| |
| IN Sana, O, in Sana, God, the Lord, | |
| Was very kind and merciful to me! | |
| Forth from the Desert in my rags I came, | |
| Weary and sore of foot. I saw the spires | |
| And swelling bubbles of the golden domes | 5 |
| Rise through the trees of Sana, and my heart | |
| Grew great within me with the strength of God | |
| And I cried out, “Now shall I right myself,— | |
| I, Adeb the despised,—for God is just!” | |
| There he who wronged my father dwelt in peace,— | 10 |
| My warlike father, who, when gray hairs crept | |
| Around his forehead, as on Lebanon | |
| The whitening snows of winter, was betrayed | |
| To the sly Imam, and his tented wealth | |
| Swept from him, ’twixt the roosting of the cock | 15 |
| And his first crowing,—in a single night: | |
| And I, poor Adeb, sole of all my race, | |
| Smeared with my father’s and my kinsmen’s blood, | |
| Fled through the Desert, till one day a tribe | |
| Of hungry Bedouins found me in the sand, | 20 |
| Half mad with famine, and they took me up, | |
| And made a slave of me,—of me, a prince! | |
| All was fulfilled at last. I fled from them, | |
| In rags and sorrow. Nothing but my heart, | |
| Like a strong swimmer, bore me up against | 25 |
| The howling sea of my adversity. | |
| At length o’er Sana, in the act of swoop, | |
| I stood like a young eagle on a crag. | |
| The traveller passed me with suspicious fear: | |
| I asked for nothing; I was not a thief. | 30 |
| The lean dogs snuffed around me: my lank bones, | |
| Fed on the berries and the crusted pools, | |
| Were a scant morsel. Once a brown-skinned girl | |
| Called me a little from the common path, | |
| And gave me figs and barley in a bag. | 35 |
| I paid her with a kiss, with nothing more, | |
| And she looked glad; for I was beautiful, | |
| And virgin as a fountain, and as cold. | |
| I stretched her bounty, pecking like a bird | |
| Her figs and barley, till my strength returned. | 40 |
| So when rich Sana lay beneath my eyes, | |
| My foot was as the leopard’s, and my hand | |
| As heavy as the lion’s brandished paw; | |
| And underneath my burnished skin the veins | |
| And stretching muscles played, at every step, | 45 |
| In wondrous motion. I was very strong. | |
| I looked upon my body, as a bird | |
| That bills his feathers ere he takes to flight,— | |
| I, watching over Sana. Then I prayed; | |
| And on a soft stone, wetted in the brook, | 50 |
| Ground my long knife; and then I prayed again. | |
| God heard my voice, preparing all for me, | |
| As, softly stepping down the hills, I saw | |
| The Imam’s summer-palace all ablaze | |
| In the last flash of sunset. Every fount | 55 |
| Was spouting fire, and all the orange-trees | |
| Bore blazing coals, and from the marble walls | |
| And gilded spires and columns, strangely wrought, | |
| Glared the red light, until my eyes were pained | |
| With the fierce splendor. Till the night grew thick, | 60 |
| I lay within the bushes, next the door, | |
| Still as a serpent, as invisible. | |
| The guard hung round the portal. Man by man | |
| They dropped away, save one lone sentinel, | |
| And on his eyes God’s finger lightly fell; | 65 |
| He slept half standing. Like a summer wind | |
| That threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf, | |
| I stole from shadow unto shadow forth; | |
| Crossed all the marble courtyard, swung the door | |
| Like a soft gust, a little way ajar,— | 70 |
| My body’s narrow width, no more,—and stood | |
| Beneath the cresset in the painted hall. | |
| I marvelled at the riches of my foe; | |
| I marvelled at God’s ways with wicked men. | |
| Then I reached forth, and took God’s waiting hand: | 75 |
| And so he led me over mossy floors, | |
| Flowered with the silken summer of Shiraz, | |
| Straight to the Imam’s chamber. At the door | |
| Stretched a brawn eunuch, blacker than my eyes: | |
| His woolly head lay like the Kaba-stone | 80 |
| In Mecca’s mosque, as silent and as huge. | |
| I stepped across it, with my pointed knife | |
| Just missing a full vein along his neck, | |
| And, pushing by the curtains, there I was,— | |
| I, Adeb the despised,—upon the spot | 85 |
| That, next to heaven, I longed for most of all. | |
| I could have shouted for the joy in me. | |
| Fierce pangs and flashes of bewildering light | |
| Leaped through my brain and danced before my eyes | |
| So loud my heart beat, that I feared its sound | 90 |
| Would wake the sleeper; and the bubbling blood | |
| Choked in my throat till, weaker than a child, | |
| I reeled against a column, and there hung | |
| In a blind stupor. Then I prayed again: | |
| And, sense by sense, I was made whole once more. | 95 |
| I touched myself; I was the same; I knew | |
| Myself to be lone Adeb, young and strong, | |
| With nothing but a stride of empty air | |
| Between me and God’s justice. In a sleep, | |
| Thick with the fumes of the accursèd grape, | 100 |
| Sprawled the false Imam. On his shaggy breast, | |
| Like a white lily heaving on the tide | |
| Of some foul stream, the fairest woman slept | |
| These roving eyes have ever looked upon. | |
| Almost a child, her bosom barely showed | 105 |
| The change beyond her girlhood. All her charms | |
| Were budding, but half opened; for I saw | |
| Not only beauty wondrous in itself, | |
| But possibility of more to be | |
| In the full process of her blooming days. | 110 |
| I gazed upon her, and my heart grew soft, | |
| As a parched pasture with the dew of heaven. | |
| While thus I gazed she smiled, and slowly raised | |
| The long curve of her lashes; and we looked | |
| Each upon each in wonder, not alarm,— | 115 |
