
 Of wind-god wars to war of brains and blended 
 Pleasure and profit in the exercise. 
 
 With painted tiles the pastime first began 
 But Nimrod made it a delight for eyes. 
 
 With kings in robes and many a harnessed man 
 So the whole hall and court 
 Could view the sport, 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 191 
 
 " And wagers lay, and greet a lucky move 
 
 With murmurs, but the stroke of forethought witty 
 With humming low, could censure or approve. 
 
 And at the game the gloom of Babel city 
 Forsook the court, and from the monarch's mind 
 
 The vapors fled ; within his beard there glimmered 
 At times a smile. That day he was most kind 
 
 And, summoned there, I saw in Nimrod shimmered 
 A light that care defied, 
 Care thrust aside. 
 
 "A light of hope, a lull before a storm, 
 
 A sunburst ere the fatal bolt is driven ; 
 Revival of a mind beyond the norm 
 
 Of usual health, ere it in twain is riven. 
 For Nimrod laughed. We hardly dared to own 
 
 That sign of health. And in the royal pastime 
 He showed a skilfulness was never known ; 
 
 But neither dreamt we that he moved the last time 
 His men as sovereign lord 
 About that board. 
 
192 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 "Then in the midmost unperceived appeared 
 
 A face of dread whereto adhered our glances 
 Hushed and absorbed. The chessmen, well that feared 
 
 To move unbid, shrunk with their casques and lances 
 As at a wraith. It was the vestal only, 
 
 Anna the virgin, who paced on, wide-eyed, 
 Half-conscious, murmuring, and at court as lonely 
 
 As in the air-fane with no soul beside. 
 She raised without salaam 
 Her yellow palm : 
 
 " ' If you be Nimrod and the spectres swim 
 
 No more about me, spectres full of malice. 
 First hear me, King, and question then your whim 
 
 In punishment. For full has swollen the chalice 
 Of woe to come. Wrath touches to the brink. 
 
 I must speak, or go mad. I suffer torment 
 To know of danger at the door and think : 
 
 One word ! and maybe, while the fates are dormant, 
 Some loophole ye may spy 
 Wherethrough to fly. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 193 
 
 " ' In dreams know first that I a brick perceived, 
 
 Pure gold, so fashioned that it closely fitted 
 A vacant space within the fane which grieved 
 
 My eye as most unseemly. Once I quitted 
 The tower and in the orchard near the well 
 
 My foot struck something. Lo, it was the double 
 Of that my dream ! The victim of a spell, 
 
 I bore it up, nor deemed it brought me trouble. . . 
 O King, do you recall 
 How to its fall 
 
 " ' Rocked the high tower the day that Symbess hoary 
 
 Strove against Ahram? 'Twas your handmaid, I 
 Anna the vestal, who in topmost story 
 
 Caused the gold brick within that space to lie. 
 But at the third shock that convulsed the tower 
 
 I threw it out, nor knew the thoughtless motion 
 Had consequence, nor that the cube a power 
 
 Contained more fearful than the waves of ocean. 
 
 But listen what befell 
 
 Through that strange spell ! 
 9 
 
194 T^^^ Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " ' Last night there crept a slowly circling storm 
 
 Along the heights of morning and debouching 
 Upon the plain, with stealthy skirts and warm 
 
 Forwarning breath, in southward circle crouching, 
 Reached to the west and neared along the north 
 
 Fawning upon the tower. Anna ever 
 Knows how they come with spiral menace forth 
 
 The storms that hide the spectres thin that sever 
 Their bulk so finely, none 
 May see them run ! 
 
 " ' And next, the town was girdled close with streams 
 
 Of whitish rain, next with the hailstone rattle. 
 Then all was still ; and now electric gleams 
 
 Crackling like thorns ; now roar and crash of battle. 
 Silence again. A peal of gongs that swept 
 
 The brain like madness, and a whirlwind icy 
 That stopped the lungs. About me numbness crept 
 
 Up, up from earth mixed with a fragrance spicy 
 And frightful like the breath 
 Of youthful death. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 195 
 
 " ' I looked about me at a fairy scene, 
 
 For giant trees with birds and flowers laden 
 Moved in a dance majestic o'er the green 
 
 And dewy grass. Upon the lakes the maiden 
 Buds of the lotus bared their bosoms candid 
 
 Showing their fragrant hearts of gold. The leaves 
 Were shuttled through with sunbirds near whose banded 
 
 And jewelled wings a trail of glory cleaves, 
 While tulips brandished fine 
 Their cups of wine. 
 
 " ' A thousand variants of the passion-bright 
 
 Unrivalled rose bloomed there in many a cluster, 
 Each rose so wondrous that it caused a fright 
 
 Lest this one rose should perish, and its lustre 
 Forevermore be lost to earth. The copse 
 
 Throbbed with the heart-cries exquisite, most yearning 
 Of nightingales and of a bird in tops 
 
 Of air-swung boughs whose one long note returning 
 Ravished the soul with bliss 
 To hear but this. 
 
196 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " 'The landscape where I moved impalpable 
 
 Bodiless — was't the paradise of nations 
 Where, finding conscience, man in finding fell ? 
 
 Now wins a glimpse through self-annoying patience ? 
 I strolled abashed along the green grass paths, 
 
 And saw how lions on the herbage gambol 
 Among the flocks, and through the flowery swaths 
 
 How buffaloes with smoothy leopards amble 
 And bird and fly agree 
 In amity. 
 
 " ' Each vista beckoned to a mountain onward 
 
 That shone within so clear and dazzling white 
 None dared approach, not even the bird that-sunward 
 
 Stares from its egg. There, dark against the light, 
 Were shapes august that sat on thrones in seven 
 
 Awesome, seven-hued, and set with peaceful eyes 
 That never blink, wherethrough one seems a heaven 
 
 Of joy to drink from wells of glad surprise : 
 To limn those secrets rare 
 No tongue could dare. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 197 
 
 " ' Seven figures mighty, girt on waist and brow 
 
 With flowers, whereon the dewbeads hung ; but never 
 Threw they a shadow, nor in lovely row 
 
 Drooped one in death. But they that vanished ever 
 More lovely bloomed and different. Fairy chimes 
 They rang about the high gods, and their carols 
 Silvered or deepened solemnly at times. 
 
 When low they boomed, methought they sang of 
 quarrels 
 
 Divine ; when clear they/rolled 
 Of concord told. 
 
 " ' Entranced thereby, the sharp-drawn spiritual ear 
 
 Made note of voices, as, when many clarions 
 Biow, toward the last the separate trumps you hear ; 
 
 Or when eyes know from many a wave at variance 
 To carve one billow. From the figure tinged 
 
 Faint azure, words in slow and mighty sequence 
 Against my naked fluttering soul impinged, 
 
 Rhythmical, chanted with that wise infrequence 
 Which bards may never say 
 With lips of clay : 
 
igS The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 Nebo Mercury spoke : 
 " ' Gods, vestal Anna stands without^ ttnbidden 
 
 Save by her soul devoid of selfishness , 
 Sensitive, ominous of the evil hidden 
 
 From Babel and of Nimrod's keen distress. 
 What are your wills, and what the will of him 
 
 Who is not, yet who writes within the lightning, 
 Whose part ye are, as of the sun his limb ? 
 Speak low, have care, her fragile spirit fright' ning 
 With mortal dread, ye burn 
 Beyond return ! 
 
 Ishtar Venus spoke : 
 " ' From paley yellow into gold there glowed 
 
 A second shape : Not love, but vile pollution 
 In Babel Nimrod and his priests have showed. 
 
 And are with beastliness infir')n collusion. 
 Towns worship me as goddess of grim war : 
 
 I grant them leave to rise and march on Babel. 
 Nimrod has scorned itie. To his lucky star 
 
 Has trusted. Well. His dearest shall be stable 
 In love for hiin as reed ; 
 Love shall be greed. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 199 
 
 Nergal Mars, Merodach Jupiter spoke : 
 " ' Cowards must down ! came in a voice of thunder 
 
 'From him whose color was a swarthy red. 
 Too long the valiant wage, a etmuch under, 
 
 Effeminate war and priestly whimsies zved 
 With martial plans . Slay all, slay all, slay, slay ! 
 
 Chastise, but ruin not the town, sonorous 
 Rang out from him all orange in array. 
 
 ' Let Babel stand, so shall the awe-struck chorus 
 Of the new chastened race 
 Uplift our praise ! 
 
 Sin Diana spoke: 
 " ' The shape that gleamed a silver-lin^d cloud 
 
 Spoke gently : Great are Nimrod's woes and trials. 
 Great Ahram's merit, and of Bitsu proud 
 
 Am I as otte to whom his fate denials 
 Of gladness gave, yet labors toward the right. 
 But Babel sins too grossly and must garner 
 Sin's harvest in, for using shades of night 
 
 To crimes most hideous. Fluttering soul, be warner 
 To Babel that at last 
 The bounds are passed ! 
 
200 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 Shamas Apollo spoke : 
 " ' Accurst be Babel, rang like golden chimes 
 
 From one that glowed beyond support of vision. 
 Day hides his head before her -noontide crimes 
 
 And Nimrod longs to put us to derision 
 For grisly wraiths and demons of the night. 
 
 He scorns the arts. Dibbdra the black spirit 
 Of pestilence in chains consumes with spite. 
 Unleash her then, with many a fiend to ferret 
 The rocks and caves among 
 That senseless throng. 
 
 " ' So seemed they speaking, yet I dare not swear 
 
 The words against my gates of hearing fluttered. 
 The last of them (I seem to see him there) 
 
 Was strangest formed and never a word he uttered. 
 Four eyes, two closed ; four wings, two shut on breast ; 
 
 Reposed he, watching ; wakeful was in slumber ; 
 Flew while he lingered, yet in flight at rest ; 
 
 And on his head were winglets two in number ; 
 The one for sense designed, 
 This one for mind. 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 201 
 
 " • And though he deigned not of a sentence, still 
 
 To harshest phrases came approval motion, 
 Darkening the while, as when the heavens fill 
 
 With wrathful clouds and quench the sheen of ocean, 
 And low the sea-bells on his head-dress boomed. 
 
 Then silence was. And then a sound seemed gathered 
 From worlds far hung, by other suns illumed — 
 
 A sound that was by every atom fathered 
 That hangs, or swift is hurled 
 About the world. 
 
 " ' And at the sound upon their thrones the seven 
 
 Bowed them in awe ; and rang with gleeful tunes 
 Their chaplets all ; and from their eyes a heaven 
 
 Of splendor streamed. But I those mystic runes 
 Heard and weighed well ; yet by the weakness human 
 
 Retain them not, nor all my pondering serves 
 To grasp their sunken meaning or to summon 
 
 One word sublime. Joy on my spiritual nerves 
 
 So struck that sorrow spun 
 
 With joy in one. 
 9* 
 
202 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " ' I woke, and saw that round the tower there glowed 
 
 A lurid sheen and from the dark advancing 
 Something that haglike on a wild-ox rode 
 
 Spotted and bleared. But on before went dancing 
 Imps of the night with flickering torches, come 
 
 Like flies to carrion. And within me voices 
 Communed and said, What fiends thus gladly roam ? 
 
 It is Dibbdra who in death rejoices 
 Unusual, writhen, green, 
 With swollen spleen — 
 
 " ' Dibbdra, pestilence ; half dry as mummy, 
 
 Half bloated with a red and terrible flesh, 
 Whose ferret eyes in eyelids raw and gummy 
 
 At ambush lie to pounce on victims fresh. 
 A poisoned mass, insatiable of maw. 
 
 Her sight will chill the marrow. At her breathing 
 The sinews crack, and when her loathsome paw 
 
 Touches the cheek, bestir yourselves in wreathing 
 The wreaths of death and fire 
 The funeral pyre ! 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 203 
 
 " ' And round and round the tower she took her way 
 
 Like sinuous water-snake the strong built dwelling 
 Of marsh-birds ringing, while incessant play 
 
 Her diamond eyes and double tongue compelling 
 Those hapless ones to show their only gate. 
 
 So me Dibbdra brought in fascination 
 To devilish will and with compulsion great 
 
 Magnetic, forced me from her distant station 
 To fit in place and hold 
 The cube of gold. 
 
 " ' Dibbdra hasted not, nor stopped, nor turned 
 
 But met the fane-pile as a lordly portress 
 Demands an entrance, smote the wall and yearned 
 
 Thereon her venom. As a deep-delved fortress 
 Cracks undermined ; and as the thunder-clap 
 
 Splits heaven-high, your strong built fanes, O Ahram, 
 Shrivelled and yawned. And forth the sudden gap 
 
 A demon stepped,"unmoved by that alarum 
 So earnest seemed his will 
 Fresh life to spill. 
 
204 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " ' Again she smote. Again the tower, reeling, 
 
 Spewed out a fiend. Seven times, from every tier. 
 Issued a demon whose imprisoned feeling 
 
 Of wrath we felt for many a bygone year. 
 They stood and gnashed with lean and ghostly jaws. 
 
