.. -*- encoding: utf-8 -*-

.. meta::
   :PG.Id: 42051
   :PG.Title: Akra the Slave
   :PG.Released: 2013-02-08
   :PG.Rights: Public Domain
   :PG.Producer: Al Haines
   :DC.Creator: Wilfrid Wilson Gibson
   :DC.Title: Akra the Slave
   :DC.Language: en
   :DC.Created: 1910
   :coverpage: images/img-cover.jpg

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AKRA THE SLAVE
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      Cover

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      AKRA THE SLAVE

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      BY
      WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

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      LONDON
      ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
      MCMX

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|  *Six years ago, I wrote this story down,*
|  *While yet the light of Eastern skies*
|  *Was in my eyes,*
|  *And still my heart, aglow with memories*
|  *Of sun-enraptured seas,*
|  *And that old sea-girt town.*
|  *Where, down dark alleys of enchanted night,*
|  *We stole, until we came*
|  *To where the great dome glimmered white.*
|  *And every minaret,*
|  *A shaft of pearly flame,*
|  *Beneath the cloudy moon...*
|
|  *Six years ago!*
|  *Ah! soon--too soon,*
|  *Our tale, too, will be told:*
|  *And yet, and yet,*
|  *From this old Eastern tale we know,*
|  *Love's story never can grow old,*
|  *Till Love, himself, forget.*

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   AKRA THE SLAVE

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|  He thought to see me tremble
|  And totter as an oar-snapt reed,
|  When he spake death to me--
|  My courage, toppled in the dust,
|  Even as the head of cactus
|  The camel-keeper slashes
|  That his beasts may browse, unscathed,
|  The succulent, wounded green.
|  He thought to have me, broken,
|  And grovelling at his feet;
|  Mouthing and mumbling to his sandal-ties,
|  In stammering dread of death--
|  Aye! even as a king,
|  Who, having from death's hand,
|  Received his crown and kingdom,
|  For ever treads in terror of the hour
|  When death shall jog his elbow,
|  Twitch the purple from his shoulders,
|  And claim again the borrowed crown.
|  But, little need have I to fear
|  The crouching, lean camp-follower,
|  Unto whose ever-gaping maw,
|  Day after day, I flung
|  The spoils of bow and arrow,
|  Ere I was taken captive--
|  I, who have often, at my mother's breast,
|  Awakened in the night-time,
|  To see death leering on me from the cave-mouth,
|  A gaunt and slinking shape
|  That snuffed the dying embers,
|  Blotting out the friendly stars--
|  I, who, a scarce-weaned boy,
|  Have toddled, gay and fearless,
|  Down the narrow jungle-track,
|  Through bodeful forest-darkness, panther-eyed;
|  And have felt cold snakes uncoiling
|  And gliding 'neath my naked sole,
|  From clammy slumber startled;
|  While, with sharp snap and crackle,
|  Beast-trodden branches strained behind me,
|  My father's hand scarce snatching me
|  Before the spring of crouching death!
|  But, naught of this the King could know,
|  He only knew that, on that far-off morning,
|  When first I came before him, captive,
|  Among my captive brothers,
|  And, as he lightly held, in idle fingers,
|  Above my unbowed head,
|  In equal poise
|  Death's freedom
|  Or the servitude of life,
|  I clutched at life:
|  And cared but little that his lips
|  Should curl, to see me, broken,
|  A slave among his slaves.
|  Yet, never slave of his was I;
|  Nor did I take my new life from his nod--
|  I ... I who could have torn
|  The proud life out of him,
|  Before his guards could stay me...
|  Had she not sat beside him, on her throne.

|  And he, who knew not then,
|  Nor ever, till to-day,
|  Has known me aught but slave,
|  Remembering that time,
|  Spake doom of death to me,
|  Idly, as to a slave:
|  And I await the end of night,
|  And dawn of death,
|  Even as a slave awaits...
|  Nay! as the unvanquished veteran
|  Awaits the hour of victory.

|  In silence, wheels the night,
|  Star-marshalled, over dreaming Babylon;
|  And none in all the sleeping city stirs,
|  Save the cloaked sentries on the outer walls
|  Who tread out patience 'twixt the gates of brass,
|  Numb with scarce-baffled slumber,
|  Or, maybe, some unsleeping priest of Bel,
|  A lonely warder of eternity,
|  Who watches on the temple's seventh stage,
|  With the unslumbering gods.
|  Yet, may not she, the Queen,
|  Whose beauty, slaying my body,
|  Brings my soul to immortal birth,
|  Although she does not know
|  Of my last vigil on the peak of life--
|  Yet, may not she awaken, troubled
|  By strange, bewildering dreams,
|  With heart a little fearful of the dawn
|  Of day, yet unrevealed?

