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For whether I sink in the foaming flood, or swing on the triple tree,

Or die in my grave as a Christian should, is much the same to me.

C. G. Leland.-Born 1824.

1924.-BEDOUIN SONG.

From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind

In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,

And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee,

With a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,

And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

Look from thy window and see

My passion and my pain;

I lie on the sands below,

And I faint in thy disdain.

Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die

Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,

And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun grows cold,

And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!

B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

1925. THE ARAB TO THE PALM. Next to thee, O fair gazelle,

O Beddowee, girl, beloved so well;

Next to the fearless Nedjidee,
Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee;
Next to ye both I love the Palm,

With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm;

Next to ye both I love the Tree
Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three
With love, and silence, and mystery!

Our tribe is many, our poets vie
With any under the Arab sky;
Yet none can sing of the Palm but I.
The marble minarets that begem
Cairo's citadel-diadem

Are not so light as his slender stem.
He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam's glance
As the Almées lift their arms in dance-
A slumberous motion, a passionate sign,
That works in the cells of the blood-like wine.

Full of passion and sorrow is he,
Dreaming where the beloved may be.

And when the warm south winds arise,
He breathes his longing in fervid sighs-

Quickening odours, kisses of balm,
That drop in the lap of his chosen palm.
The sun may flame and the sands may stir,
But the breath of his passion reaches her.

O Tree of Love, by that love of thine,
Teach me how I shall soften mine!

Give me the secret of the sun,
Whereby the wooed is ever won!

If I were a King, O stately Tree,
A likeness, glorious as might be,
In the court of my palace I'd build for thee!
With a shaft of silver burnish'd bright,
And leaves of beryl and malachite.
With spikes of golden bloom a-blaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase :
And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should night and morning frame new lays-
New measures sung to tunes divine;
But none, O Palm, should equal mine!

B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

1926.—KUBLEH;

A STORY OF THE ASSYRIAN DESERT.

The black-eyed children of the Desert drove
Their flocks together at the set of sun.
The tents were pitch'd; the weary camels
bent

Their suppliant necks, and knelt upon the sand;

The hunters quarter'd by the kindled fires
The wild boars of the Tigris they had slain,
And all the stir and sound of evening ran
Throughout the Shammar camp. The dewy
air

Bore its full burden of confused delight
Across the flowery plain, and while, afar,
The snows of Koordish mountains in the ray
Flash'd roseate amber, Nimroud's ancient
mound

Rose broad and black against the burning West.

The shadows deepen'd, and the stars came out

Sparkling in violet ether; one by one Glimmer'd the ruddy camp-fires on the plain, And shapes of steed and horseman moved

among

The dusky tents with shout and jostling cry, And neigh and restless prancing. Children

ran

To hold the thongs, while every rider drove His quivering spear in the earth, and by his door

Tether'd the horse he loved. In midst of all Stood Shammeriyah, whom they dared not touch,-

The foal of wondrous Kubleh, to the Sheik
A dearer wealth than all his Georgian girls.
But when their meal was o'er,-when the red
fires

Blazed brighter, and the dogs no longer bay'd,

When Shammar hunters with the boys sat down

To cleanse their bloody knives, came Alimàr,
The poet of the tribe, whose songs of love
Are sweeter than Bassora's nightingales,-
Whose songs of war can fire the Arab blood
Like war itself: who knows not Alimàr?
Then ask'd the men: "O poet, sing of
Kubleh!"

And boys laid down the knives half burnish'd, saying:

"Tell us of Kubleh, whom we never saw— Of wondrous Kubleh!" Closer flock'd the group

With eager eyes about the flickering fire,
While Alimàr, beneath the Assyrian stars,
Sang to the listening Arabs:

"God is great!