 With ghastly eyeballs of starvation staring. 
 Chewing their hands and tearing at the raws — 
 
 Seven wolves in leash, for murderous raid preparing. 
 Seven jinns that tarry well 
 The hour of hell. 
 
 " ' King, Ahram, queen ! It was this night I saw them. 
 
 I flew before. O, whither went the crew ? 
 What spell of might shall have the force to draw them 
 
 From here aside and their pale hands imbrue 
 In other blood ? Hark ! Did ye hear a sound ? 
 
 O God, grant now it was the bat that, flying 
 About the cresset, gave himself a wound ! 
 
 The squeak, the groan, the hollow moan replying — 
 O God — or am I crazed, 
 Dreaming, or dazed ? ' 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 205 
 
 ' ' Erect at portal of the king^'s wide hall 
 
 A shadowy form like a gigantic horseman 
 Stood and it seemed upon a shield let fall 
 
 A hand in mail. So will the cruel Norseman 
 Loom at the fords of sandy Caspian rivers 
 
 On days of fog and, looming, petrify 
 With fear the watchman, save that still his quiver 
 
 Clanks with his shudd'ring. Then a dreadful sigh 
 Of anguish deep, not loud, 
 Stirred in the crowd. 
 
 "A shriek. And prone upon the tiles, convulsive 
 
 And horrible, a human chessman lay, 
 Changed suddenly from health to most repulsive 
 
 Infectious sickness. From the sight away 
 Turned every face instinctively. The order 
 
 Of royal game was broke and, ashen hued, 
 Men turned to fly . . . whither ? The scarry sworder 
 
 That never flinched, the lofty soul and lewd, 
 Were levelled to one herd 
 Without a word. 
 
2o6 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " Gazed each with horror on the other's face 
 
 Detecting half, half fancying swift contagion 
 And fear, reflected, on each brow would trace 
 
 Disease by sympathy. Unseen invasion 
 Of pestilence, unheard, unmarked before ! 
 
 Floors reek with it. The scales from eyeballs broken, 
 The senses panic-sharpened will explore 
 
 The windy void. Whate'er the maid has spoken 
 Is seen with eyes that build 
 What fear has willed. 
 
 " But Nimrod sat, his huge and bearded face 
 
 Propped on his fist, and gazed with pupils glassy; 
 His cup untouched, in listless hands the mace 
 
 Of royal state. And seemed the figure massy 
 Cut of basalt upon a marble throne — 
 
 Statue a distant message was apprising 
 Of future ills from seeds the past has sown. 
 
 What thoughts are his while long-laid ghosts are rising 
 To use with dreadful power 
 Their fated hour ? 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 207 
 
 " And him watched Ahram with the mournful gaze 
 
 Of one past hope, who sees the fabric sinking 
 To whose well-being went his nights and days, 
 
 His broad brow channelled by the crease of thinking, 
 His eyes wide-rolling for a helping hand. 
 
 Then up he sprang and swinging wide a censer 
 Perfumed the king, and cried with loud command 
 
 To scatter all, and bade that sweet smoke denser 
 Should rise on every side 
 Where men abide. 
 
 " Cleared was the hall. Alone we three remained, 
 
 For little liked I Ahram's wild expression. 
 Methought his calm was somewhat more than feigned 
 
 And he had brooked the evening's broken session 
 Impatiently, disdainful. 'Twas a mood 
 
 Unknown before. Behind the deadly terror 
 That Anna raised for grim Dibbira stood 
 
 A deadlier fear — lest I should be no sharer 
 In new resolves, should he 
 Cast himself free. 
 
2o8 The Wrath of the Gods 
 
 " First Nimrod was to break the sudden hush. 
 
 His lips moved fast, but never a word was uttered. 
 With rigid eyes he sat the throne of Kush 
 
 And strove for speech and speaking only stuttered. 
 ' See them without ! ' he cried, articulate, 
 
 ' The devils pitiless have not forgiven 
 Man for his manhood. Oh, and what a fate 
 
 Plan they for brutes that upward still have striven 
 To be man and to share 
 Man's joy, man's care ! 
 
 " ' To human beings impish and malign 
 
 They are to beasts as human masquerading 
 Like poisoned garments, for the spark divine 
 
 Makes them thrice ven'mous, by so much degrading 
 As it might raise. See ye the casement glow 
 
 With fire that warms not, set with ghostly faces ? 
 Those embers are, with torment sure and slow, 
 
 To plague poor me, who now himself abases 
 To his true rank, too late 
 To soften Fate ! ' 
 
The Wrath of the Gods 209 
 
 ' Thereat he cast him from his chiselled throne 
 
 And on the tiles his kingly beard defiling 
 voared with the movement lions make alone 
 
 When hunger stabs, or treacherous hunter, spoiling 
 fheir chase will dare to front them. And a thunder 
 
 Arose as though the hall a lion caged, 
 \nd verily, to see him crouch, a wonder 
 
 It was how beastlike and how true he raged. 
 But next, by spectres hounded, 
 Forth Nimrod bounded. 
 
X 
 
 THE HESPERIDES 
 
X 
 
 THE HESPERIDES 
 
 " More corpselike than alive were those my features 
 
 For Ahram caught me by the hand and kind 
 His face turned. ' Esther, they who would be teachers 
 
 Are most untaught, it seems, and deaf and blind. 
 It draws to close, my mission. God be witness 
 
 I meant well, but my pride is now chastised. 
 You spoke once true. The god's path has no fitness 
 
 For human feet. Alas, and she I prized 
 Past earthly beings all 
 Sees, shares my fall.' 
 
214 ^^^ Hesperides 
 
 '" Nay, Ahram,' answered I, encouraged more 
 
 By kindly looks than he could dream. ' Intention 
 Was loftiest aimed. But never could we soar 
 
 Your heav'nward flight. I supplicate you, mention 
 What brooding thought has darkened you till now. 
 
 Whither your plans ? And is the hour so hopeless ? 
 You are not one whom terrors overthrow, 
 
 And though your fabric stand undone and copeless 
 The roof-tree you are skilled 
 Again to build.' 
 
 " ' While Nimrod liveth, no ! "... A shudder frightful 
 
 Traversed my face, yet why should Ahram start? 
 Could it have glassed upon my face, the rightful 
 
 Impetuous hate of one who by his art 
 Had drawn the gulf betwixt us ? Did he note 
 
 A gleam of hope, tinged with the red of murder? 
 Hope e'er so deeply sunken that will float 
 
 And tempt and tempt, until each prop and girder 
 Of will gives way and wrath 
 Breaks its dread path ? 
 
The Hesperides 215 
 
 " ' Nay, fear not me ! ' I cried before him sinking 
 
 His hand against my Hps. ' I am your slave. 
 Through you I hve ; through you the breathing, thinking 
 
 Of this poor frame is done. I only crave 
 Your comradeship and ask to be your tool. 
 
 What you say is my law, my truth and blindness. 
 Unsexed, the sword I'll wield, or at your rule 
 
 Be womanly and shrink. I thirst for kindness 
 Like birds with open beaks 
 When Babel reeks 
 
 " 'With torrid gases in the rainless time. 
 
 Shifting their scorched feet on the orange hedges 
 They pant and mope and dream of northern clime 
 
 And envy those that cleft with feathery wedges 
 The snow-cooled air of Ararat. Beseech you 
 
 Rebuff me not, but give me of the plan 
 That freights your soul ! If minim ants can teach you 
 
 Why may not I from some fresh aspect scan 
 Your thought and aid you solve 
 What you revolve ? ' 
 
2i6 The Hesperides 
 
 " ' I yield,' spake Ahram. ' From the world around me 
 
 I do not shrink. Nor friend nor foeman knew 
 To frighten me, for all the things that bound me 
 
 Can hurt but in the body. Ah, the crew 
 Blacker than bats of inky tombs on moonless 
 
 And star-drowned nights ! the grisly crew of doubts 
 Have entered me, more frightful than the boonless 
 
 Placateless jinn of pestilence, who routs 
 The people up and down 
 This fated town. 
 
 << I • 
 
 Too fast I moved. Too brittle of foundation 
 Were all my projects. I could Nimrod hold, 
 Could checkmate Bitsu, to Belshamas station 
 
 Allot at will. But who is he so bold 
 Can raise a nation ? — what say I ? four races 
 
 Diverse and wrathful, each of separate tongue, 
 Each coarse and bloody-minded, each with traces 
 Of savagery, o'er which the robe is flung 
 Of shallow smoothness split 
 At each mad fit. 
 
The Hesperides 217 
 
 " ' Ay, were they all of one descent, inured 
 
 To war with justice, and to peace with cleanness, 
 Revolt would come, nor could the taint be cured 
 
 By one king, nor by twenty. 'Tis the greenness 
 Of childhood's hour we overlook, for then 
 
 Will children learn the vices that hereafter 
 Will vanish never, though before they're men 
 
 Pains infinite, bestowed by wisest grafter. 
 Would train their souls to right 
 With kindly might. 
 
 " ' Not princes would I speak of, nor the scions 
 
 Of merchants rich, nor offspring of the chiefs 
 But folk whose sons, when kings must hunt, to lions 
 
 Are thrown in bands, unheard their lowly griefs. 
 All must be learn'd. For how can races rise 
 
 When clogged by villains ? How can they be clean 
 When lower ranks are filthy ? They are lies 
 
 Those towns that boast their books, wherein is seen 
 Most brutish ignorance 
 That stops advance ! 
 
2i8 The Hesperides 
 
 " ' Demolished, Esther, lies my great endeavor ; 
 
 No folk is this to mold upon a plan. 
 Defeated, but not crushed, I go. Since ever 
 
 Hope will revive, that of the tribes of man 
 Some that will hear me are on earth existent. 
 
 Farewell ! ' . . . But me a mortal terror seized. 
 ' Go — what ? — farewell ? Without me to a distant 
 
 And barbarous folk adventuring, you are pleased 
 To leave us in this state 
 A prey to fate ? ' 
 
 " 'What's more to do here ? ' cried the chief impatient. 
 
 ' Alone, scarce backed by few unwilling slaves, 
 Who would await, like foolish cattle stationed 
 
 Before the knife, death and dishonored graves ? 
 Beyond the sea and through the briny passes 
 
 Of Hercules and o'er the untrodden ways 
 Of watery wastes, where league on league of grasses 
 
 Grows without soil, at last the mariners gaze 
 On a white coral strand 
 And golden sand, 
 
The Hesperides 219 
 
 " ' Where nature's exquisite, but beings human 
 
 Are of that race, nor black nor white in hue, 
 Which held these lands most godlike in acumen 
 
 E'er fell the Ice-Age and the mountains grew 
 Fountains of slowly-grinding glacial rivers. 
 
 That pristine race, unchanged by heat and cold, 
 Maintains a paradise where sunset quivers 
 
 Beyond the west its glorious waves of gold, 
 Untouched by hate or thirst 
 For things accurst. 
 
 " ' Thither I wend for weighty twofold reasons : 
 
 The one, to seek a means to save you all. 
 The next, with hopes, after a score of seasons 
 
 To dig there wisdom that shall make my fall 
 Luckiest of fateful chances. Far sojourning 
 
 Beyoqd the rim of utmost western seas, 
 I shall the lore of ages past be learning 
 
 From them that hold beneath their sacred trees 
 Rites that by men were done 
 When all were one. 
 
2 20 The Hesperides 
 
 " ' Wherefore with gold that Nimrod on me lavished 
 
 In Tyre the seaport I have purchased ships 
 And ere Dibbdra all our tribe has ravished 
 
 Away, and Bitsu's ripe court-intrigue slips 
 The leash of war ; for he by agents able 
 
 Has frightened, bought, persuaded men of war 
 To my o'erthrowal ; ere this haps, from Babel 
 
 I must away, and, peaceful, venture far — 
 Perchance while yet you reign 
 To come again.' 
 
 " Then I, who knew his hard and stubborn heart, 
 
 Foresaw the event, and round his shoulders throwing 
 My queenly arms, began the siren's part. 
 
 I drew him close to lips and bosom glowing 
 With passion long denied. ' You shall not go ! 
 
 It is your queen that bids, your wife who trembles 
 Yet dares command ! All ties away I throw. 
 
 God ordered my divorce. The king resembles 
 The human kind no more ! 
 With crouch and roar 
 
The Hesperides 221 
 
 " ' To beasts he has reverted and I claim, 
 
 As widow and as queen and relict standing. 
 With homage from his minister, the same 
 
 Obedience as great Nimrod were commanding ; 
 Ay, and on pain of forfeiture and death 
 
 To, Ahram, you and all your tribe of shepherds, 
 I bid you herald what Queen Esther saith : 
 
 Ahram is king ! and every murmurer jeopards 
 His house and all within 
 Of kith and kin ! 
 