|  There is no sound at all,
|  Save only the cool plashing
|  Of fountains in the courtyard
|  Without my lonely cell:
|  For fate has granted to me
|  This last, least consolation of sweet sound
|  Though in the plains I perish,
|  I shall hear the noise of waters,
|  The noise of running waters,
|  As I die.
|  My earliest lullaby shall sing
|  My heart again to slumber.
|  And, even now, I hear
|  Stream-voices, long-forgotten, calling me
|  Back to the hills of home;
|  And, dreaming, I remember
|  The little yellow brooks
|  That ever, day and night,
|  Gush down the mountains singing,
|  Singing by the caves:
|  And hearkening unto them,
|  Once more a tiny baby,
|  A wee brown fist I dabble
|  In the foaming cool,
|  Frothing round my wrist,
|  Spurting up my arm,
|  Spraying my warm face;
|  And then again I chuckle,
|  As I see an empty gourd,
|  Fallen in the swirling waters,
|  Bobbing on the tawny eddies,
|  Swiftly out of sight.

|  And yet most clearly to remembrance comes
|  That far-off night, in early Spring,
|  When, loud with melted snow from Northern peaks,
|  The torrent roared and fretted;
|  While, couched within the cavern,
|  The clamour kept me wakeful;
|  And, even when I slept,
|  Tumbled, tumultuous, through my dreams,
|  And seemed to surge about me,
|  As the brawl of armèd men.
|  And once I sprang from slumber,
|  Hot and startled,
|  Dreaming that I felt
|  A warm breath on my cheek,
|  As if a jackal nuzzled me;
|  Or some dread, slinking foe
|  Made certain of my sleeping
|  Before he plunged the steel.
|  But nothing stirred within the glimmering cavern,
|  Where, all around me, lay my sleeping kindred;
|  And, when I stole without, with noiseless footsteps,
|  To rouse the smouldering watchfire into flame,
|  And cast fresh, crackling brushwood on the blaze,
|  I caught no glint of arms betwixt the branches,
|  Nor any sound or rumour, save
|  The choral noise of cold hill-waters,
|  Cold hill-waters singing,
|  Singing to the stars.
|  And so I turned me from the brooding night;
|  And, couched again upon the leopard-skins,
|  I slept, till dawn, in dream-untroubled sleep.

