Читать книгу COMMODUS & THE WOOING OF MALKATOON (Illustrated) - Lew Wallace - Страница 8

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"'Ho, now! Hood the hawks,

And leash the whimpering hounds. The day is done.'

Thus he to them.

"They stared, and in his palm

One whispered, l Oh! It is the evil eye.'

"A bolder spake, 'My lord, it is but noon.'

"And yet a third addressed his hunter's love

In strain more cunning, 'Has my lord forgot

The heron in the marsh?'

"But he, low-voiced

And patient, answered them, 'Nor hawk, nor hound,

Nor heron more for me, for I have seen

A lily with a star's light in its cup.

'Tis something by the breath of Allah blown

This way from Paradise, I swiftly thought,

And all impulsive would have made it mine

But that a voice forbade; and now I go

To find what never mortal eyes have seen—

A pigeon from an eagle's nest escaped,

Or in a lion's den a lamb alive.

So on my breast the lily I may wear,

And in my heart the star's light.'

"Then their eyes

Were hot with dew of tears repressed by awe.

For strangers to the sweet delirium

Which only lovers know, and know to make

The gentle-hearted gentler, and the brave

More covetous as errants in the

Land Of the Impossible, they thought him mad;

And at his feet one wistful flung himself,

With outcry, 'I was born to serve my lord,

And go with him.'

"Whereat the others drowned

His voice with theirs united, 'And so were we.'

"But Othman waved them off: 'Bring me my horse.

But yesterday from noon to set of sun

He kept the shadow of the flying hawk

A plaything 'neath his music-making feet.

I will not comrade else.'

"Tent born and bred,

The steed was brought, its hoofs like agate bowls,

Its breast a vast and rounded hemisphere,

With lungs to gulf a north wind at a draught.

Under its forelock, copious and soft

As tresses of a woman loosely combed,

He set a kiss, and in its nostrils breathed

An exhalation, saying, to be heard

By all around, 'Antar, now art thou brute

No longer. I have given thee a soul,

Even my own.'

"And as he said, it was,

And not miraculously, as the fool

Declares; for midst the other harmonies

By Allah wrought, the hero and his horse

Have always been as one.

"And when they saw

Him in the saddle, face and eyes aglow

With the low-burning, splendor-chastened flame

That serves the Angel of the pallid wing

In lighting martyrs on their rueful way,

They closed around him, and of their charms

And priceless amulets despoiled themselves,

And tied them on Antar until his mane

And forelock jangled as with little bells,

And glistened merrily, though all the time

The true men moaned, 'Oh! Oh! What shall we tell

The good Sheik Ertoghrul?'4 "And in reply, He bade them, 'Say that I to-day have learned The Legend graven on the seal of God, And that it is a holy law in need Of holy lives to prove it.'