 " ' Long have I borne this life jejune and hollow 
 
 Without your lips to comfort me in times 
 Of dolefulness. Longer I shall not follow 
 
 Your lead in things that only march on crimes. 
 One fault you have, great Ahram. 'Tis that heart 
 
 With you is donjoned by the brain tyrannic. 
 I, woman, here rebel. 'Tis woman's part 
 
 To battle too, but only 'gainst Satanic 
 Unhuman pride of brain 
 That love would chain. 
 
222 The Hesperides 
 
 " ' I hate your plans ; I worship all beside them. 
 
 See how you are emaciate, struggling vain 
 With natural longings ! They, if you deride them, 
 
 Are firmly planted. Unappeased they strain 
 Your mind to spectral theories, and they harden 
 
 And mar the frame that was so fair to see. 
 Kiss back ! Embrace me ! On your knees for pardon 
 
 From your true queen, O king of all Chaldee, 
 And rise to sit a throne 
 None less should own ! ' 
 
 " Ah, under lips aflame with longing, stored 
 
 For dreary years in cells of all my being, 
 I felt the quivering of that mouth adored, 
 
 Ambrosial, firm, batthng, surrend'ring, fleeing! 
 I knew he too had been the years in pain 
 
 For just this moment and that pride was slipping 
 Her hideous hold of talons that are fain 
 
 To loosen not, grimly a victim gripping, 
 But hold him, evil-starred, 
 To pathways hard. 
 
The Hesperides 223 
 
 " Before the ruin is a moment vivid 
 
 With lightning joys when rosy flushes air 
 And forms a background for the features livid 
 
 When starts to life implacable despair. 
 I lived that moment, while I stood the stronger 
 
 And dompted Ahram with my passion's flow. 
 O horrid change ! O spite, to hold no longer 
 
 A kingdom in his heart ! To feel him grow 
 Colder and stiff and changed, 
 Stern and estranged ! 
 
 " Terrific in its onslaught the convulsion 
 
 That shook him at the conflict. Well he felt 
 Of joy and of success the soft propulsion ; 
 
 For half he kissed, and at my knees he knelt. 
 But then the ebb of resolution came 
 
 With swifter tide than ocean's liquid racing 
 Back to its level when the hilltops flame 
 
 And buried giants seem, their wide backs bracing. 
 To rear, and heave, and grind 
 Against earth's rind. 
 
2 24 The Hesperides 
 
 Ahram spoke : 
 " Goddess chaste of midnight, in the hour of peril 
 
 Leave your silent worshipper not without a guard; 
 Save him from the tempter, you that free and sterile 
 
 Range among the sky-fields, clean, and wisely hard. 
 Patroness of thinkers, heroes whom endeavors 
 Past the norm of mortals fatefully attract, 
 Virgift vowed to chastity, strengthen one that wavers. 
 Hater thou of luxury, help your son attacked 
 By the snake ambition 
 And by love undone. 
 
 ' ' Moon of winter twilights, moon of sober dawnings, 
 
 Comrade of my walks and listener to my plan. 
 Goddess just that asks not from her lover fazvnings, 
 
 Btit that well he finish what he once began : 
 Counsellor of shepherds, patroness of drovers 
 
 Whom the base importune with an impious rite, 
 Knowing not that scornful unto fleshly lovers 
 
 In the western waters dips your amber light. 
 Help M.e in extremity 
 From this place to flee ! 
 
The Hesperides 225 
 
 ' ' He drew away. Unclasping arms that clung 
 
 He beat retreat with visage most untender. 
 His every movement in my conscience stung, 
 
 The words unsaid, and yet too clear to render 
 How he remembered all I did ! Alas, 
 
 Men sin and are forgiven. But ah, for woman 
 Is no forgiveness, once she clears the pass 
 
 Of crime that is no crime, for it is human. 
 Cruel, that only one 
 Should stay undone ! 
 
XI 
 
 THE FLIGHT TO THE* SHIPS 
 
XI 
 
 THE FLIGHT TO THE SHIPS 
 
 " Forgive me, ye who lend your patient ears 
 
 To monologue that never seems to finish. 
 The night wanes. Think, how I a hundred years 
 
 Must wait for audience and how ye diminish 
 My sentence long. Nay more ; I am so bold 
 
 As beg you all to meet me here to-morrow, 
 Nor leave me with my tale in part untold. 
 
 Who knows ? the past, its deeds of joy and sorrow. 
 May prove examples clear 
 To teach and cheer. 
 
230 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " In Babel first the insects were beheld 
 
 To perish utterly and then the cattle 
 Rotted in flocks and next the toll was knelled 
 
 Of pampered horses that delight in battle. 
 Then Glut, Rend, Clutch and Rob, the dogs gigantic 
 
 Of Nimrod howled and gnashed their sides and died. 
 But next arose a wailing wild and frantic 
 
 Among the slaves along the water side : 
 Children and young men fell 
 Beneath the spell. 
 
 " And men were wanting by the sepulchre 
 
 Ancestral, distant, to inter the perished. 
 Still were the streets ; about the mounds of Ur, 
 
 That holy town whose holy caverns cherished 
 Men's bodies best, the corpses lay a-heap. 
 
 No bird sang more in Babel, nor a cheerful 
 Shout did one hear ; and yet it was not sleep 
 
 That fettered men ; for through the doors a fearful 
 Lament was heard, a call 
 Pierced the deaf wall. 
 
The Flight to the Ships z 
 
 " But westward hence, beyond the well-tilled fields, 
 
 Past the green dikes, canals and farthest houses, 
 Wide lies a land that scarce the nomad yields 
 
 Jar of roiled water. There the traveller rouses 
 Birds in the dusk that men say human-headed. 
 
 Vampires are they. On banquets well arranged 
 They swoop defiling. Nor the less is dreaded 
 
 The winged asp that in the day is changed 
 To lifeless twig, whereon 
 Live things will run. 
 
 "A wilderness, harsh, scanty peopled, weird 
 
 With boulders black, whereof there runs tradition 
 Once they were galliots gaily dight that steered 
 
 Across what was a sea ; till some magician 
 Of old, or seagod, or volcano-lord 
 
 Dried up that ooze, and lo, the myriad vessels 
 Turn lavablocks, their crews to birds abhorred, 
 
 Each cargo, booty of a temple, nestles 
 Enchanted well within 
 And watched by jinn. 
 
232 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " Next day was Ahram toward that drear land marching 
 
 With tribal kindred, resolute friends, and those 
 Who fled the grim clutch of Dibbdra, parching 
 
 The frame with fever worse than dying throes. 
 Babel was doomed, and Ahram had possession 
 
 Of many a soul by force of wit and will. 
 Compact the march of his bronze-armed procession ; 
 
 Onward they pressed, and down the trail they still 
 Gazed for the scouts that tell 
 How all stands well. 
 
 " Now through the plague-sown city what commotion ! 
 
 To fly how glad, the bands of martial men 
 Rolled to the standard Bitsu raised, as ocean 
 
 The salt-pans fills. The brazen cars by ten 
 With neighing steeds pressed onward. In whose centre 
 
 A covered ark, wherein was Nimrod borne. 
 Never again by his own will to enter 
 
 Heroic wars, but chained hke beast forlorn, 
 Yet able, even so 
 To fright the foe. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 23; 
 
 " Nor Bitsu only. I, too, filled with gall 
 
 At Ahram's flight by that much as I loved him, 
 A horse bestrode, and as from off the wall 
 
 I hurled Belshamas when a queen reproved him, 
 I led the warriors, thrilled with all their pride. 
 
 Elate of soul that I was more than woman. 
 Ahram had fled. But who rode him beside ? 
 
 The vestal Anna, to the whom inhuman 
 Tortures, whoe'er should sue 
 From me were due. 
 
 " So wolfish now had grown the rival factions 
 
 That combat hung upon a hair. To ease 
 The warworn land from struggles and distractions 
 
 Of civil broils had Ahram sought the seas. 
 To leave the vestal was to give her over 
 
 To insult certain, prison, and death with pain. 
 Wherefore she went, though enemies called him lover 
 
 Of one most pure, who thought no hour a gain 
 Wherein no thought was spun 
 Or good was done. 
 
234 T^^ Flight to the Ships 
 
 ' ' We came upon them at the long lake filled 
 
 With summer's rain beyond the tide-mark common. 
 A shout went up, since they, were placed as willed 
 
 For capture sure. Forward I spurred to summon 
 Ahram to lay his weapons down. And yet 
 
 Our mighty host before the squadron quiet 
 Drawn on a rise before the lake, its threat 
 
 Seemed vainly making. And at once the riot 
 Of boasters hushed, a pall 
 Seeming to fall : 
 
 " ' Ahram,' I cried, ' yield us the virgin vestal 
 
 To deal with fitly, since her post she fled ! ' 
 ' Back ! ' answered he. ' Here is no coming festal. 
 
 One step advance, I may not save your head. 
 Return, lost woman, to the spouse that claims 
 
 Your tenderest care, and if you love the eunuch 
 Bid him draw off. For twenty Nimrod names 
 
 Will save not his array. But he, his tunic 
 Soiled, and with bloody gown 
 Shall seek the town ! ' 
 
The Flight to the Ships 235 
 
 " That Bitsu heard, and, giving signal, madly- 
 Hounded his host upon those silent kings. 
 
 Ah, what a sight, to see how brave and gladly 
 The lines press on ! But one too distant flings 
 
 His spear ; the bowmen aim far short of ranges ; 
 Soon with their running and their shouting worn 
 
 Is our great host. And then, how sudden changes 
 The face of battle ! O, not overborne 
 By numbers, but like rocks 
 They take our shocks. 
 
 " And soon despair of breaking their array- 
 Gives pause to ours. That sees with eyes of eagle 
 
 Great Ahram. And from where concealed they stay 
 Pours round the hill detachments that inveigle 
 
 Our right wing to pursuit. Like thunderclap 
 Another, larger, on the left rear rallies 
 
 Spear, man and horse. And as gazelles to trap 
 Our host is hurtled by the sudden sallies 
 This way and that, till all 
 To mad flight fall. 
 
236 . The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " They should have slain us and assumed the plunder 
 
 Of our rich camp and all destroyed the power 
 Of Babel's arm ; but, generous to a blunder, 
 
 No strong pursuit was made. About the hour 
 Of midnight, we a little heart had taken ; 
 
 Our steps retraced, our camp untouched had found 
 And, hardened by a kindness all mistaken. 
 
 Were one to try our fortune and to drown 
 The foes when they should make 
 Across the lake. 
 
 " So through the night was hurrying and a sound 
 
 Of conchs that draw the clans to head and standard. 
 We turned again like those in whom rebound 
 
 Of hope occurs, though close to death they wandered. 
 And at the hour when paler grows the East 
 
 The word was, forward, while in time we clattered 
 Spear on the shield. But Bitsu, as high priest, 
 
 Drew auguries from arrows random scattered 
 And read to us success, 
 To foes distress. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 237 
 
 " The field was reached, and high the hill was mounted 
 
 To whelm them sunk in slumber. Lo, the coast 
 Was bare, and on the distant shore we counted 
 
 In hundred barks the rearguard of their host. 
 Then fast the couriers ranged the strand, but never 
 
 A bark was there, nor wood to serve the turn. 
 Delayed, not stopped, I bade my spearmen sever 
 
 The wind-swayed rush, the giant sedge, and churn, 
 Stayed by light rafts, the waves 
 That oft my braves 
 
 " Stemmed with a goatskin full of air. And standing 
 
 Upon the hill while up rose sun, I saw 
 The skirmishers skim onward and a landing 
 
 Effect beyond. Then to the barks with raw 
 Mud and green sedge, and hides to close the gaping 
 
 Of holes new made. Now back in triumph row 
 The rescued barks. But meanwhile Ahram, shaping 
 
 His flight northwest, gained from our movement slow 
 Time precious for his train 
 To cross the plain. 
 
238 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " But, onward urged, along their track advancing 
 
 Our army, brave, yet full of prudence new. 
 Marched to the waste beyond the lake with prancing 
 
 Insulting steeds that languor never knew. 
 Yet soon, o'erhead, sun, that abhors all crime, 
 
 But pries it out, deep though in caverns hidden, 
 Stared on our following with an eye sublime. 
 
 Nor veiled his wrathfulness, however chidden, 
 But dried and scorched the mounds 
 Of sand, till sounds 
 
 " Of music strange, as if from sprites unseen 
 
 Beneath our feet arose as on we posted. 
 Whereof some deemed the hidden cause to mean 
 
 That Ahram, with the sorcery that he boasted, 
 Had bidden spirits lure us to destruction ; 
 
 But others held that demons of the land 
 Thus bade us welcome and thus gave instruction 
 
 To haste and conquer. Strange, to hear the sand 
 Chant with a myriad tongue 
 A silvery song ! 
 
The Flight to the Ships 239 
 
 "Thereafter leagues of toilsome, pebbly ridges 
 
 Where horse and camel longed to rest from pain ; 
 Then deep dry torrent-beds, wherein for bridges 
 
 Great stones we rolled. Then an unbounded plain 
 Of earth and fields of dwindling dusty plants. 
 