|  I woke to see the cold sky kindling red,
|  Beyond the mounded ash of the spent fire;
|  And lay, a moment, watching
|  The pearly light, caught, trembling,
|  In dewy-beaded spiders' webs
|  About the cave-mouth woven.
|  Then I arose;
|  And left my kindred, slumbering--
|  My mother, by my father,
|  And, at her breast, her youngest babe,
|  With dimpled fingers clutching at her bosom;
|  And, all around them, lying
|  Their sons and daughters, beautiful in sleep,
|  With parted lips,
|  And easy limbs outstretched
|  Along the tumbled bedskins:
|  And while they slumbered yet in shades of night,
|  I sprang out naked
|  Into eager dawn.
|  The sun had not yet scaled the eastern ridge:
|  And still the vales were hidden from my eyes
|  By snowy wreaths of swathing mist:
|  But, high upon a scar
|  That jutted sheer and stark,
|  In cold grey light,
|  There stood an antelope,
|  With lifted muzzle snuffing the fresh day;
|  When scenting me afar,
|  He plunged into the mist
|  With one quick, startled bound:
|  And, from the smoking vapour,
|  Arose a gentle pattering,
|  As, down the rocky trail,
|  The unseen herd went trotting
|  Upon their leader's heels.
|  And from the clear horizon
|  The exultant sun sprang god-like:
|  And on a little mound I stood,
|  With eager arms outstretched,
|  That, over my cold body,
|  The first warm golden beams
|  Of his life-giving light might fall.
|  And thus, awhile, I stood.
|  In radiant adoration tranced,
|  Until I caught the call of waters;
|  And, running downwards to the stream,
|  That plunged into a darkling pool,
|  Where, in the rock was scooped a wide, deep basin;
|  Upon the glassy brink,
|  A moment, I hung, shivering,
|  And gazing down through deeps of lucent shadow;
|  And then I leapt headlong,
|  And felt the cloven waters
|  Closing, icy-cold, above me,
|  And, again, with sobbing breath,
|  Battled to the light and air:
|  And I ran into the sunshine,
|  Shaking from my tingling limbs
|  Showers of scintillating drops
|  Over radiant, dewy beds
|  Of the snowy cyclamen,
|  And dark-red anemone,
|  Till my tawny body glowed
|  With warm, ruddy, pulsing life.
|  And then again I sought the stream,
|  And plunged; and now, more boldly,
|  I crossed the pool, with easy stroke;
|  And climbed the further crag;
|  And, turning, plunged again.
|  And so, I dived and swam,
|  Till pangs of hunger pricked
|  My idle fancy homeward:
|  And eagerly I climbed the hill;
|  When, not a sling's throw from the cavern,
|  Stooping to pluck a red anemone,
|  To prank the wet, black tangle of my hair,
|  I heard a shout;
|  And looking up,
|  I saw strange men
|  With lifted spears
|  Bear down on me:
|  And as I turned,
|  A javelin sang
|  Above my shrinking shoulder,
|  And bit the ground before me.
|  But, swift as light I sped,
|  Until I reached the pool,
|  And leapt therein:
|  And he who pressed most hotly on my heels,
|  Fell stumbling after.
|  Still I never slackened,
|  Although I heard a floundering splash,
|  And then the laughter of his comrades:
|  And, as I swam for life,
|  Betwixt my thrusting heels,
|  Another spear that clove the crystal waters
|  Glanced underneath my body,
|  And in the stream-bed quivered bolt upright,
|  Caught in a cleft of rock.
|  With frantic arm I struck
|  Straight as a snake across the pool,
|  And climbed the further bank;
|  And plunging through deep brake,
|  Ran wildly onward,
|  Startling as I went
|  A browsing herd of antelope,
|  That, bounding, fled before me down the valley
|  And after them I raced,
|  As though the hunter,
|  Not the hunted,
|  Until the chase sang in my blood,
|  And braced my straining thews.
|  I knew not if men followed,
|  Yet, on I sped, impetuously,
|  As speeds the fleet-foot onaga,
|  That breasts the windy morning,
|  With lifted head, and nostrils wide,
|  Exultant in his youth.
|  So, on and ever on,
|  Scarce knowing why I ran--
|  Enough for me to feel
|  Earth beaten back behind my heels,
|  And hear the loud air singing
|  The blood-song in my ears:
|  Till, stumbling headlong over
|  An unseen, fallen branch,
|  I rolled in a deep bed of withered leaves;
|  And lay, full-length in shuddering ecstasy
|  Of hot, tumultuous blood that rioted
|  Through every throbbing vein.
|  But when again, I breathed more easily,
|  And my wild, fluttering heart kept slower beat,
|  Hot-foot, my thoughts ran, wondering, backward:
|  And I arose and followed them
|  With swift and stealthy pace,
|  Until I reached the stream.
|  Along the bank I stole with wary step,
|  Until I came to where the waters
|  Narrowed, raging through a gorge,
|  Nigh the threshold of my home:
|  And across the thunderous flood,
|  From crag to crag I leapt:
|  And then I climbed a cedar,
|  From whose close ambush I could watch
|  Who came or went about the cavern-mouth.
|  I lay along a level branch:
|  And, through the thick, dark screen,
|  I peered with eager eyes:
|  But no one crossed my sight.
|  The whole land lay before me, drowsing
|  In deepest noonday slumber:
|  No twig stirred in the breathless blaze;
|  And underneath the boughs no serpent rustled:
|  And, in the earth and air,
|  Naught waked, save one lone eagle, nigh the sun,
|  With wings, unbaffled, beating
|  Up the blue, unclouded heavens.
|  A dreamless, suave security
|  Seemed brooding o'er the valley's golden slumber,
|  Whence rang or flashed no hint of lurking peril.
|  I dropped to earth,
|  And crouching low,
|  I stole yet nearer
|  Through the brake:
|  Till, drawing nigh the cavern-mouth,
|  I heard the sound of half-hushed sobbing:
|  And then I saw, within the gloom,
|  My mother and my sisters clustering round
|  My father's body, lying stark and dead,
|  A spear-wound in his breast.
|  And as I crept to them, they did not hear me,
|  Nor ever lift their heads;
|  But, shuddering, crouched together,
|  With drooping breasts half-hid in falling hair,
|  By that familiar form
|  In such strange slumber bound.
|  Only the baby, on her shoulder slung,
|  Saw me, and crowed me greeting,
|  As I stooped down to touch my weeping mother,
|  Who, turning suddenly,
|  With wild tear-fevered eyes;
|  Arose with whispered warning;
|  But, even then, too late.
|  Already, from behind,
|  Around my throat
|  An arm was flung;
|  And heavily I fell:
|  Yet, with a desperate wrench,
|  I slipped the clutch of my assailant:
|  And picking up a slingstone that lay handy,
|  I crashed it through his helm;
|  And dead he dropped.
|  And now upon me all his fellows thronged,
|  Like hounds about an antelope;
|  And gripped my naked limbs,
|  And dragged me down,
|  A struggling beast, among them:
|  And desperately I fought,
|  As fights the boar at bay,
|  When all the yelling pack,
|  With lathered lips, and white teeth gnashing,
|  Is closing in upon him;
|  And in his quivering flank, and gasping throat,
|  He feels the fangs of death:
|  Till, overcome at last,
|  They bound me hand and foot,
|  With knotted, leathern thongs;
|  And dragged me out to where, beneath the trees,
|  Trussed in like manner, with defiant eyes,
|  My brothers lay, already, side by side.
|  They laid me in the shade;
|  And flicked my wincing spirit
|  With laughter and light words:
|  "Now is the roe-buck taken!"
|  Then another,
|  On whose dark, sullen face there burned a livid weal
|  "A buck in flight's a panther brought to bay!"
|  And then his fellow:
|  "True enough! and yet,
|  For such young thews they give good gold--
|  They give good gold in Babylon!"
|  And, laughing thus, they left us,
|  To lie through hours of aching silence,
|  Until, at length, the cool of evening fell;
|  When they returned from slumber;
|  And loosed the ankle-cords that we might stand;
|  And bade our mother feed us;
|  And she, with tender fingers, held
|  The milk-bowl to our parching lips;
|  And thrust dried dates betwixt our teeth;
|  And wept, to see us standing there,
|  With helpless hands, before her.
|  Then, bringing out their mules, they saddled them;
|  And tied us to the girths on either hand.
|  They drove my weeping sisters from the cavern;
|  And sought to tear my mother from her home;
|  But she escaped them;
|  And they let her bide
|  Amid the ruins of her life,
|  Whose light had dropped, so suddenly,
|  From out the highest heavens:
|  And, when I turned to look on her,
|  And win from her a last farewell,
|  I saw her, sitting desolate betwixt
|  Her silent husband and her wailing babe,
|  With still, strange eyes,
|  That stared upon the dead, unseeing,
|  While her own children went from her,
|  Scarce knowing that they left her, nevermore
|  To look upon her face.