O Arabs, never yet since Mahmoud rode
The sands of Yemen, and by Mecca's gate
The winged steed bestrode, whose mane of fire
Blazed up the zenith, when, by Allah call'd,
He bore the Prophet to the walls of heaven,
Was like to Kubleh, Sofuk's wondrous mare:
Not all the milk-white barbs, whose hoofs
dash'd flame

In Bagdad's stables from the marble floorWho, swathed in purple housings, pranced in state

The gay bazaars, by great Al-Raschid back'd:
Not the wild charger of Mongolian breed
That went o'er half the world with Tamerlane:
Nor yet those flying coursers, long ago
From Ormuz brought by swarthy Indian
grooms

To Persia's kings-the foals of sacred mares,
Sired by the fiery stallions of the sea!

"Who ever told, in all the Desert Land, The many deeds of Kubleh? Who can tell Whence came she, whence her like shall come again?

O Arabs, like a tale of Scherezade

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"Her form was lighter, in its shifting grace, Than some impassion'd Almée's, when the dance

Unbinds her scarf, and golden anklets gleam
Through floating drapery, on the buoyant air.
Her light, free head was ever held aloft;
Between her slender and transparent ears
The silken forelock toss'd; her nostril's arch,
Thin-drawn, in proud and pliant beauty spread,
Snuffing the desert winds. Her glossy neck
Curved to the shoulder like an eagle's wing,
And all her matchless lines of flank and limb
Seem'd fashion'd from the flying shapes of air
By hands of lightning. When the war-shouts

rang

From tent to tent, her keen and restless eye Shone like a blood-red ruby, and her neigh Rang wild and sharp above the clash of spears.

"The tribes of Tigris and the Desert knew her:

Sofuk before the Shammar bands she bore
To meet the dread Jebours, who waited not
To bid her welcome; and the savage Koord,
Chased from his bold irruption on the plain,
Has seen her hoofprints in his mountain snow.
Lithe as the dark-eyed Syrian gazelle,
O'er ledge and chasm and barren steep, amid
The Sindjar hills, she ran the wild ass down.
Through many a battle's thickest brunt she
storm'd,

Reeking with sweat and dust, and fetlockdeep

In curdling gore. When hot and lurid haze Stifled the crimson sun, she swept before The whirling sand-spout, till her gusty mane Flared in its vortex, while the camels lay Groaning and helpless on the fiery waste.

"The tribes of Taurus and the Caspian knew her:

The Georgian chiefs have heard her trumpetneigh

Before the walls of Tiflis. Pines that grow On ancient Caucasus have harbour'd her, Sleeping by Sofuk, in their spicy gloom.

The surf of Trebizond has bathed her flanks, When from the shore she saw the white-sail'd bark

That brought him home from Stamboul. Never yet,

O Arabs, never yet was like to Kubleh!

"And Sofuk loved her. She was more to him

Than all his snowy-bosom'd odalisques.
For many years, beside his tent she stood,
The glory of the tribe.

"At last she died: Died, while the fire was yet in all her limbsDied for the life of Sofuk, whom she loved. The base Jebours-on whom be Allah's curse!

Came on his path, when far from any camp, And would have slain him, but that Kubleh sprang

Against the javelin-points and bore them down,
And gain'd the open desert. Wounded sore,
She urged her light limbs into maddening
speed

And made the wind a laggard. On and on
The red sand slid beneath her, and behind
Whirl'd in a swift and cloudy turbulence,
As when some star of Eblis, downward hurl'd
By Allah's bolt, sweeps with its burning hair
The waste of Darkness. On and on, the
bleak,

Bare ridges rose before her, came and pass'd;
And every flying leap with fresher blood
Her nostril stain'd, till Sofuk's brow and
breast

Were fleck'd with crimson foam. He would have turn'd

To save his treasure, though himself were lost,

But Kubleh fiercely snapp'd the brazen rein. At last, when through her spent and quivering frame

The sharp throes ran, our distant tents arose,
And with a neigh, whose shrill excess of joy
O'ercame its agony, she stopp'd and fell.
The Shammar men came round her as she lay,
And Sofuk raised her head and held it close
Against his breast. Her dull and glazing eye
Met his, and with a shuddering gasp she died.
Then like a child his bursting grief made way
In passionate tears, and with him all the tribe
Wept for the faithful mare.

"They dug her grave
Amid Al-Hather's marbles, where she lies
Buried with ancient kings; and since that time
Was never seen, and will not be again,
O Arabs, though the world be doom'd to live
As many moons as count the desert sands,
The like of wondrous Kubleh. God is great!"
B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

1927. THE POET IN THE EAST.
The poet came to the land of the East,
When Spring was in the air;
The earth was dress'd for a wedding feast,
So young she seem'd, and fair;
And the poet knew the land of the East-
His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams-
Familiar visions that mock'd his quest
Beside the western streams,

Or gleam'd in the gold of the cloud unroll'd
In the sunset's dying beams.

He look'd above in the cloudless calm,
And the Sun sat on his throne;
The breath of gardens deep in balm,
Was all about him blown,

And a brother to him was the princely Palm,
For he cannot live alone.

His feet went forth on the myrtled hills,
And the flowers their welcome shed;
The meads of milk-white asphodel

They knew the Poet's tread,
And far and wide, in a scarlet tide,
The poppy's bonfire spread.

And, half in shade and half in sun,
The Rose sat in her bower,

With a passionate thrill in her crimson

heart

She had waited for the hour! And, like a bride's, the Poet kiss'd

The lips of the glorious flower.

Then the Nightingale who sat above

In the boughs of the citron-tree,
Sang: "We are no rivals, brother mine,
Except in minstrelsy;

For the rose you kiss'd with the kiss of love.
Is faithful still to me."

And further sang the Nightingale :

"Your bower not distant lies.

I heard the sound of a Persian lute
From the jasmined window rise,
And like twe stars from the lattice-bars,
I saw the Sultana's eyes."

The Poet said: "I will here abide,
In the Sun's unclouded door;
Here are the wells of all delight
On the lost Arcadian shore:
Here is the light on sea and land,
And the dream deceives no more."
B. Taylor.-Born 1825

1928.-KILIMANDJARO.

Hail to thee, monarch of African mountains,
Remote, inacessible, silent, and lone-
Who, from the heart of the tropical fervours,
Liftest to heaven thine alien snows,

Feeding for ever the fountains that make thee Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

The years of the world are engraved on thy forehead;

Time's morning blush'd red on thy firstfallen snows;

Yet lost in the wilderness, nameless, unnoted, Of Man unbeholden, thou wert not till now. Knowledge alone is the being of Nature, Giving a soul to her manifold features, Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness

The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song. Knowledge has born thee anew to Creation, And long-baffled Time at thy baptism rejoices. Take, then, a name, and be fill'd with existence,

Yea, be exultant in sovereign glory,

While from the hand of the wandering poet
Drops the first garland of song at thy feet.

Floating alone, on the flood of thy making, Through Africa's mystery, silence, and fire, Lo! in my palm, like the Eastern enchanter, I dip from the waters a magical mirror, And thou art reveal'd to my purified vision. I see thee, supreme in the midst of thy comates,

Standing alone twixt the Earth and the
Heavens,

Heir of the Sunset and Herald of Morn.
Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite,
The climates of Earth are display'd, as an
index,

Giving the scope of the Book of Creation.
There, in the gorges that widen, descending
From cloud and from cold into summer eternal,
Gather the threads of the ice-gender'd
fountains-

Gather to riotous torrents of crystal,

And, giving each shelvy recess where they dally

The blooms of the North and its evergreen

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Garners where storeth his treasures the Thunder,

The Lightning his falchion, his arrows the Hail!

Sovereign Mountain, thy brothers give wel.

come :

They, the baptized and the crowned of ages,
Watch-towers of Continents, altars of Earth,
Welcome thee now to their mighty assembly.
Mont Blanc, in the roar of his mad avalanches,
Hails thy accession; superb Orizaba,
Belted with beech and ensandall'd with palm;
Chimborazo, the lord of the regions of noon.
day,-

Mingle their sounds in magnificent chorus
With greeting august from the Pillars of
Heaven,

Who, in the urns of the Indian Ganges,
Filter the snows of their sacred dominions,
Unmark'd with a footprint, unseen but of
God.

Lo! unto each is the seal of his lordship, Nor question'd the right that his majesty giveth;

Each in his awful supremacy forces
Worship and reverence, wonder and joy.
Absolute all, yet in dignity varied,
None has a claim to the honours of story,
Or the superior splendours of song,
Greater than thou, in thy mystery mantled-
Thou, the sole monarch of African mountains,
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

1929.-AN ORIENTAL IDYL.

A silver javelin which the hills

Have hurl'd upon the plain below, The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills, Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh

Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cool'd in mountain snow

The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;
And in the distant, dim bazaars
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.

No evil fear, no dream forlorn,

Darkens my heaven of perfect blue; My blood is temper'd to the mornMy very heart is steep'd in dew.

What Evil is, I cannot tell;

But half I guess what Joy may be; And, as a pearl within its shell,

The happy spirit sleeps in me.

I feel no more the pulse's strife,-
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea,
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonder jasmine-tree.

Upon the glittering pageantries

Of gay Damascus streets I look As idly as a babe that sees

The painted pictures of a book.

Forgotten now are name and race;

The Past is blotted from my brain; For memory sleeps, and will not trace The weary pages o'er again.

I only know the morning shines,

And sweet the dewy morning ait; But does it play with tendrill'd vines ? Or does it lightly lift my hair ?

Deep-sunken in the charm'd repose,

This ignorance is bliss extreme:
And whether I be Man, or Rose,

O, pluck me not from out my dream!
B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

1930.-HASSAN TO HIS MARE. Come, my beauty! come, my desert darling! On my shoulder lay thy glossy head! Fear not, though the barley-sack be empty, Here's the half of Hassan's scanty bread. Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty! And thou know'st my water-skin is free: Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant, And my strength and safety lie in thee.

Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses! Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye: Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle

Thou art proud he owns thee: so am I.

Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,

Prancing with their diamond-studded reins; They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness When they course with thee the desert plains!

Let the Sultan bring his famous horses,

Let him bring his golden swords to meBring his slaves, his eunuchs, and his harem ; He would offer them in vain for thee.

We have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
And the splendour of the Pashas there;
What's their pomp and riches? Why, I would
not

Take them for a handful of thy hair!

Khaled sings the praises of his mistress,
And because I've none he pities me:
What care I if he should have a thousand,
Fairer than the morning? I have thee.

He will find his passion growing cooler
Should her glance on other suitors fall:
Thou wilt ne'er, my mistress and my darling,
Fail to answer at thy master's call.
By-and-by some snow-white Nedjid stallion
Shall to thee his spring-time ardour bring;
And a foal, the fairest of the Desert,

To thy milky dugs shall crouch and cling.
Then, when Khaled shows to me his children,
I shall laugh, and bid him look at thine;
Thou wilt neigh, and lovingly caress me,
With thy glossy neck laid close to mine.
B. Taylor.-Born 1825.

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In the summers that are past,

And the willow trails its branches lower

Than when I saw them last.

They strive to shut the sunshine wholly
From out the haunted room;

To fill the house, that once was joyful,
With silence and with gloom.
And many kind, remember'd faces
Within the doorway come-
Voices, that wake the sweeter music
Of one that now is dumb.
They sing, in tones as glad as ever,

The songs she loved to hear;
They braid the rose in summer garlands,
Whose flowers to her were dear.

And still, her footsteps in the passage,
Her blushes at the door,

Her timid words of maiden welcome
Come back to me once more.
And all forgetful of my sorrow,
Unmindful of my pain,

I think she has but newly left me,
And soon will come again.

She stays without, perchance, a moment,
To dress her dark-brown hair;

I hear the rustle of her garments—
Her light step on the stair!

O, fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
Lest eyes profane should see
My cheeks betray the rush of rapture
Her coming brings to me!

She tarries long: but lo, a whisper

Beyond the open door,

And, gliding through the quiet sunshine, A shadow on the floor!

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