 Anon, a stretch that white, like salt plain, shimmered, 
 Whereat the horse that for the streamlet pants 
 
 Pricks a fine ear. For like a lake it glimmered 
 Till, drawing near, the glare 
 Broke to thin air. 
 
 " At last the oasis ! In a river's bed 
 
 Long lines of reed and palms of shadow grateful. 
 And wells are there which evermore are fed 
 
 By subterranean dews. But ah, the hateful 
 Resorts of war ! Each well is' clogged with stone. 
 
 In lieu of rest, our host must search for water 
 Yet wander not, or else, as dread cyclone 
 
 Leaps on the fleet, our foemen, making slaughter 
 Of thirsty bands, are off 
 With jeer and scoff. 
 
240 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " Thus Ahram led us by a track devised 
 
 With skill infernal to destroy our power ; 
 Lightly he marched, and still our bands, surprised 
 
 At vantages by stronger bands, must cower 
 Before his strokes. The dread of Ahram served 
 
 To half-win combats e'er they had beginning. 
 But, die was cast ; no longer backward swerved 
 
 Our ficklest chiefs. Death was behind, and winning 
 Or losing, on we must 
 To pass the dust. 
 
 ' ' We reached the land where verdure is not seen 
 
 But all day long the sun descends in torrents 
 On mighty boulders, black as ink, wherein 
 
 Spirits are prisoned ; men are their abhorrence. 
 These boulders, struck with iron, give a shrill 
 
 Defiant shriek. But after nightfall, breaking 
 Basaltine bonds, abroad the vampires steal, 
 
 A dreadful thirst in blood of mortals slaking, 
 If without fires are found 
 Men on that ground. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 241 
 
 " At dead of night the vampire nears the sleeper 
 
 Noiselessly fanning, and with slender tooth 
 Stabs painlessly. The victim ever deeper 
 
 Sinks in soft waves. So from the red cheeked youth 
 Freshness departs ; he wakes to care and languor. 
 
 The old expire, outdone by toils untried, 
 Nerveless and bloodless ; neither love nor anger 
 
 Are theirs again ; they pace the desert wide 
 Without an aim or hope 
 With thirst to cope. 
 
 " So, every night, to raise a zone of fire 
 
 'Gainst beasts of prey and vampires far more fell. 
 Our weary host compelled to labors dire 
 
 Searched miserably for fuel. How to tell 
 The squalor, hunger, and the imprecations 
 
 On me and Bitsu ! Since all uselessly 
 We trod the desert and our own relations 
 
 Pursued in foolish anger, on the plea 
 That flight, and rapt of maid 
 Must be repaid. 
 
242 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " The third day closed. Dry were the waterskins. 
 
 Another morn, and, far from cooling waters, 
 Our host must perish. See the horse that grins 
 
 A shapeless dry thing near the track ! No slaughters 
 Of footmen more, no trumpets that the veins 
 
 Make throb like man's ; no more the proud curvetting 
 At master's touch. Despoiled of plume and reins 
 
 He lies there, mindless of the fingers fretting 
 The mouth, whose valiant neighs 
 Were heard in frays. 
 
 " A halt was called. The counsel left no choice 
 
 Between a night march or upon the morrow 
 To die of thirst. So, with a desperate voice. 
 
 Onward the ranks were goaded. O the sorrow 
 To hear the swarthy men-at-arms, inured 
 
 To war and deserts, groan at that harsh order. 
 But only thus could our distress be cured. 
 
 And all night long we marched, until the border 
 Of white began to wax 
 Behind our backs. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 243 
 
 " There lay a, valley with the palm-tree smiling 
 
 That speaks of streams no enemy can spoil. 
 Between — from what then was the van recoiling ? 
 
 Between was ranged an army sprung from soil 
 Arabian, withered, lean and sinewy riders 
 
 From leagues away drawn by great Ahram's art 
 To block our path, while others were his guiders 
 
 To lands beyond. O that I then had heart 
 To love him still who thus 
 Made sport of us ! 
 
 " We took no time to wait or question fate. 
 
 The ranks reformed, with rush of men who sever 
 Themselves from hope, because that soon or late 
 
 Death nears for all, we drove the nomads, ever 
 Gritting the teeth, chewing the swollen tongue. 
 
 What power could stay us ? Like to long reeds sinking 
 Before the scythers our vast fens among 
 
 Down fell the plainsmen, while the waste was drinking 
 A draft that made a mud 
 With human blood. 
 
244 '^^^ Flight to the Ships 
 
 " Right onward past the hill we strode and laved 
 
 Our livid lips with drops than diamonds dearer 
 Nor cared for foes in thinking we were saved, 
 
 And only turned to seek for reaches clearer. 
 So all that day, unheedful and at ease, 
 
 Gladdened in heart and quickly boastful turning, 
 We ate and drank, and all day long a breeze 
 
 Stirred in the leaves and fanned the desert burning 
 With airs that seemed to flow 
 From peaks of snow. 
 
 " Then messengers from far Damascus came 
 
 To ask our will and what our advent boded. 
 And on we pressed, the while we played the game 
 
 Alliance and defiance named. We loaded 
 This one with presents ; to another showed 
 
 Our grim array, and vowed a deadly mission 
 To prince and town that peace or aid bestowed 
 
 On him who fled, that rouser of sedition 
 In Babel, cause of grief — 
 Ahram the chief. 
 
The Flight to the Ships^ 245 
 
 " But wise was he to prophesy destruction 
 
 On all that land if we unchecked should roam. 
 Some towns we won ; but where the sandy suction 
 
 Of wastes ingulft a stream in marsh and loam, 
 Where fair Damascus lay beyond and towered 
 
 About her streams, among her fruits and vines, 
 There halt was made. For though the foemen cowered 
 
 Their walls behind, we saw their spear-tipped lines 
 Ready like bees to swarm 
 Should we dare storm. 
 
 "Long was the siege, and ere the wall was levelled 
 
 Ahram and his were fled by night, secure 
 In mountain passes. But the natives revelled 
 
 In our disgust, for well could we endure 
 Wounds, hardship in the battering, scald of lead. 
 
 So hope were left with him at last to grapple. 
 But, he gone, all gone. That no sooner said, 
 
 Than orders rang, when morn the sky should dapple, 
 To urge the flying race 
 Upon his trace. 
 
246 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " Through beetling passes of the Lebanon 
 
 We followed reckless, though the Asian nations 
 Were crouched in wrath our homeward way upon, 
 
 The more enraged, because were come relations 
 Of pestilence in Babel — how we carried 
 
 Death in our robes and slaughter in our hands ! 
 Our straggling lines the hillsprung giants harried 
 
 Unskilful, fighting for their barren lands 
 Fiercer than in our reeds 
 We guard our meads. 
 
 " And while we battled through the pass with pain, 
 
 To Tyre came Ahram. Then the base Phoenician 
 Who took his gold, but had for him disdain. 
 
 Shut gates, and broke the bargain. A derision 
 To all the coast was Ahram, inland chief 
 
 Who thought the seafolk would the barks deliver. 
 Now he was trapped and quite beyond rehef. 
 
 Before, the walls and sea ; behind, the river 
 Of following friend and foe 
 To work him woe. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 247 
 
 " For we had gained the passes, and debouching 
 
 Upon the coast, beheld with startled eyes 
 The mighty Midsea of our Midworld couching 
 
 In turquoise mass of unimagined size. 
 The sails like little moontips at the crescent ; 
 
 Its shadowy reaches, and its glints of sun 
 Half fallen from high ; the soundless yet incessant 
 
 Wavering of waves the laureled coasts upon — 
 Well had we then forgot 
 Our perilous lot. 
 
 " Now Ahram straightway seized beyond the town 
 
 A rocky half-isle and the neck stockaded. 
 But from the sea the Tyrians, whose renown 
 
 Was most in ships, around his front paraded 
 The long war-galleys to insult him there 
 
 With jeers and safe bravado ; as a village 
 Will track the sore-hurt lion to his lair 
 
 And strut and boast, since he who once made pillage 
 Disdainful of their flocks 
 Must bear their mocks. 
 
248 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " And oft a lion couchant that has yet 
 
 Deep in his eyes the flame that gleams ascending 
 From lion's heart will on the hunter set 
 
 Who ventures much. Anon a galley, trending 
 Too near the shallow, sticks ; and swift by ring 
 
 Of wading men and swimming she is boarded 
 With onrush irresistible. They fling 
 
 The dead men out. Like fish the seamen sordid 
 Plunge and in briny wave 
 Their lives can save. 
 
 " While on the land our weary forces drew 
 
 Near to their camp, and while we pledged alliance 
 With Tyre the tricky, some false demon threw 
 
 War's javelin all too soon. For in defiance 
 Of strict command, urged by a zeal unwise 
 
 Onset occurred unled and unsupported. 
 Who rashly strikes, he soon as rashly flies : 
 
 And horribly with carnage was retorted 
 The misdirected blow 
 Against our foe. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 249 
 
 " And backward even as far as Tyre's gate 
 
 Our lines recoiled, and there the rout were utter, 
 Had Tyre not sallied. But our seeming state 
 
 Of war triumphant was undone. A clutter 
 Of horse and foot and chariots intermixed 
 
 With sumpter-mules and camel train stampeded 
 Was all the plain the first high hills betwixt 
 
 And that great town. Ahram the daylight needed 
 But one hour more — the host 
 Was done and lost. 
 
 " But down falls sun, and loud he trumps recall 
 
 To his grim chiefs, and though not landward master, 
 That night through him unheard-of things befall 
 
 The Tyrian knaves. What dream they of disaster 
 By sea, sly merchants and amphibious ? 
 
 But Ahram formed upon his promontory 
 A hollow square, and slew a cow, and thus 
 
 Amongst the ranks of warriors kneeling gory 
 
 To sweet-faced Moon he bare 
 
 This earnest prayer : 
 II* 
 
250 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " ' Smile on us, moon, o'er the wide vault that walkesi, 
 
 Measurer moon, bride of the sun and sky ! 
 Beacon of months, ever with signs thou talkest 
 Kindly and safe where a pale man canst spy. 
 Comfort of shepherd and to the brave benignant 
 
 Who to thy tides trusts his poor trembling frame. 
 Meter of weeks, scarer of beasts malignant. 
 Waning or waxed, ever a lovely flame : 
 Smile, since thou knowest well, 
 What we would tell ! 
 
 " ' What though a god,what thoughperchance godwoman, 
 
 Hate us not, moon, drive us our foes away. 
 Knowing, all-wise, how the vain creatures human 
 
 Gladly for less wrangle and strike and slay. 
 Show thou art not soulless, an oblate crystal 
 
 Veering that fills a loophole of the sky. 
 Brilliant of shine, save when the corner distal 
 
 Earthward may turn toward the base creature s eye, 
 Show now thy might, moon ; 
 Grant us our boon I 
 
The Flight to the Ships 251 
 
 " ' Darken thy face, moon of the visage glowing, 
 
 Draw to thy house moistures of firmaments , 
 Sprays of the sea, mists from the rivers flowitig. 
 
 Clouds that the hills drape 09i their ivory tents. 
 Aid ns, moon ; let not a breath the glassy 
 
 Face of the sea stir for this niglit, but send 
 Dozunward on Tyre darkness complete and massy , 
 
 Friend shall not know save by the touch his friend. 
 Stillness and murk we crave, 
 Hear us and save ! ' 
 
 " And there was silence. So the blows that rang 
 
 In Ahram's camp were heard as far as Tyre 
 And heard the litany that his army sang. 
 
 But of the moon the still and holy fire 
 Burned peacefully and lit the ravaged plain 
 
 Where wounded groan and seaward darkly painted 
 The outport galleys and her silvery rain 
 
 On fragrant gardens fell and touched the tainted 
 Close streets and ordered parks 
 Of stranded barks. 
 
2 52 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " And my prayers aided his ; for all my yearning 
 
 Went out to Ahram ; and the moon I plied 
 With prayers for him. For in my body turning 
 
 I felt my heart, and evermore I cried : 
 Give Ahram victory in all ways, O goddess, 
 
 But grant not that he shall without me win. 
 Join us for life, or else my gold-worked boddice 
 
 Shall bear a stain small, may be, as of pin — 
 But one less queen for slave. 
 Moon, thou shalt have ! 
 
 " And as I gazed, a gauze, a breath, a lucent 
 
 Veil that was nothing and yet was, an air 
 Finer than crystal subtly ground wherethrough sent 
 
 The light of sun is robbed of deadly glare — 
 A something touched the moon's face without soiling. 
 
 Below it, was there trace of features grand 
 Supernal, more than human, as if smiling ? 
 
 And yet the things of heaven and sea and land 
 Were clearcut as before 
 On bill and shore. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 253 
 
 ' ' Now right and left a scarf of palest white 
 
 On the blueblack of star-tipped heaven there floated, 
 And now a cloud like magic sprang to sight 
 
 And robed the sky ; and then amazed I noted 
 The horizon westward blotted out, and scales 
 
 Of subtlest shadows on the landscape falling. 
 No air made stir and yet more swift than gales 
 
 Will course our gulf the white and brown are palling 
 Hills, ocean, coast and all 
 With one dark pall. 
 