|  Thus, we set out, as over
|  The darkening, Southern crags
|  The new moon's keen, curved blade was thrust:
|  My sisters trooping on before us,
|  Like a drove of young gazelles,
|  Which, in the dead of night,
|  With pards in leash, and torches flaring,
|  The hunters have encompassed.
|  They moved with timid steps,
|  And little runs;
|  Stumbling, with stifled cries;
|  And starting, panic-shot,
|  From every lurking shadow--
|  Behind them, terror's lifted lash:
|  Before them, ever crouching,
|  The horror of the unknown night--
|  While, as they moved before us,
|  The moonlight shivered off their shrinking shoulders
|  And naked, glancing limbs,
|  In shimmering, strange beauty.
|  And closely on their heels,
|  I, with my brothers, foremost in the file,
|  Marched, tethered 'twixt the plodding beasts,
|  Whose stolid riders sat,
|  Each with his javelin on the pummel couched,
|  In watchful silence, with dark eyes alert.
|  And once, nigh driven crazy
|  By the tugging of the thongs,
|  I sprang into the air,
|  As down a rocky steep we scrambled;
|  And strove to burst the galling bonds,
|  Or hurl my guards on one another;
|  But, all too sure of foot, the beasts,
|  And too securely girths and cords
|  Held me, and I stumbled.
|  Instantly a thong
|  Struck my wincing shoulders,
|  Blow on thudding blow.
|  I bit my lips; and strode on silently;
|  Nor fought again for freedom.
|  So on we journeyed through the night,
|  And down familiar mountain-tracks,
|  Through deep, dark forest,
|  Ever down and down;
|  Fording the streams, whose moon-bright waters flowed,
|  In eddies of delicious, aching cool,
|  About our weary thighs.
|  And, once, when in mid-torrent,
|  That swirled, girth-high about the plunging beasts,
|  A startled otter, glancing
|  Before their very hoofs,
|  Affrighted them; and, rearing,
|  With blind and desperate floundering,
|  They nearly dragged us down to death:
|  And, ere we righted,
|  With a fearful cry,
|  My eldest sister from the bevy broke;
|  And struck down-stream
|  With wild arm lashing desperately,
|  Until the current caught her;
|  And she sank, to rise no more.
|  And on again we travelled,
|  Down through the darkling woodlands:
|  And once I saw green, burning eyes,
|  Where, on a low-hung bough,
|  A night-black panther crouched,
|  As though to pounce upon my sisters;
|  But, the sudden crack of whips,
|  Startling him, he snarled;
|  And turned with lashing tail,
|  Crashing through dense brushwood.

