Читать книгу COMMODUS & THE WOOING OF MALKATOON (Illustrated) - Lew Wallace - Страница 6

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"And to the cave

Our Othman often went, because he knew

The good man loved him. Once he thither turned

While hawking and athirst, and at the door

Bethought him of the spring. So down the path,

The narrow path, he went, but sudden stopt—

Stopt with the babble of the brook in ear,

And straight forgot his thirst in what he saw.

Below the fountain's lip there was a pool

O'er which a mottled rock of gray and green

Rose high enough to cast the whole in shade;

And in the shade unconscious sate a fair

And slender girl. A yellow earthen jar,

Which she had come to fill for household use,

Stood upright by her, and he saw her face

Above a fallen veil, a gleam of white,

Made whiter by the blackness of the hair

Through which it shone. And she, all childlike, hummed

A wordless tune of sweet monotony,

As in the hushed dowar at dead of night

The Arab women, low-voiced, sing to dull

The grinding of their mills. And to her knees

Her limbs were bare, and as the eddies brought

The bubbles round she beat them with her foot,

Which glistened mid the splashes like the pink

And snow enamel of a sea-washed shell;

And by the throbbing of his heart he knew

Her beautiful, and turned and walked away,

Himself unseen. And up the path he went,

A stately youth, and tall, and self-contained

As any proven man.