 " And while the murk, that seemed to hear his telling 
 
 Obscured the sea, great Ahram and his men, 
 Crafty Chaldseans o'er our lakes propelling 
 
 Raft and bare log and used to stream and fen, 
 Swam forth as silently as slips the otter 
 
 Against his prey upon that element 
 The Tyrians dreamed not that the hardiest plotter 
 
 From Tigris banks would hazard. As I leant 
 The sentries far below 
 Made answer slow. 
 
254 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " But then I heard a single shriek, a cry 
 
 Of 'stonishment from one throat. Then a dozen 
 Of slumbering sailors in the port on high 
 
 Lifted their voices. Next, a silence frozen, 
 Cracked by such clamor horrid as when fowls 
 
 That line the seaclififs feel the foxes cunning 
 Seize on their young, and float in air the owls 
 
 With claws and eyes from which there is no running , 
 On land, or chance to flee 
 Down to the sea. 
 
 " None knew the cause, though each of each demanded, 
 
 But lo, the seaport was a capture made 
 And in the dark the floating fleet and stranded 
 
 Was seized with all the houses filled by trade 
 And cruel piracies with fruits and wines. 
 
 Along the shore a second band beleagured 
 And sidewise took unguarded seaward lines 
 
 And joined the first. And thus the Tyrians niggard 
 By Ahram great were foiled 
 And, spoilers, .spoiled. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 255 
 
 " But all night through, bylight of cressets flaring 
 
 The Tyrians fought those men of adamant. 
 Filled were the barks, and by the dawn the daring 
 
 Chaldaean braves could answer taunt for taunt, 
 For they were strongest on the sea. Retired 
 
 With sullen joy upon their girted camp 
 There fit they ship, the while the seaport, fired 
 
 So well, no water may the burning damp, 
 Assails the morn with smoke 
 And wail of folk. 
 
 " An awful wrath at loss of wealth and shipping, 
 
 An awful fear that all the sea-brimmed isles 
 Were lost, and that from boastful men was slipping 
 
 The realm obtained by labors and by guiles. 
 Maddened the Tyrians. Not the less were furious 
 
 Bitsu and his, knowing the life-long foe 
 Again had triumphed and with fame injurious 
 
 To Nimrod's name across the sea would go 
 Glorious for his disdain 
 Of kings that reign. 
 
256 The Flight to the Ships 
 
 " So ships were sought and troops marched till the torrid 
 
 High noon to trap great Ahrarn, ere he went 
 To found perchance an empire that with horrid 
 
 Unmeasured might of some far continent 
 Returning, might o'erwhelm us one and all. 
 
 And, after noon, an onset and a rally 
 Was blown and desperately upon him fall 
 
 Tyrians, Chaldaeans ; and the hillmen sally 
 For that once not in raid, 
 But Tyre to aid. 
 
 "The veterans under Ahram do not know 
 
 The word of fear. Unconquered, having beaten 
 Back our great flood, they turn aside to stow 
 
 With corn the ships. And some of food have eaten 
 The while their fellows battle as in play. 
 
 For they regard us children, and superbly 
 Careless of numbers chase our chiefs away 
 
 And taunt us cowards. But the word acerbly 
 Drops, as when salt is put 
 On a fresh cut. 
 
The Flight to the Ships 257 
 
 "At Bitsu's order back the lines are gathered 
 
 And, after counsel with the leader chiefs, 
 A plot is by that subtle eunuch fathered. 
 
 Then I, as pushed as well by love as griefs. 
 Cast suddenly myself with few that follow 
 
 Out from the town, and, waving fronds of pine, 
 Feign there a flight. And at the gate with hollow 
 
 Pretence of joy like feasters glad with wine 
 Seek Ahram unafraid 
 Glad, undismayed. 
 
XII 
 
 THE BATTLE ON THE STRAND 
 
XII 
 
 THE BATTLE ON THE STRAND 
 
 " ' And did you hope then, princely Ahram, slyly 
 
 To give the slip to me as well as those ? 
 Dream not the hate that burns in Bitsu wily 
 
 Has root in me. And yet when sun arose 
 And you had fled sad Babylon, believe me 
 
 'Twas I who urged pursuit of you, 'twas I 
 Who stayed their courage. Why did you deceive me ? 
 
 I followed, since all Babel was awry 
 And sunless without one 
 Who is our sun. 
 
262 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 '"I come not proffering you a realm you scorn 
 
 But, outcast, fugitive, in deadly terror 
 Of Bitsu's wrath, to you my plaint is borne : 
 
 Forgive the past and every womanish error. 
 Take me for handmaid, lest men tell how perished 
 
 By sword, or poison, or that subtler bane 
 Grief slowly grinding, her whom once you cherished. 
 
 Though girlish innocent no more, again 
 She asks your fortune's tide 
 With you to bide. 
 
 " ' For what is gold, and what the power of Babel 
 
 To might of mind discovered first in him 
 Who dompted Nimrod and in arms was able 
 
 To beat Belshamas ? who, now luck is grim, 
 Outgenerals Tyre and casts in consternation 
 
 The locust hordes of us and our allies? 
 Who reads of stars each mighty hid relation 
 
 And knows two worlds, and is so valiant-wise 
 No continent can hold 
 His projects bold?' 
 
The Battle on the Strand 263 
 
 " But Ahram frowned as gloomily as sun, 
 
 The darkness near, his glorious face will swarten 
 With cloudy wrack. I ceased with speech half done. 
 
 ' Empress of Babel, hear me speak. You shorten 
 For me the hours too brief for all the needs 
 
 Of this our venture. Well you know the reason 
 That hoists my sails, aware that Bitsu breeds 
 
 Unending coils of intertwining treason. 
 A lie (alas the plight !) 
 Is this your flight.' 
 
 " ' I did not finish, ' cried I in alarm. 
 
 ' 'Tis true with him my feigned flight was plotted ; 
 How else escape him ? Can you dream of harm 
 
 From one who loves you as by wine besotted ; 
 Who sooner as the lowest slave would serve 
 
 You for her lord than sup with Asia's princes ? 
 Ahram, I worship you with every nerve 
 
 And drop of blood my faithful veins that rinses, 
 And while your knees I grasp 
 For favor gasp.' 
 
264 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " ' Rise up,' he cried, ' O most self-lowering woman ; 
 
 Aa empress are you and a live man's wife. 
 Not maid or widow. I your kinsman summon 
 
 The traitor back while Nimrod stays in life. 
 Though true, you might not, could not sail. We jeopard 
 
 Our lives, not yours. You-have too far apart 
 Grown from our ways. But I am still the shepherd 
 
 Whom Nimrod caught in hills where rivers start 
 Seaward from northern pole 
 A year to roll. 
 
 " ' But you to vice and luxuries fatal yielding 
 
 Another woman to old friends appear : 
 A mask of fairness ; a virago wielding 
 
 Weapons of man, but not for good, I fear. 
 Your beauty lasts ; nay, tenfold is its power 
 
 In outward guise, but from the eyeballs gleam 
 Scantier the greater loveliness, a dower 
 
 Of them whose hearts light with a constant beam 
 Those loopholes wherethrough roll 
 Floods of the soul ! ' 
 
The Battle on the Strand 265 
 
 " Then I : ' What ! Taunt me with my base condition ? 
 
 Now who save you subjected me to ills, 
 Once known, forever wedded to — contrition 
 
 No longer possible ? Whose lawless wills 
 Were those that raised me on a lofty stone 
 
 Then cast me down, the while pretences vain 
 Were made of seating me upon a throne ? 
 
 'Twas you and Nimrod. Now, your victim slain, 
 You wash your hands of me 
 With majesty ! 
 
 " ' O, you shall reckon ! . . . No, no, tongue unruly ! 
 
 Ahram, forget the angry words. I come 
 To beg, not imprecate ; to suffer duly 
 
 The chastisement decided all and some ! ' . . . 
 The gay pavilion where we stood retired 
 
 Ceased from my voice, and loud the bustle rang 
 Of lading barks and all the work required 
 
 When armies ship. Then to my heart there sang 
 The vain hope, acts might gain 
 Where words were fain. 
 
266 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " ' Ahram ! ' I cried, and round his neck I cast 
 
 My arms of light, the right of Nimrod only 
 And glued my lips to his Jove's mouth as fast 
 
 As flies to amber forming on the lonely 
 Seas of the North. And all the agony 
 
 And tend^ness for many a year suspended, 
 The fear, self-pity, the deep ecstasy, 
 
 Rushed to the breach to have in one storm ended 
 Resistance cool and stern 
 By one quick turn. 
 
 " And for the third time Ahram reeled, the seeming 
 
 Serenity that roused his foemen's wrath 
 Shivered as crack the faces cold of gleaming 
 
 And moveless lakes below the whirlwind's path. 
 But if the glacier glides its icy foot 
 
 Below that wave, and clouds blot out the splendor 
 Of sun — a jar — and through the liquid shoot 
 
 Long crystals, catching in and in, to render 
 The lake a clear dark block 
 Hard as the rock. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 267 
 
 " ' Begone ! What stand you talking here of love ? 
 
 You — you, that see not how as far from loving 
 You are as hell stands from the heaven above ! 
 
 You, passion's thrall, who men to lust are moving. 
 Not to a god-like clean unselfishness 
 
 That feeds on sympathy. For love's celestial 
 But passion's of the demon. Love will bless 
 
 Like flowers the eyesight though the stalk is bestial — 
 But heat and passionate talk 
 Are all vile stalk ! 
 
 " ' Once death had saved. But, not supporting death. 
 
 Or deeming wiselier death the friend of cowards, 
 Then life of penance, where each waking breath 
 
 Made some one happier ! If advice to frowards 
 Is ever useful, hear me. There is time. 
 
 Young, beautiful, of intellect most piercing, 
 Warrior though woman ; great, but not sublime ; 
 
 You can repent and triumph high, immersing 
 Yourself in goodly deeds 
 For human needs. 
 
268 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " ' Half sinned against, but ah, most sinful too ; 
 
 Accomplice silently of Nimrod's passion ; 
 Not blameless, since your unsound fancy drew 
 
 The bolt that struck you — then in woman's fashion 
 You cry, betrayed ! Look back. It was before 
 
 Ungoverned Nimrod your pure fane invaded 
 That you had sinned. And after, more and more 
 
 The fine edge of your spirit was degraded 
 Like seals for stamping clay 
 Men cast away. 
 
 " ' For what ensues ? On me you draw a dagger. 
 
 What next ? The thought your wildered spouse to kill. 
 And third ? The vestal's would-be bane, you stagger 
 
 From the high shrine. And so in turn you fill 
 The cups of crime and drain them one by one. 
 
 Of your disease behold the later phases 
 In this base treason. Now by beard of sun 
 
 I swear to hear no more your treacherous phrases 
 But send you back in shame 
 There whence you came ! ' 
 
The Battle on the Strand 269 
 
 " ' Send on,' I screamed, beside myself with rage, 
 
 ' You scorn me, helpless. Well, set on the battle ! 
 Beware you find not Esther one to wage 
 
 Successful war, and you yourself a tattle 
 For gossips, not the conqueror you dreamed. 
 
 Unjust, untrue, unnatural and unkind 
 You and your swartfaced vestal shall be seamed 
 
 With blows and run my chariot-heel behind. 
 Watch, monster ; Esther knows 
 To play at blows ! ' 
 
 " Stung to the quick, to Tyre I swiftly posted. 
 
 In secret donned the armor of the prince 
 'Nimrod's young son, resolved that all I boasted 
 
 Should be performed. I made my charger mince 
 Along the lines and with a face of fire 
 
 And words that rang the courage into men 
 Roused a loud wrath among them, as a lyre 
 
 Will roar struck home. Anon they paused, and then 
 Rushed for their foe with cries 
 That split the skies. 
 
270 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " But Ahram's captains were of us disdainful 
 
 And lo, the entrenchments weakened on the left. 
 Then forth poured Tyre, and Ahram found a baneful 
 
 Approach was made. Of half his force bereft 
 That lay in ships, surprised, rolled back, outwitted, 
 
 Yet blenched he not ; but, drawing forth his sword 
 Flung on our van. And there he had been spitted 
 
 By Bitsu's guard, but outsprang one to ward 
 The spears and stem the wide 
 High warrior tide. 
 
 " By that the carnage and the din of metal 
 
 Filled the whole front, and as the assailants paused 
 Forward I rushed to lead them, ere should settle 
 
 Their towering courages, and thereby caused 
 Ahram to see me and to seek my death. 
 
 For manlike armored, and with heavy visor 
 I seemed the prince or else the prince's wraith. 
 
 And so befell that Ahram should, no wiser 
 Than half the host, alight 
 With me to fight. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 271 
 
 " Day was near done and o'er the purple sea 
 
 The clear and level beams of sun were shooting 
 And overhead the clouds were gorgeously 
 
 Dizened with gold. The same was Ahram suiting 
 In burnished gold. Around his helm it flung 
 
 A glittering crown, as though a sungod towered ; 
 It blinded me and easily had stung 
 
 His spear my life out, for half blind I cowered ; 
 But Ahram on my youth 
 Had sudden ruth. 
 