|  When, once, again we came unto a clearing,
|  The night was near its noon:
|  And all the vales that lay before us
|  Were filled with moving, moonlit mists,
|  That seemed phantasmal waters
|  Of that enchanted world,
|  Where we, in dreams, sail over still lagoons,
|  Throughout eternal night,
|  And under unknown stars.
|  Still, on we fared, unresting,
|  Until the low moon paled;
|  When, halting on a mountain-spur,
|  We first looked down on Babylon,
|  Far in the dreaming West,
|  A cluster of dim towers,
|  Scarce visible to wearied eyes.
|  We camped within a sheltering cedar-grove;
|  And all the day, beneath the level boughs,
|  Upon the agelong-bedded needles lay,
|  Half-slumbering, with fleeting, fretful dreams
|  That could not quite forget the chafing cords,
|  That held our arms in aching numbness:
|  But, ere the noon, in sounder sleep I sank,
|  Dreaming I floated on a still, deep pool,
|  Beneath dark, overhanging branches;
|  And seemed to feel upon my cheek
|  The cool caress of waters;
|  While, far above me, through the night of trees,
|  Noon glimmered faintly as the glint of stars.
|  As thus I lay, in indolent ecstasy,
|  O'er me, suddenly, the waters
|  Curved, and I was dragged,
|  Down and down,
|  Through gurgling deeps
|  Of swirling, drowning darkness...
|  When I awoke in terror;
|  And strove to sit upright;
|  But, tautly, with a jerk,
|  The thongs that held me to my brothers,
|  Dragged me back to earth.

|  Awhile I lay, with staring eyes, awake,
|  Watching a big, grey spider, crouched overhead,
|  In ambush 'neath a twig, beside her web,
|  Oft sallying out, to bind yet more securely,
|  The half-entangled flies.
|  And then, once more, I slumbered;
|  And dreamed a face leant over me,
|  More fair than any face
|  My waking eyes had ever looked upon.
|  Its beauty burned above me,
|  Not dusky like my sisters' faces,
|  But pale as the wan moon,
|  Reflected in a flood
|  Of darkly flowing waters,
|  Or as the creaming froth,
|  That, born amid the thunder of the fall,
|  Floats on the river's bosom in the sunshine,
|  Bubble after bubble,
|  Perishing in air.
|  So, a moment, over me,
|  With frail and fleeting glimmer
|  Of strange elusive, evanescent light,
|  The holy vision hovered.
|  And yet, whenever, with a fervent longing,
|  I sought to look into the darkling eyes,
|  The face would fade from me,
|  As foam caught in an eddy:
|  Until, at last, I wakened,
|  And, wondering, saw a pale star gleaming
|  Betwixt the cedar-branches.
|  And soon our captors stirred:
|  And we arose, to see
|  The walls and towers of Babylon, dark
|  Against the clear rose of the afterglow,
|  Already in the surge of shadows caught,
|  As night, beneath us, slowly Westward swept,
|  Flooding the dreaming plain that lay before us,
|  Vast, limitless, bewildering,
|  And strange to mountain-eyes.
|  As down the slope we went,
|  And when, at last, we left behind
|  The hills and singing waters,
|  A vague, oppressive fear
|  Of those dim, silent leagues of level land,
|  Fell on me; and I almost seemed
|  To bear upon my shoulders
|  The vaster dome of overwhelming night;
|  And, trembling like a child,
|  I looked askance at my two captors,
|  As they rode on in heedless silence,
|  Their swarthy faces sharp
|  Against the lucent sky.
|  And then, once more,
|  The old, familiar watchfires of the stars
|  Brought courage to my bosom;
|  And the young moon's brilliant horn
|  Was exalted in the sky:
|  And soon, the glooming wilderness
|  Awoke with glittering waters,
|  As a friendly wind sang unto me
|  Among the swaying reeds:
|  While, cloud on cloud,
|  The snowy flocks of pelican
|  Before our coming rose;
|  And, as they swerved to Southward,
|  The moonlight shivered off their flashing pinions.

