Days and Dreams: Poems. Madison Julius Cawein

Of the Kisra dynasty.

       Do you know the story well

       Of the Khalif Haroun's sultana?—

       When night on the palace fell,

       A slave through a secret door,

       Low-arched on the Tigris' shore,

       By a hidden winding stair

       Ben Bekkar brought to his fair?

      Then there was laughter and mirth,

       And feasting and singing together,

       In a chamber of marvellous worth;

       In a chamber vaulted high

       On columns of ivory;

       Its dome, like the irised skies,

       Mooned over with peacock eyes;

       And the curtains and furniture,

       Damask and juniper.

      Ten slave-girls—so many blooms—

       Stand sconcing tamarisk torches,

       Silk-clad from the Irak looms;

       Ten handmaidens serve the feast,

       Each like to a star in the East;

       Ten singers, their lutes a-tune,

       Each like to a bosomed moon.

      For her in the stuff of Merv

       Blue-clad, unveiled, and jewelled,

       No metaphor made may serve;

       Scarved deep with her own dark hair,

       The jewels like fire-flies there—

       Blossom and moon and star,

       The Lady Shemsennehar.

      The zone embracing her waist—

       The ransom of forty princes—

       But her form more priceless is placed;

       Carbuncles of Istakhar

       In her coronet burning are—

       Though gems of the Jamshid race,

       Far rarer the gem of her face.

      Tall-shaped like the letter I,

       With a face like an Orient morning;

       Eyes of the bronze-black sky;

       Lips, of the pomegranate split,

       With the light of her language lit;

       Cheeks, which the young blood dares

       Make blood-red anemone lairs.

      Kohled with voluptuous look,

       From opaline casting-bottles,

       Handmaidens over them shook

       Rose-water, and strewed with bloom

       Mosaics old of the room;

       Torch-rays on the walls made bars,

       Or minted down golden dinars.

      Roses of Rocknabad,

       Hyacinths of Bokhara;—

       Not a spray of cypress sad;—

       Narcissus and jessamine o'er

       Carved pillar and cedarn door;

       Pomegranates and bells of clear

       Tulips of far Kashmeer.

      And the chamber glows like a flower

       Of the Tuba, or vale of El Liwa;

       And the bronzen censers glower;

       And scents of ambergris pour

       With myrrh brought out of Lahore,

       And musk of Khoten, and good

       Aloes and sandal-wood.

      Rubies, a tragacanth-red,

       Angered in armlet and anklet

       Dragon-like eyes that bled:

       Bangles and necklaces dangled

       Diamonds, whose prisms were angled,

       Over veil and from coiffure, each

       Or apricot-colored or peach.

      And Ghoram now smites her lute,

       Sings loves of Mejnoon and Leila,

       Or amorous ghazals may suit:—

       And the flambeaux snap and wave

       Barbaric on free and slave,

       Rich fabrics and bezels of gems,

       And roses in anadems.

       Sherbets in ewers of gold,

       Fruits in salvers carnelian;

       Flagons of grotesque mold,

       Made of a sapphire glass,

       Stained with wine of Shirâz;

       Shaddock and melon and grape

       On plate of an antique shape:

      Vases of frost and of rose,

       An alabaster graven,

       Filled with the mountain snows;

       Goblets of mother-of-pearl,

       One filigree silver-swirl;

       Vessels of gold foamed up

       With spray of spar on the cup.—

      When a slave bursts in with the cry:

       "The eunuchs! the Khalif's eunuchs!

       With scimitars bared draw nigh!

       Wesif and Afif and he,

       Chief of the hideous three,

       Mesrour! the Sultan 's seen

       'Mid a hundred weapons' sheen!" …

       We, never had parted, no! As parted those lovers fearful; But kissing you so and so, When they came they had found us dead On the flowers our blood dyed red; Our lips together and The dagger in my hand.

      9.

       She speaks, musing.

      O cities built by music! lyres of love

       Strung to a songful sea! did I but own

       One harp chord of one broken barbiton

       What had I budded for our life thereof?

      In docile shadows under bluebell skies

       A home upon the poppied edge of eve,

       Beneath lone peaks the splendors never leave,

       In lemon orchards whence the egret flies.

      Where pitying gray the pitiless eyes of Death

       Blight no slight bud unfostered, I have thought;

       Deep, lily-deep, pearl-pale daturas, fraught

       With dewy fragrance like an angel's breath.

       Sleep in the days; the twilights tuned and tame

       Through mockbirds throating to attentive stars;

       Each morn outrivalling each in opal bars;

       Eves preaching beauty with rose-tongues of flame.

      O country by the undiscovered sea!

       The dream infolds thee and the way is dim—

       With head not high, what if I follow him,

       Love—with the madness and the melody?

      10.

       He, after a pause, lightly.

      An elf there is who stables the hot