40
ORACLES
Silent and sleeping-—O the waters wan
That seem the soul of man !—
Suddenly darkness strikes the horizon round
With an abyss profound
That blots the half-moon ere the sun be set.
A mountain of pure jet
Rears its sheer bulk to heaven; and nosnows
Tinge evening with rose.
No blaze of noon invades those rocks of night,
Nor moon’s benignant might.
And looking downward he beheld his folk
Bound in no tyrant’s yoke ;
Knowing no God, nor fearing any man ;
Life’s enviable span
Free from disease and vice, sorrow and age.
Only death’s joys assuage
A gathering gladness at the thought of sleep.
Never in all the archives, scroll on scroll,
Reaching from aeons wrote they ‘‘ Women
weep,
Men hate, the children suffer.” In the place
Where men most walked a tablet of fine brass
Was set on marble, with an iron style
That all might carve within that golden space
If one grief came—and still the people pass,
And since the city first began
None wrote one word thereon till one—a man
Witty in spite of happiness—wrote there :
‘*T grieve because the tablet is so fair
And still stands bare,
There being none to beautify the same
_ With the moon-curved Arabian character.”
Whereat the king, ‘‘ Thy grief itself removes
In its own cry its cause.” And thence there
came
Soft laughter that may hardly stir
The flowers that shake not in the City of
Loves.
(For so men called the city’s name
Because the people were more mild than
doves,
More beautiful than Gods of wood or river ;
. And so the city should endure for ever.)
But the king’s mood was otherwise this day.
Along time’s river, fifty years away,
There was a young man once
Ruddier than autumn suns
With gold hair curling like the spring sun’s
gold,
And blue eyes where stars lurked for happi-
ness,
And lithe with all a young fawn's loveliness.
Such are the dwellers of the fire that fold
Fine wings in wanton ecstasy, and sleep
Where the thin tongues of glory leap
Up from the brazen hold
And far majestic keep
Of Djinn, the Lord of elemental light.
But he beheld some sight
Beyond that city’s joy: his gentle word
The old king gently heard.
(This king was Zohra’s father) ‘‘ Lord and
king
Of love’s own city, give me leave to wing
A fervid flight to yonder hills of night.
Not that my soul is weary of the light
And lordship of thy presence; but in tender
dream
I saw myself on the still stream
Where the lake goes toward the mountain wall.
These little lives and loves ephemeral
Seemed in that dream still sweet : yet even
now
I turned the shallop’s prow
With gathering joy toward the lampless
mountains.
I heard the four bright fountains
Gathering joy of music—verily
I cannot understand
How this can be,
Yet—I would travel to that land.”
So all they kissed him—and the boy was gone.
But when the full moon shone
A child cried out that he had seen that face
Limned with incomparable grace
Even in the shape of splendour as she passed.
The king’s thought turned at last
To that forgotten story: and desire
Filled all his heart with aureate fire
Whose texture was a woman’s hair; so fine
Bloomed the fair flower of pleasure :
Not the wild solar treasure
Of gleaming light, but the moon’s shadowy
pearl, |
The love of a young girl