 " And granting fair play, moved away a space 
 
 But when no more by sunshine I was blinded 
 Courage revived. I saw his human face 
 
 And rushed at him as fierce and bloody-minded 
 Resolved to kill, as though my former love 
 
 Were turned to loathing. At the crest that often 
 In pomp and game I watched the rout above 
 
 And seeing blessed, the while my heart would soften, 
 I dealt a hateful blow 
 And laid it low. 
 
272 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " So he, untouched, but at the loss more spiteful, 
 
 Reached me with spearthrust that my target drove 
 Against the forehead with a buffet frightful. 
 
 Ah, then no more I hoped to see the grove 
 Of Babel's tower and watch the wells unsounded. 
 
 My knees, nerved falsely with quick-burning ire 
 Gave way. In ears his call of battle rounded 
 
 Before my deathblow. At the moment dire 
 Life's instinct bade me cry : 
 ' Ahram ! 'Tis I.' 
 
 " The brandished blade was whistling through the air 
 
 But never reached me with a stroke ungentle. 
 The woman's voice, the accent of despair, 
 
 The well-known tones ! . . . wrapt in a puzzle mental 
 One breath too long stood he the brave and tender. 
 
 But, gathering catlike furious up to spring 
 I slid close in and with a dagger slender 
 
 Stabbed underarm. Alas, the weak will sting 
 Contending with the strong 
 For right or wrong. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 2^2) 
 
 " And quick his chiefs surround him with their spears 
 
 To bear him off, and me the kings environ 
 But press them close. And as the yellow ears 
 
 Of corn will sink before the curving iron 
 In harvest fields, we seem to mow the foeman. 
 
 The rush is for the ships, and from the wall 
 Well to the strand, led by a feeble woman, 
 
 Our warriors push those valiant fighters all 
 Whom over stream and waste 
 They long have chased. 
 
 " And hand to hand we battle on the shingle 
 
 Ferocious only as the wars may be 
 That kindred wage. But here the fight is single 
 
 There clusters tramp in struggle horribly 
 Now earth, now wave. But Ahram soon is carried 
 
 Sore wounded, bleeding, to the anchored ship. 
 With the salt wave his hero blood is married. 
 
 And at his loss no more the warriors grip 
 Their spears with wonted might 
 But turn to flight. 
 
274 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " And as they fly the sunset red as liquor 
 
 That winevats pour ensanguines all the sea 
 Up to the spot where Ahram's costly ichor 
 
 Spills through my knife. And then triumphantly 
 The trumpets bray and Tyre resounds with gladness, 
 
 And all the fleet with them that fly in time 
 Puts forth. And we, rash to the pitch of madness, 
 
 Wade out and seek the steepy sides to climb 
 And slay, if we may board, 
 The friends abhorred. 
 
 ' ' But from the decks the spears and arrows fly 
 
 Thick and unerring. So will wild geese, darting 
 In springtime past a headland reared on high — 
 
 Landmark above the mighty plain, disparting 
 The fogs of morn — drive with their ordered ranks. 
 
 Beneath which rain there could not be abiding ; 
 The sullen fleet drew slowly from the banks 
 
 Into the sunset; nor could blow or chiding 
 Avail our men to speed 
 To further deed. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 275 
 
 " Then all at once, the heat of vengeance spent, 
 
 I stood like one by light of life forsaken. 
 Grief and despair utter and awful lent 
 
 An action new. O never thus o'ertaken 
 Dreamed I great Ahram ! Now perchance he droops 
 
 Like the broad sun in pools of red that welters. 
 He bleeds, but not on my soft bosom stoops 
 
 The ghorious head some canvas roughly shelters. 
 On the harsh board he lies 
 And through me dies. 
 
 " With stayless speed to Tyre the glad I spurred 
 
 Calling for ships and at my coming frantic 
 In mariners the conqueror's daring stirred. 
 
 Upon my wake with madness corybantic 
 Rushed the bold bands down to the inner port 
 
 Where lay the hulks and seacraft, dry, dismantled, 
 No more to brave it, nor with waves to sport. 
 
 Their tusks awry, of mast and rudder scantled ; 
 Like monsters of the past 
 At which aghast 
 
276 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " Stares the discoverer ; for he sees that motion 
 
 Once filled this frame, that yonder large head knew 
 Delights of air, sun, earth and sharp salt ocean. 
 
 Behemoth once the wakes of old moons threw 
 In shining spray and felt life's ecstasy. 
 
 Now, a huge bundle formless, legless, armless 
 It lies there still for atom man to see 
 
 And marvel whether even now 'tis harmless. 
 Such lay the sleeping bulks 
 Of those old hulks. 
 
 " And three are found good for a sudden turn. 
 
 The oars are shipped ; warrior and sailor eager 
 With keels the sand are furrowing. Now they spurn 
 
 The port to foam, and now beyond the leaguer 
 Of smouldering piers they take the outer sea. 
 
 Against the sunset, black, and in a huddle. 
 Swims Ahram's fleet, because too hastily 
 
 They fly ; and so, of casks and arms a muddle 
 And cordage lies at dark 
 Each hollow bark. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 277 
 
 "We neared as gray wolves near a band of sullen 
 
 Marshloving oxen. These their foes disdain 
 But quietly turn themward, while of mullen 
 
 And thyme they crop, and on the hard wide plain 
 Browse, seeming ignorant that aught endangers 
 
 Their sinewy necks. We signalled, as they wore, 
 What bark held Ahram. Then the ocean rangers 
 
 Made sea-signs wholly on that craft to pour 
 The darts, and three ways board 
 With all our horde. 
 
 "But oh, nor anger, nor the love of warring 
 
 Unwomanly usurping me of late 
 Burned in my breast. But through my eyes were pouring 
 
 Grief and despair. I felt the hand of fate 
 That long above us in the air had hovered 
 
 Clinch on its prey. And from my hand I cast 
 The loathly sword and with the dark sea covered 
 
 The knife accurst — would God it stuck hardfast 
 Within my heart before 
 His veins it tore I 
 
278 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " So when, with dash of pirates on a foe 
 
 Unused to seaways, my three vessels vollied 
 And closed and grappled, and the yell and blow 
 
 Shook the fair evening, on that galley squalid 
 I sprang unarmed, unhelmeted, my hair 
 
 Wide to the breeze, no warrior, but a woman 
 Who lived for one man ! But that man lay there 
 
 Stern, level-eyed, a radiance more than human 
 Caught his white face upon 
 From set of sun. 
 
 " I reached his side between the glancing blows 
 
 That spared and feared my sex of weapons careless. 
 I caught his look between the lids that close 
 
 Disdainful on an ingrate world. Despairless 
 Of naught, now I was by his wounded side, 
 
 I seized his hands, and never a word could utter. 
 But for forgiveness with long looks I plied 
 
 His placid face. But he, without a stutter 
 Or mar of word, bequeathed 
 Me peace, and breathed : 
 
The Battle on the Strand 279 
 
 " ' Cousin ; dear Esther ; you and I must part. 
 
 But glad am I to see you ere the saiHng. 
 First, proud am I that even in war you dart 
 
 All chiefs before. And next, that I am failing 
 Through your hand, not an alien's. Kiss me now 
 
 With cousin's kiss. You have my admiration 
 For traits heroic. Of your foibles how 
 
 Have I to speak, I, wrapt in consternation 
 At my own cruel reign 
 Of hate and pain ? 
 
 " ' Had I the gifts of heaven but used aright, 
 
 How soon had Nimrod lost his chief adviser ! 
 How soon in hills where Tigris leaps to light 
 
 Had we not founded frugally a wiser, 
 Compacter, cleaner commonwealth of braves ! 
 
 But fate is fate. Perchance it is not mortal 
 Your sudden blow. But now, command the knaves 
 
 To cease the fight, for whether at the portal 
 Of death I stand, or not, 
 Who knows the lot ? ' 
 
28o The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " So I, obedient, rose to quell the rattle 
 
 Of shivering javelins, and the struggling tide 
 Of seamen desp'rate. But the blood of battle 
 
 Once flown will staunch not. Never a chief will bide 
 For my voice, but with sudden onrush dire 
 
 Drive Ahram's warriors to his very couch ; 
 Then, backward borne, wild and insane with ire. 
 
 Bear undershield me back. In vain I crouch 
 Pleading for peace and strive 
 Their line to rive. 
 
 "And now the fleet has hedged the Tyrians round 
 
 And pours the braves upon the decks unguarded. 
 Retreat is called and at the needful sound 
 
 The pirates fly. One ship alone, unboarded, 
 Casts free, creeps outward, slowly in the flurry 
 
 Slips Tyreward — ah, within her walls I rage 
 And promise gold, and wave for aid, and hurry 
 
 From stem to stern. Command and threat and gage 
 Fall upon coward ears 
 That know but fears. 
 
The Battle on the Strand 281 
 
 " The waters widen, darken now. And I 
 
 Perceive his weak hand raised to me in answer — 
 Forgiving. 'Tis a mute and sad good-bye. 
 
 Too bitter ! As the stricken gull, the lancer 
 Of silly fish, struck by a slinger's stone 
 
 Meets the cold sea, I leaped insensate onward 
 Downward and plunged. I rose. I was alone. 
 
 But on the arc of one great pallor sunward 
 The shadowy hulls appeared 
 Like spectres weird. 
 
 " The oaths and cries are soothed to merest prattle. 
 
 Against the sky uphoisted, square the yards. 
 Outreel the sails ; outdie the signs of battle. 
 
 A breeze upsprings. As moths will quit their shards, 
 The moth winged barks, like things that seek the splendor 
 
 Of dayshine fled and glories of the sun. 
 Stand on and on, until their outline slender 
 
 Is etched, is sketched, is lost the west upon ! 
 Forever in that deep 
 Methought to sleep. 
 
282 The Battle on the Strand 
 
 " O not for me to sink and slowly turn 
 
 From loathly life within the dark green torrent, 
 Whom Tyrian sailors in their flight discern ' 
 
 And homeward bear in triumph for a warrant 
 Of bravery in battle most unequal. 
 
 Years more I lingered in the flesh. I long 
 To you to tell of my strange lot the sequel, 
 
 But dare not ask you, weary of my song! 
 Sometimes about my lair 
 In the dim air 
 
 " Or when I grope my way among the graves 
 
 Or launch a thin soul 'twixt the sprites that gibber 
 In dusky coils about the mouth of caves — 
 
 Spirits that speak, but fishy tongues are gHbber — 
 Sometimes I fancy that an awful peace 
 
 And happiness my shreds of being steeping 
 Mean Ahram near. A while my torments cease 
 
 And the old hope about my wits is creeping . . . 
 But look ! Against the sky 
 His face I spy ! " 
 
The Battle on the Strand 283 
 
 She shrieked most piteously, with lean long finger 
 
 Pointed against a whitening dome of sky. 
 Each turned that way, and while the eyeballs hnger 
 
 Entranced thereon, most certainly they spy 
 A mighty countenance the clouds among. 
 
 Calm as the Jove that Phrygian sculptors fashion 
 Benevolent, unstirred at sight of wrong, 
 
 Leader of men through mastery of passion 
 And smiling from above 
 With heavenly love. 
 
 Back flew their looks. Behold, the mound again 
 
 Bleak, brown and sadly by the torrent channelled, 
 Stared in their front. And not a trace or stain 
 
 Of all the vision of a great hall panelled 
 With lustrous stone, the ivory couch, the queen 
 
 Who all night long had held in thrall their senses ! 
 And, were it not that in their nostrils keen 
 
 That fragrance lies, the skeptic mind commences 
 To doubt that what did seem 
 Was all a dream. 
 
XIII 
 
 KAIOMAR KflAN 
 
XIII 
 
 KAIOMAR KHAN 
 
 Stares each, benumbed in brain and body ; taxes 
 
 The ear for more and doubts the truth of eyes. 
 Now night is gone and on her emerald axis 
 
 Earth has revolved one half In lieu of cries 
 And plaints well- worded and articulate 
 
 The moaning ringdove in the gloaming tenders 
 Soft, sad endearments to his tuneless mate. 
 
 Was the late shriek the midnight sound that renders 
 Men crazed beyond advice 
 Who hear it thrice ? 
 
288 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 Or was it her voice that so shrieked ? Or, sunk 
 
 In magic sleep and victims of illusion. 
 Slept they so long, like those with hashish drunk 
 
 Until an owl shrieked ? Thus were in confusion 
 The wits of all save Ali. But to Gourred 
 
 The prompt, the beautiful, and ready-tongued 
 Came words the first. And glowed with anger lurid 
 
 Her lovely eyes, as she had felt her wronged ; 
 Then by some hatred spurred 
 She hissed a word : 
 
 " Infamous ! For you all have heard with me 
 
 Her tale of shame and all of you have noted 
 Her pride and pomp, her boundless vanity ! 
 