|  So, on we marched, till dawn, across the plain;
|  And, on and on,
|  Beneath the waxing moon,
|  Each night we travelled Westward;
|  Until, at last, we halted
|  By the broad dull-gleaming flood
|  Of mighty, roaring Tigris;
|  And aroused from midnight slumber
|  The surly, grumbling ferrymen,
|  And crossed the swollen waters
|  Upon the great, skin rafts:
|  Then on again we fared,
|  Until the far, dim towers soared in the dawnlight
|  And we encamped beside a stream,
|  Beneath dry, rustling palms.
|  And heavily I slumbered:
|  And only wakened once, at noon,
|  When, lifting up my head,
|  I saw the towers of Babylon, burning blue,
|  Far off, in the blind heat:
|  And slept again, till sunset,
|  When we took our Westward course
|  Along the low bank of a broad canal,
|  That glimmered wanly 'neath a moonless sky.
|  Higher, and higher still,
|  As we drew slowly nearer,
|  Arose the vasty walls and serried towers,
|  That seemed to thrust among the stars,
|  And on embattled summits bear the night,
|  Unbowed beneath their burden,
|  As easily as, with unruffled brows,
|  And limber, upright bodies,
|  The village-daughters carry
|  At eve the brimming pitchers,
|  Poised upon their heads.
|  And when, above us, the wide-looming walls
|  Shut out the Western stars;
|  Beneath their shade, at midnight, we encamped,
|  To await till dawn should open
|  The city gates for us.
|  That night we did not sleep,
|  But, crouched upon the ground,
|  We watched the moon rise over Babylon,
|  Till, far behind us, o'er the glittering waste,
|  Was flung the wall's huge shadow,
|  And the moving shades of sentries,
|  Who, unseen above our heads,
|  Paced through the night incessantly.
|  Thus long we sat, hushed with awed expectation,
|  And gazing o'er the plain that we had travelled,
|  As, gradually, the climbing moon,
|  Escaping from the clustering towers,
|  Revealed far-gleaming waters,
|  And the sharp, shrill cry of owls,
|  Sweeping by on noiseless plumes,
|  Assailed the vasty silence,
|  Shivering off like darts
|  From some impenetrable shield.
|  And, as we waited,
|  Sometimes, fearfully,
|  I gazed up those stupendous, soaring walls
|  Of that great, slumbering city, wondering
|  What doom behind the bastioned ramparts slept,
|  What destiny, beneath the brooding night,
|  Awaited me beyond the brazen gates.
|  But, naught the blind, indifferent stars revealed,
|  Though towards the long night's ending,
|  Half-dazed with gazing up that aching height,
|  A drowsiness fell over me,
|  And in a restless waking-trance I lay,
|  Dreaming that Life and Death before me stood.
|  And, as each thrust towards me a shrouded cup,
|  Implacable silence bade me choose and drink.
|  But, as I stretched a blind, uncertain hand
|  To take the cup of death,
|  I wakened, and dawn trembled,
|  At last, beyond the Eastern hills,
|  And, star by star, night failed;
|  And eagerly the sun leapt up the sky,
|  And, as his flashing rays
|  Smote kindling towers and flaming gates of brass,
|  Across the reedy moat
|  A clattering drawbridge fell,
|  And wide the glittering portals slowly swung:
|  And there came streaming out in slow procession
|  A sleepy caravan of slouching camels,
|  Groaning and grumbling as they strode along
|  Beneath their mountainous burdens,
|  Upon whose swaying summits,
|  Impassively, the blue-robed merchants sat.
|  They passed us slowly by,
|  And then we took the bridge,
|  And, while our captors parleyed with the guards,
|  Who stood, on either hand,
|  With naked swords,
|  I turned my head,
|  And saw for the last time, far Eastward,
|  The cold, snow-brilliant peaks,
|  Beyond my dim, blue, native hills.
|  And, as I looked, my thoughts flew homeward,
|  And I, one dreaming moment,
|  Stood by my mourning mother in the cavern
|  Of desolation, looking on the dead.
|  And then, between the brazen gate-posts,
|  And underneath the brazen lintel,
|  At last we entered Babylon.
|  Before us, yet another wall arose,
|  And, turning sharply
|  Down a narrow way,
|  The living breath of heaven seemed shut from us
|  As though beneath the beetling crags
|  Of some deep mountain-gorge--
|  By cliffs of wall, on either hand,
|  That soared up to the narrow sky,
|  Which with dim lustre lit
|  The shimmering surface of enamelled brick,
|  Whereon, through giant groves,
|  Blue-coated hunters chased the boar,
|  Or 'loosed red-tasselled falcon
|  After flying crane.
|  But soon we reached another gate,
|  Sword-guarded, and we entered,
|  And plunged into the traffic
|  Of clamorous merchantmen,
|  Speeding their business ere the heat of day.
|  And as we jostled, slowly,
|  Through bewildering bazaars,
|  The porters and the idler wayfarers
|  All turned to look upon our shame,
|  With cold, unpitying eyes,
|  And indolent, gaping mouths,
|  Or jested with our captors,
|  Until we left the busier thoroughfares,
|  And walked through groves of cypress and of ilex,
|  Where not a sound or rumour troubled
|  The silence of the dark-plumed boughs
|  And glimmering deeps of peace,
|  Save only the cool spurt of waters
|  That, from a myriad unseen jets,
|  Fretted the crystal airs of morning,
|  And fell in frolic showers
|  Of twinkling, rainbow drops,
|  That plashed in unseen basins;
|  And through the blaze of almond-orchards,
|  Tremulous with blossom
|  That flickered in a rosy, silken snow
|  Of falling petals over us,
|  And wreathed about our feet
|  In soft and scented drifts;
|  Beneath pomegranate trees in young, green leaf,
|  And through vast gardens, glowing with strange flowers,
|  Such as no April kindled into bloom
|  Among the valleys of my native hills.
|  We came unto a court of many fountains,
|  Where, leaping off their jaded mules,
|  Our captors loosed the thongs that held us,
|  But left our wrists still bound.
|  And one with great clay pitchers came,
|  And over our hot bodies, travel-stained,
|  Poured out cool, cleansing waters
|  In a gurgling, crystal stream,
|  And flung coarse robes of indigo
|  About our naked shoulders.
|  And here we left behind us
|  The maidens and the younger boys,
|  And passing through a gateway,
|  Came out upon a busy wharf,
|  Where, southward, midway through the city,
|  The broad Euphrates flows,
|  His dark flood thronged with merchant-dhows,
|  And fishing-boats of reed and bitumen,
|  Piled high with glistering barbel, freshly-caught;
|  And foreign craft, with many-coloured sails,
|  And laden deep with precious merchandise,
|  That, over wide, bewildering waters,
|  Across the perilous world,
|  The adventurous, dark-bearded mariners,
|  Who swear by unknown gods in alien tongues,
|  Bring ever to the gates of Babylon.
|  We crossed the drawbridge, round whose granite piers
|  Swirled strong, Spring-swollen waters,
|  Loud and tawny,
|  And, through great brazen portals,
|  Passed within the palace gates,
|  When first I saw afar the hanging-gardens,
|  Arch on arch,
|  And tier on tier,
|  Against a glowing sky.
|  Two strapping Nubians, like young giants
|  Hewn from blue-black marble
|  By some immortal hand in immemorial ages,
|  Led us slowly onward.
|  The dappled pard-skins, slung across their shoulders,
|  Scarcely hid the ox-like thews,
|  Beneath the dark skin rippling,
|  As they strode along before us.
|  Through courts of alabaster,
|  And painted corridors,

