Читать книгу Days and Dreams: Poems - Madison Julius Cawein - Страница 13

And had we lived in the days

Of the Khalif Haroun er Reshid,

We had loved, as the story says,

Did the Sultan's favorite one

And the Persian Emperor's son

Ali ben Bekkar, he

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.