 Who said that vanity dies last ? He doted. 
 It dies not with the flesh, but builds the tomb 
 
 And lines it thick with lies, and swathes the mummy 
 With further lies and raises from the womb 
 
 Of pitchy earth the vile soul or its dummy 
 To prate and he again 
 With boastings vain. ..." 
 
Kaiomar Khan 289 
 
 " Nay, Gourred ..." gently interposed the seer. 
 
 " It vexes me," went on the lady, kinder, 
 " To know that women so unsexed appear ; 
 
 But when they boast and when they make reminder 
 Of personal charms, and, being hags, demand 
 
 That we admire them — ah, it drives me frantic ! . . . " 
 " 'Tis true," quoth Hand of Sultan, " but how grand 
 
 Was Ahram's thought, how hopeless, how romantic ! 
 Plan that in later times 
 With Abram chimes. 
 
 " Methinks he was forerunner and relation 
 
 To Abraham, who in the heathen crew 
 Of gods perceived the One God of our nation ' 
 
 The Chosen Folk, before, too long untrue 
 To Him, their enemies waxed overweening. ..." 
 
 " Ay, that's your Jew all over," said the Turk, 
 " Incarnate vanity of race ! The meaning 
 
 Of history twisted while the living shirk 
 
 Their part in daily life 
 
 Of work and strife ! 
 13 
 
29° Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Subservient, poor ; and arrogant when rich ; 
 
 Most hating when you fawn ; convinced as fully 
 That only Jews have brains ! And still you itch 
 
 For pleasures cheap and gladly play the bully 
 If power be yours. Ye ask us why ye're hated ? 
 
 Because ye wrought on men since Abram treason 
 And push, and push ! Ye show to-day unsated 
 
 Your lust for lucre. When arraigned, ye reason 
 That others are to blame 
 For your own shame." 
 
 " Yet is it their fault ? " queried Ali mildly, 
 
 " Christian and Turk the Hebrew still degrade. 
 I fear too often they who censure wildly 
 
 Enrich themselves through men whom they upbraid. 
 What words of scorn ! Are not the Jews industrious. 
 
 Law-keepers, clever, and to poor men kind ? . . . " 
 " Yes," broke in Hand of Sultan, " and illustrious 
 
 In every path have Jews been. Are you blind 
 Or have you never read 
 What books have said ? 
 
Kaiomar Khan. 291 
 
 "What race but ours as greatly ajid profoundly 
 
 Has taught religions ? All the western lands 
 Are Jew-taught, and the doctor who can soundly 
 
 Koran expound and all its colored strands 
 Untwist until each origin is clear 
 
 Will say, Our doctrines at the root are Jewish. 
 Jews are the leaders. 'Tis for Jews to steer 
 
 The barks of dullards, be they e'er so shrewish 
 While others labor sore 
 At sail and oar." 
 
 " Ay, not for Jews to labor ! — " growled the Turk. 
 
 "Why quarrel so ? " demanded Gourred gently. 
 " To every race and man a different work 
 
 Allotted is. When I have thought intently 
 On Jews I know, and some are dearest friends, 
 
 I seem to feel in them an irritation, 
 As if an anger lay below, that ends 
 
 In nothing serious ; 'tis a mere sensation, 
 Being often manifest 
 In vague unrest ..." 
 
292 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " And know you not, O lovely one," the Jew 
 
 Demanded eager, " that for ages cruel 
 Have been the nations of the earth ? To you 
 
 What mercy is there, though a princelier jewel 
 Exists not in the crown of Persia's dames ? 
 
 Because you're beautiful, and good, and clever 
 Men hunt and women hate you. Envy lames 
 
 The advance of Hebrews, and the man who never 
 Did good delights to scorn 
 My race forlorn ! '' 
 
 AH rejoined : " But what if to reactions 
 
 To long oppression ye your virtues owe ? 
 Keenness in commerce should from harsh exactions ; 
 
 From common dangers, charity should flow ? 
 Suppose that men, ashamed of their oppressions, 
 
 Give o'er their hatred, will ye keep your traits 
 Of goodness with the ardor for possessions 
 
 The man most grasping most unfairly rates : 
 By woes no longer trained. 
 Hold what ye gained ? 
 
Kaiomar Khan 293 
 
 " Strong is the race of martyrs. Love and hate 
 
 Invest your nation with a twofold power. 
 If hatred goes, perchance sweet love, its mate 
 
 Will take flight too. Ere Ahram built the tower 
 Was he not mightier unsuccessful ? And 
 
 While Esther pined, a slave and tristful virgin, 
 Did she not like a guardian angel stand ? 
 
 But, pureness gone, and plunged in luxury, burgeon 
 In her the deadly seeds 
 Of mortal needs. . ." 
 
 "The unlearn'd man should hush when doctors speak," 
 
 Spoke up the Kadi, yet in sooth surprising 
 Is all this talk of Esther. Wherefore wreak 
 
 Your wrath on her unlucky, lovely, rising 
 To give us converse varied, new and strange ? 
 
 Deeply she loved ! How ? All her welfare wasted 
 On that proud fool who still the world must range 
 
 In search of food no other man has tasted ? 
 Madman, to house alone 
 And scorn a throne ! " 
 
294 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Now fie ! " spake Gourred. " Woman so debased 
 
 Still hopes to bring all women to her level. 
 She knows her vice, yet wanders on incased 
 
 With sin and though repentant, like the devil 
 She is, extenuates, and lures her prey. 
 
 Speak we of Ahram. How, for goodness longing, 
 Hoped he the destinies of the tribes to stay 
 
 To Babylon for peace and progress thronging ! 
 He had, or I am blind. 
 The artist mind. 
 
 " Deeply the artist longs. From him expression 
 
 Must out. Before the vulgar herd he flings 
 His jewels rare, and though he feel obsession 
 
 Upon his soul to hoard the priceless things ! 
 From an unending warfare in his spirit 
 
 A cry goes forth, the great sigh of the heart ; 
 Untouched by praise or dispraise of his merit 
 
 His conscience glories yet rebels in part. 
 Around his fragile soul 
 The storm-clouds roll. 
 
Kaiomar Khan 295 
 
 " When outward cool the inward furnaces 
 
 Glow horribly. To action when translated 
 Angry or loverlike, an icy breeze 
 
 Fans his poor heart. For he alone is fated 
 To know life's agony of bliss and pain ; 
 
 To see how simply happiness is grounded, 
 Yet lose it ; all the gifts of earth disdain 
 
 And dote on forms impossible, unbounded, 
 While conscious that success 
 Would work distress. 
 
 " A hypocrite. And yet of men divinest 
 
 Because he plays the serio-comic role 
 For men, for whom his spiritual tissue finest 
 
 Is worn and shredded. He's the hawk that stole 
 Feathers from breast to warm the nestlings ; ay. 
 
 When prey was not, upon its bosom darted 
 Its princely beak and made that flesh supply 
 
 Their famine. Brave, true, noble, tender-hearted, 
 Not faultless — such I see 
 Ahram to be." 
 
296 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Ay, deem you so ? " mused AH the reformer. 
 
 " To me he seems engaged upon a task 
 Like and yet differing from my own. A stormer 
 
 Of prejudice entrenched in forms that mask 
 The truth from all but prophets. From the crew 
 
 Of sensual gods and blind he could not free them 
 But well he longed to give the lore of few 
 
 To all and hoped the silly folk would see them 
 As symbols and as token 
 Of the unspoken. 
 
 " Warfare eternal 'twixt the new and old ! 
 
 The prophet cries, and from the lap of races 
 Spring to his call the pure, the wise, the bold 
 
 Glad of his voice. Then eagerly embraces 
 The folk his law. Next from the mighty mass 
 
 Of second men, the thrifty, and the schemers 
 See their advantages, with prudence crass 
 
 Join in the system purest-souled of 'dreamers 
 Summoned for lofty good 
 From dross and mud. 
 
Kaiomar Khan zgy 
 
 " What boots it that the torn and mighty Hne 
 
 Of prophets wear themselves, and brood, and thunder ? 
 Alan's downv/ard heart will evermore incline 
 
 To matter. Still the fruitful plant of Wonder 
 Sprouts, rises, blooms, decays. He dies who chastens 
 
 A perilous growth that is with poison filled. 
 Hill, rocks, birds, beasts, idols, or things that masons 
 
 Have plastered high — on these poor man will build 
 His hopes of heaven. I gird 
 Against the Word. 
 
 ' ' The Word ! Ye make of it the idol drear 
 
 The ancient prophet grudged the men of Babel ; 
 For as the ants across a shallow mere 
 
 Add grain to grain, and from the last are able 
 To further build and in their clans advance ; 
 
 As men thread swamps with boulders laid ; the power 
 Have Words to pass the bog of ignorance 
 
 In which we mire. And so the humble cower 
 
 At the unseen, unheard 
 
 Might of the Word. 
 13* 
 
298 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " But ye, alas, when idols are forbidden 
 
 Will sin with words, erecting in the stead 
 Of image, text, and fear a demon hidden 
 
 In scroll-work fine. Are not the Suras read 
 With the same base idolatrous devotion 
 
 That cast the worshippers of Nimrod's pile 
 Flat on their faces ? But in man a notion 
 
 Undying sticks, nourished by priestly guile, 
 That forms material may 
 The godhead sway. 
 
 " I cry to-day against the Mollahs laming 
 
 Man's upward flight, sly messengers of hell ! 
 In gain agreed, though men should take the flaming 
 
 Chariot of Him for God ineffable ! 
 O carking care ! When sealed the heavenly firman 
 
 Of my release from this strange world of fear. 
 Lest when I go, my followers may the ermine 
 
 Take for the king and shall the Word revere 
 For Spirit and revert 
 Back to the dirt ! " 
 
Kaiomar Khan 299 
 
 The while he spoke the Dervish restlessly 
 
 Strode up and down, to warm, it seemed, his members. 
 Then climbed the mound to see what he could see. 
 
 A breeze was kindling in the East the embers 
 Of daylight's fire. At rest on every side 
 
 He saw black spots ; a keener glance defined them 
 To lambs-wool caps, whose cones, by weather dyed, 
 
 Had many a hue. Yet seemed he not to mind them 
 Nor mark the glint of gun 
 Nigh every one. 
 
 Slowly returning, on his wrinkled face 
 
 Lurked the half-smile that nothing noble boded. 
 Silent he heard ; yet well he saw the place 
 
 Unconsciously the Jew took. Now as loaded 
 Magnets a senseless nail of iron draw, 
 
 Some magnet, not of iron, swayed the trader. 
 For nearest him the channelled mound was raw 
 
 As lately stirred. With glittering eyes, but staider 
 In bearing, sly as cat, 
 The Dervish sat. 
 
300 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " We sit and gossip " — so he broke the quiet — 
 
 " Forgetful of the Hve world, while we scan 
 The realm of ghosts. Not in our lair, but nigh it 
 
 (Speak low !) the Turkmen of Kaiomar Khan 
 Have camped this night. I scaped their clutches barely, 
 
 But my sweet boy they caught, my comrade dear. 
 I fear the guileless one, bespoken fairly. 
 
 The robber troop will guide and hither steer. 
 Since well he heard the tale 
 And knows the trail." . . . 
 
 The bats that marry on the noiseless wing 
 
 Whirled by their heads with quick and amorous chatter 
 And seemed in swift and inky flight to fling 
 
 Spots on the sky above the mounds. A clatter 
 Of horses broke the stillness in the dawning. 
 
 Each eyed the other, asking what was truth. 
 When hard facts come, mortals are apt at pawning 
 
 Honor for profit and for harshness ruth. 
 Each read in glances wan : 
 " Kaiomar Khan 1 " 
 
Kaiomar Khan 301 
 
 Then rose the Turk and toward the farther gap 
 
 Moved his dull bulk, and after him the slaver 
 Slowly and wistful glancing, since a trap 
 
 He more than feared. Ali and Gourred graver 
 The Dervish eyed and gazed with grief unspoken. 
 
 But he his heart struck silently to say. 
 He was no traitor ; touched his lip in token 
 
 His words were clean ; and with an outward sway 
 Of open palm denied 
 That he had lied. 
 
 But Gourred raised her white hand to her chin 
 
 And forward shot two fingers, as the adder 
 Darts a fork'd tongue. Then he with fingers thin 
 
 Caressed his beard, and with an arm-sweep bade her 
 Begone and leave her Ali to his fate. 
 
 Whereat a long look of disgust detaching 
 From his dried face, she paid her brooding mate 
 
 A worship deep, the mighty fragrance matching 
 Of roses passion-wan 
 In Gulistin. 
 
302 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 There spurred, with sunshine o'er the plain advancing, 
 
 A horseman young and brilHantly arrayed 
 In at the gap. And sunshine on the prancing 
 
 Horse of high lineage and on rider played 
 And blazoned them like things the daylight loved. 
 