| Not eye to eye, but soul to soul, we held | |
| Each other for a moment. All her life | |
| Seemed centred in the circle of her eyes. | |
| She stirred no limb; her long-drawn, equal breath | |
| Swelled out and ebbed away beneath her breast, | 120 |
| In calm unbroken. Not a sign of fear | |
| Touched the faint color on her oval cheek, | |
| Or pinched the arches of her tender mouth. | |
| She took me for a vision, and she lay | |
| With her sleep’s smile unaltered, as in doubt | 125 |
| Whether real life had stolen into her dreams, | |
| Or dreaming stretched into her outer life. | |
| I was not graceless to a woman’s eyes. | |
| The girls of Damar paused to see me pass, | |
| I walking in my rags, yet beautiful. | 130 |
| One maiden said, “He has a prince’s air!” | |
| I am a prince; the air was all my own. | |
| So thought the lily on the Imam’s breast; | |
| And lightly as a summer mist, that lifts | |
| Before the morning, so she floated up, | 135 |
| Without a sound or rustle of a robe, | |
| From her coarse pillow, and before me stood | |
| With asking eyes. The Imam never moved. | |
| A stride and blow were all my need, and they | |
| Were wholly in my power. I took her hand, | 140 |
| I held a warning finger to my lips, | |
| And whispered in her small, expectant ear, | |
| “Adeb, the son of Akem!” She replied | |
| In a low murmur whose bewildering sound | |
| Almost lulled wakeful me to sleep, and sealed | 145 |
| The sleeper’s lids in tenfold slumber, “Prince, | |
| Lord of the Imam’s life and of my heart, | |
| Take all thou seest,—it is thy right, I know,— | |
| But spare the Imam for thy own soul’s sake!” | |
| Then I arrayed me in a robe of state, | 150 |
| Shining with gold and jewels; and I bound | |
| In my long turban gems that might have bought | |
| The lands ’twixt Babelmandeb and Sahan. | |
| I girt about me, with a blazing belt, | |
| A scimitar o’er which the sweating smiths | 155 |
| In far Damascus hammered for long years, | |
| Whose hilt and scabbard shot a trembling light | |
| From diamonds and rubies. And she smiled, | |
| As piece by piece I put the treasures on, | |
| To see me look so fair,—in pride she smiled. | 160 |
| I hung long purses at my side. I scooped, | |
| From off a table, figs and dates and rice, | |
| And bound them to my girdle in a sack. | |
| Then over all I flung a snowy cloak, | |
| And beckoned to the maiden. So she stole | 165 |
| Forth like my shadow, past the sleeping wolf | |
| Who wronged my father, o’er the woolly head | |
| Of the swart eunuch, down the painted court, | |
| And by the sentinel who standing slept. | |
| Strongly against the portal, through my rags,— | 170 |
| My old base rags,—and through the maiden’s veil, | |
| I pressed my knife,—upon the wooden hilt | |
| Was “Adeb, son of Akem,” carved by me | |
| In my long slavehood,—as a passing sign | |
| To wait the Imam’s waking. Shadows cast | 175 |
| From two high-sailing clouds upon the sand | |
| Passed not more noiseless than we two, as one, | |
| Glided beneath the moonlight, till I smelt | |
| The fragrance of the stables. As I slid | |
| The wide doors open, with a sudden bound | 180 |
| Uprose the startled horses: but they stood | |
| Still as the man who in a foreign land | |
| Hears his strange language, when my Desert call, | |
| As low and plaintive as the nested dove’s, | |
| Fell on their listening ears. From stall to stall, | 185 |
| Feeling the horses with my groping hands, | |
| I crept in darkness; and at length I came | |
| Upon two sister mares whose rounded sides, | |
| Fine muzzles, and small heads, and pointed ears, | |
| And foreheads spreading ’twixt their eyelids wide, | 190 |
| Long slender tails, thin manes, and coats of silk, | |
| Told me, that, of the hundred steeds there stalled, | |
| My hand was on the treasures. O’er and o’er | |
| I felt their bony joints, and down their legs | |
| To the cool hoofs;—no blemish anywhere: | 195 |
| These I led forth and saddled. Upon one | |
| I set the lily, gathered now for me,— | |
| My own, henceforth, forever. So we rode | |
| Across the grass, beside the stony path, | |
| Until we gained the highway that is lost, | 200 |
| Leading from Sana, in the eastern sands: | |
| When, with a cry that both the desert-born | |
| Knew without hint from whip or goading spur, | |
| We dashed into a gallop. Far behind | |
| In sparks and smoke the dusty highway rose; | 205 |
| And ever on the maiden’s face I saw, | |
| When the moon flashed upon it, the strange smile | |
| It wore on waking. Once I kissed her mouth | |
| When she grew weary, and her strength returned. | |
| All through the night we scoured between the hills: | 210 |
| The moon went down behind us, and the stars | |
| Dropped after her; but long before I saw | |
| A planet blazing straight against our eyes, | |
| The road had softened, and the shadowy hills | |
| Had flattened out, and I could hear the hiss | 215 |
| Of sand spurned backward by the flying mares. | |
| Glory to God! I was at home again! | |
| The sun rose on us; far and near I saw | |
| The level Desert; sky met sand all round. | |
| We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well, | 220 |
| And ate and slumbered. Somewhat, too, was said: | |
| The words have slipped my memory. That same eve | |
| We rode sedately through a Hamoum camp,— | |
| I, Adeb, prince amongst them, and my bride. | |
| And ever since amongst them I have ridden, | 225 |
| A head and shoulders taller than the best; | |
| And ever since my days have been of gold, | |
| My nights have been of silver,—God is just! | |
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