|  And chambers fair with flowery tapestries
|  They led us, wondering, till at last we came
|  Into a vast, dim hall of glimmering gold,
|  The end of all our journeying.
|  And, as we halted on the threshold,
|  My eyes could see but little for a moment,
|  In the dusky, heavy air,
|  Through the ceaseless cloud of incense,
|  Rising from the smouldering braziers
|  To the gold, grey-clouded dome,
|  Tingling strangely in my nostrils,
|  As I came from morning airs;
|  Then slowly filling them with drowsy fume,
|  When, looking up with half-dazed eyes,
|  I saw the King upon his golden throne:
|  And through my body
|  Raged rebellious blood,
|  In baffled riot beating
|  At my corded wrists,
|  As if to burst the galling bonds,
|  That I might hurl that lean, swart face,
|  So idly turning towards us,
|  With thin curled lips,
|  And cold, incurious eyes,
|  To headlong death--
|  Yea! even though I tumbled
|  The towers of Babylon round about my head.
|  And, when our captors bowed their foreheads low,
|  Obsequious to the throne,
|  I stood upright,
|  And gazed my loathing on that listless form--
|  The gay, embroidered robe,
|  The golden cap, that prankt the crispèd locks,
|  The short, square beard, new-oiled and barbered--
|  But, in a flash,
|  A heavy blow
|  Fell on my head,
|  And struck me to my knees
|  Before the sleek, indifferent king.
|  And then, on either hand,
|  With gripping palms upon my shoulders set,
|  The Nubians towered above me
|  Like mighty men of stone.
|  And savagely I struggled,
|  Half-stunned, to rise again;
|  When, as I vainly battled
|  In their unrelenting clutch,
|  My eyes lit for the first time on the Queen,
|  Who sat upon the daïs, by her lord
|  Half-shadowed, on a throne of ivory,
|  And all the hate died in me, as I saw
|  The face that hovered over me in dream,
|  When I had slept beneath the low-boughed cedar:
|  The moon-pale brows, o'er which the clustered hair
|  Hung like the smoke of torches, ruddy-gold,
|  Against a canopy of peacock plumes:
|  The deep brown, burning eyes,
|  From which the soul looked on me in fierce pity.
|  And, as I gazed on that exultant beauty,
|  The hunter and the slayer of men
|  Was slain within me instantly,
|  And I forgot the mountains and my home;
|  My desolate mother, and my father's death;
|  My captive sisters ... and the thronèd King!
|  I was as one, that moment,
|  New-born into the world
|  Full-limbed and thewed,
|  Yet, with the wondering heart
|  Of earth-bewildered childhood.
|  And, unto me, it seemed
|  That, as the Queen looked down on me,
|  There stole into her eyes
|  Some dim remembrance of old dreams,
|  That in their brown depths flickered
|  With strange, elusive light,
|  Like stars that tremble in still forest-pools.
|  One spake--
|  I scarce knew whom, nor cared--
|  And bade me choose,
|  Before the throne,
|  Between a life of slavery,
|  Or merciful, swift death--
|  Death, that but a moment since,
|  I would have dragged, exulting, on me--
|  And with my eyes still set on the Queen's face,
|  I answered:
|  "I will serve":
|  And scarcely heeded that my wrists were loosed.