 One piece they seemed, horseman and fiery creature, 
 Whose lifting flanks, long, large and supple, moved 
 
 In rhythm to sway of shoulders, play of feature — 
 Magnificent, endowed 
 With bearing proud. 
 
 Kaiomar — with black, lustrous eyes that sparkled ; 
 
 With young fine beard, and curls adroitly ranged ; 
 High broad white brow that quick with anger darkled 
 
 Responsive to a mouth which often changed 
 In small soft curves ; with nostrils opening wide 
 
 The fair bent nose ; broad shoulders ; waist of dandy; 
 Small fist and foot ; trim cap and 'garments dyed 
 
 Three shades harmonious — issued from the sandy 
 And dusty plain, a sight 
 Of life and light. 
 
Kaiomar Khan 303 
 
 Surely the past held naught a whit superior 
 To this embodiment of youth and grace ; 
 So Ali thought. 'Twere pity if inferior 
 
 Should manners prove to such a princely face. 
 "My lord," said he, advancing without fear, 
 
 "Long was your ride. This night I learned your 
 coming. 
 Had you despatched me but a summons here, 
 I had returned to Persia from my roaming 
 About this Turkish waste 
 With proper haste. 
 
 " But now I pray you let no wanton rider 
 
 This lady grieve, but orders from the Shah 
 Fulfil on me, who never yet was hider 
 
 From his high word. But what ! Each MoUah saw 
 With envy-jaundiced eye my speech and doings. 
 
 Speak, princely Khan, for oft has Persia rung 
 With songs of your great prowess, whether wooings 
 
 Their subjects were, or how in raids you flung 
 Your horsemen on a land 
 Like storms of sand." 
 
304 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 "Who has not heard Kaiomar's greatness ? " proudly 
 
 Rejoined the youth. " Sword of Kaiomar Khan 
 Is known to Afghans and is sung as loudly 
 
 By dogs of Turks as dames of Ispahan. 
 To Ali, mystic prophet and schismatic, 
 
 I bear from Court a greeting and his tongue 
 Must gag, because, an exile, his erratic 
 
 Belief he preaches to the Persian throng, 
 Though others may rehearse 
 Belief far worse. 
 
 " So this is Gourred ! " Quick that gay one lighted 
 
 Down from a steed which patient stood, nor stirred. 
 " And have mine eyes at last this beauty sighted ? 
 
 Truly, for this once, rumor has not erred. 
 The dark orbs, blue with the blue black of heaven ; 
 
 The meeting brows that poets likened oft 
 To that gold cloud which makes the sky at even 
 
 Angrily beautiful ; the ringlets soft ; 
 The waves from soul that rush 
 And see— the blush ! " 
 
Kaiomar Khan 305 
 
 " Nay, Prince," poor Gourred found a tongue to stammer 
 
 " Because I veil not, why should you beheve 
 That I am shameless ? I know not the grammar 
 
 Of compliment and at your praise I grieve. 
 Speak thus to women bold at Ispahan ! " 
 
 " Grieve not, most beautiful, for every rumor 
 Confirms your fame. There lives no dame who can 
 
 More virtue boast than you. It is my humor 
 To say the phrase I like — 
 To love, to strike ! 
 
 " Let politic be him who will. For me 
 
 A short life and a vivid ! While 'tis running 
 I speak the truth, I make my foeman flee. 
 
 I love your sex. I leave to Mollah's cunning 
 Lies, miserdom, split hairs, and slow, perfidious 
 
 Intrigues of sneaks. I am the nightingale 
 That seeks the rose and though, between, insidious 
 
 Sharp thorn walls rise, I reach her without fail, 
 Prepared for her in strife 
 To give my life. 
 
3o6 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Ali the bookman has no need of you 
 
 The rose of women, since his weighty phrases 
 Are meat for men. But, see you not ? untrue 
 
 To woman's good is that fair bloom who raises 
 Her arms in protest at our Persian manners. 
 
 But now, wise Ali, at the Shah's behest 
 I come for you, since wide are blown the banners 
 
 Of your sectarians, who are like the rest 
 Of talkers — but not near 
 The emperor's ear. 
 
 " Wherefore we hunt them and their forts beleaguer 
 
 In Farsistan where they to arms have run. 
 So you must back. In truth I have been eager 
 
 To meet you, both for our Lord's favor won 
 And for sweet Gourred, fairer than they said. 
 
 Nay, turn not, you, who well the appellation 
 Rest of the eyes have merited ! My head, 
 
 If two so sprightly spirited our nation 
 Can boast for Turks to spy 
 As you and I ! 
 
Kaiomar Khan 2P'j 
 
 " Heard ye of me the song all Persia chants ? 
 
 Tlie Khans a szvord, sharpy double-edged andkbitter 
 Against the foeman who the loudest vaunts. 
 
 At my mere name lie stumbles. At the glitter 
 Of my steeds harness all his mares the tether 
 
 Break a?id approach. Kaiomar s ruddy crest 
 Makes widows countless. When I add together 
 
 The men I slew, the herds I took, tlie best 
 Of Khans have naught to say 
 But slink away ! 
 
 " Or this ? From Persia have ye heard the last. 
 
 Men of Staniboul ? Kaiomar Khan a galley 
 Has won and by the vizier's palace passed, 
 
 Has touched and seized the Jasmin of the Valley 
 His darling child. Who equals him in love ? 
 
 Who dares to meet him zvhen the swords are clashing? 
 I saw a lady weeping in a grove. 
 
 I saw the Khan ! I saw a horseman dashing 
 To earth six soldiers brave 
 For one fair slave ! 
 
3o8 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Fair Gourred, just as well forbid me breathe 
 
 As love not where I liko. But as we hasten 
 To Persia back, I hope your brow to wreathe 
 
 With sweeter things than frowns. With wine we chasten 
 Reformers who too mustily have brooded 
 
 On things none fathoms, be he e'er so wise. 
 Be cheered, since for your own good I intruded. 
 
 My men, I see, have caught two foes or spies — 
 Short is our term of stay ; 
 Then — hence away ! " 
 
 Thereat he made them gestures frank and free 
 
 And rode without. But meantime from the gully 
 The Dervish caught the purses secretly 
 
 And stole away, nor feared his hands to sully 
 With the Khan's gold, the price of them betrayed. 
 
 The sun uprose and still Kaiomar waited 
 For signals, when toward Hillah slowly made 
 
 A Persian old, who loudly beat and rated 
 Two mules that coffins bare 
 With pious care 
 
Kaiomar Khan 309 
 
 To Kerbela's farfamed necropolis. 
 
 His sheepskin hat was large and worn and greasy, 
 Nor did rough blouse nor ragged trousers miss 
 
 The accustomed look, nor felt cloak thick and easy 
 Nor clogs for shoes, foul curls, nor slouching gait. 
 
 Each month a thousand such dull clowns and healthy 
 Their dead from Persia bore in simple state 
 
 Plucking themselves to make the priesthood wealthy 
 And sure that when they died 
 They too would ride. 
 
 And through the gate-gap, as a man delighted 
 
 With Persian soldiers on the Turkish soil. 
 He wandered in, and having quickly sighted 
 
 Gourred and Ali, eased him from his toil, 
 Unstrapped the coffins and set free the mules. 
 
 Then quietly : " Not worthless are disguises 
 That gull a prophet ! Now if ye be fools 
 
 Stop here ; but if ye love like me surprises — 
 Why, cheat Kaiomar bold 
 Like this : behold ! " 
 
3 TO Kaiomar Khan 
 
 And, lifting up a coffin lid, the man 
 
 Who, lately Dervish, now appeared a peasant, 
 Revealed it empty. His the cunning plan 
 
 Reloading them with living freight, a pleasant 
 Surprise to fashion for the Persian chief, 
 
 Save his chance friends and yet retain his earnings. 
 To Ali came so suddenly reprief 
 
 That hardly was he master of the yearnings 
 Besetting him to try 
 Such means to fly. 
 
 " Ah Dervish," quoth he, " is it then, that wandering 
 
 Forever friendless, often starved, and torn 
 With hate of men and on their hard hearts pondering 
 
 You cheat and cheat, and deem disgraced the morn 
 When none is fleeced ? Still are you not unkind. 
 
 Incongruous, made for mischief, you will wrangle 
 Acutely of the immortal, yet will wind 
 
 Through miles of mud, if at the last you spangle 
 Your cloak of varied lore ' 
 
 With one jest more. 
 
Kaiomar Khan 311 
 
 " I trust you still. This lady dear, convey her, 
 
 I charge you, back to Hillah and conceal 
 In that same house which opened to the prayer 
 
 Of me the stranger. Doubly of our weal 
 The worker, doubly shall our thanks be yours. 
 
 Gourred, be brave. I see your face of sorrow. 
 But what ! Who knows the thought the Khan matures 
 
 Against your freedom ? Who knows what the morrow 
 May bring of happiness 
 Or of distress ?_" 
 
 " I cannot leave you," Gourred cried. " The only 
 
 Excuse therefor were vantage to the Cause. 
 Why come not also ? What avails, that lonely 
 
 And sep'rate, we, entangled in the laws 
 Persian and alien, as in birdlime flutter ? 
 
 Come with me, Ali ! " " Nay, not so. Ordained 
 Is this my journey. For the truths I utter 
 
 Shall fall not fruitless. Though Kaiomar pained 
 Your ears with love, the powers 
 Shall make him ours. 
 
312 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Kaiomar and the Dervish, these are apter 
 
 To work effectual for the Cause if once 
 The scales will fall. The bravo and the raptor 
 
 Of willing dames has quality. No dunce 
 Is he, nor sluggard. I am not mistaken. 
 
 In worldly men the strongest levers are 
 Once leverage found. In good time I shall waken 
 
 The glorious truth in heart of Kaiomar 
 And turn his flame of love 
 On things above. 
 
 " But you must fly. There needs a woman's tongue 
 
 Of fire to rouse the slaking energies 
 Of my concealed and scattered sect. Among 
 
 The Kurds are friends. The eye initiate sees 
 In the Shah's court my followers. Since unwisely 
 
 War was begun, the heart of Persia calls 
 For you the Central Mother, who advisely 
 
 Can speak your sex and for the son that falls 
 Can summon other two 
 His work to do." 
 
Kaiovtar Khan 313 
 
 Then from his neck he took a chain whereon 
 
 An azure amulet which gold was banding : 
 ' ' Twin hawks behold, the emblems of the sun 
 
 Crown'd with a disk upon a crescent standing ! 
 Twin hawks, that look the great sun in the eye 
 
 And lightly float aloft or downward, feature 
 Twin human souls when, free of earth, they fly 
 
 Rejoicing toward the central truth, the creature 
 Of him to whom they yearn 
 For swift return. 
 
 " Symbol of symbols. From primeval clay 
 
 Old worshippers of Egypt's first Avatar 
 Molded the talisman and dyed the gray 
 
 Baked image like the turquoises the Tatar 
 Brings from far hills beyond the Eastern waste 
 
 And baked again. But I a star eightraying, 
 Cut from pure gold and round the image placed 
 
 And clenched the tips, the talisman displaying, 
 
 And made with deep design 
 
 The globelike shine. 
 14 
 
314 Kaiomar Khan 
 
 " Since the sweet spot that is your biding-place 
 
 Of my world is the heart and midmost Eden, 
 Shrine of all wifehood and maternal grace, 
 
 A central home, a glass of glories hidden ! 
 For you are these and more. But, beak to beak, 
 
 And wing to wing, ineffable companions 
 Our souls rest brooding in the world, or seek 
 
 In flight conjoined, far above plains and canyons 
 To view the earth aright 
 By law and light. 
 
 " Then, Gourred, take this amulet at parting 
 
 And should you to our natural weakness yield 
 Dreaming denial, be your fingers darting 
 
 Quick on the symbol with my signet sealed. 
 Farewell. Not hopeless like the unhappy queen 
 
 Who stabbed her lover, but resolved, and certain 
 That not long hence your spirit shall be seen 
 
 Of mine disrobed of all the wondrous curtain 
 Of earth and earth's alloy 
 That screens our joy." j 
 
Kaiomar Khan 315 
 
 With loving roughness to the box consigned 
 
 AH the comrade of his journey fateful. 
 She often sighed ; her turquoise eyes were blind 
 
 With tears of wretchedness as in the hateful 
 Abode of death she stretched her lovely form. 
 
 " Oh, shall I see you ere I die forever ? " 
 She sobbed, and loosed of her great grief the storm 
 
 " Speak. Prophesy. I cannot bear to sever 
 Our hands without one hope 
 Toward which to grope." 
 
 Ali, his spirit through their eyes embracing 
 
 Her lovely soul, gazed on like one entranced. 
 " See me ? " he whispered. " Yes, we shall be facing 
 
 Again each other in the flesh." He glanced, 
 And quick the Dervish hid her visage sad. 
 
 Strapped up the precious load, and with unsteady 
 Fool's gait was gone ! When blithe Kaiomar bade 
 
 The fair reformers make for Persia ready — 
 Ali alone he found 
 In dreaming drowned. 
 
;^^: