LITMIR.BIZ

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      A stride and blow were all my need, and they

      Were wholly in my power. I took her hand,

      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

      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,

      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

      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.

      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

      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,—

      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

      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

      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,

      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,

      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 long joints, and down their legs

      To the cool hoofs;—no blemish anywhere:

      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,

      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;

      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:

      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

      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,

      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,

      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!

      ELEUSINIA.1

      THE SAVIOURS OF GREECE

      Life, in its central idea, is an entire and eternal solitude. Yet each individual nature so repeats—and is itself repeated in—every other, that there is insured the possibility both of a world-revelation in the soul, and of a self-incarnation in the world; so that every man's life, like Agrippa's mirror, reflects the universe, and the universe is made the embodiment of his life,—is made to beat with a human pulse.

      We do all, therefore,—Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, or Saxon,—claim kinship both with the earth and the heavens: with the sense of sorrow we kneel upon the earth, with the sense of hope we look into the heavens.

      The two Presences of the Eleusinia,—the earthly Demeter,2 the embodiment of human sorrow, and the heavenly Dionysus,3 the incarnation of human hope,—these are the two Great Presences of the Universe; about whom, as separate centres,—the one of measureless wanderings, the other of triumphant rest,—we marshal, both in the interpretations of Reason and in the constructions of our Imagination, all that is visible or that is invisible,—whatsoever is palpable in sense or possible in idea, in the world which is or the world to come. Incarnations of the life within us, in its two developments of Sorrow and Hope,—they are also the centres through which this life develops itself in the world: it is through them that all things have their genesis from the human heart, and through them, therefore, that all things are unveiled to us.

      But these Two Presences have their highest interest and significance as foci of the religious development of the race: and inasmuch as all growth is ultimately a religious one, it is in this phase

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