|  And, huddled in a stifling hut,
|  That night, among my fellows,
|  I could not sleep at all:
|  But gazed, wild-eyed, till dawn upon that face,
|  Which hovered o'er me, like the moon of dreams;
|  And seemed to draw the wandering tides of life
|  In one vast wave, which ever strove
|  To climb the heavens wherein she moved,
|  That it might break in triumphing foam about her.
|  Not then, nor ever afterwards,
|  Was I a slave, among my fellow-slaves,
|  But one, who, with mean drudgery,
|  And daily penance serves
|  Before a holy altar,
|  That, sometimes, as he labours, his glad eyes
|  May catch a gleam of the immortal light
|  Within the secret shrine;
|  Yea! and, maybe, shall look, one day, with trembling,
|  On the bright-haired, imperishable god.
|  And, even when, day after day,
|  I bore the big reed-baskets, laden
|  With wet clay, digged beyond the Western moat,
|  Although I seemed to tread,
|  As treads the ox that turns the water-wheel,
|  A blindfold round of servitude,
|  My quenchless vision ever burned before me:
|  And when, in after days, I fed
|  The roaring oven-furnaces;
|  And toiled by them through sweltering days,
|  Though over me, at times, would come
|  Great longing for the hill-tops,
|  And the noise of torrent-waters:
|  Or when, more skilled, I moulded
|  The damp clay into bricks;
|  And spread the colour and the glaze;
|  And in strength-giving heat of glowing kilns,
|  I baked them durable,
|  Clean-shaped, and meet for service:
|  My vision flamed yet brighter;
|  And unto me it seemed
|  As if my gross and useless clay were burned
|  In a white ecstasy of lustral fire,
|  That, in the fashioning of the house of love,
|  I might serve perfectly the builder's need.
|  Thus, many months, I laboured;
|  Till, one day, at the noontide hour of rest,
|  I lay; and with a sharpened reed--
|  As temple-scribes write down the holy lore
|  On tablets of wet clay--
|  On the moist earth beside me,
|  I limned a young fawn, cropping
|  A bunch of tender, overhanging leaves.
|  And, as I slowly drew,
|  I dreamt a little sadly of the days,
|  When I, too, roamed, untethered,
|  And drinking in, unquestioning,
|  The sunshine and the air,
|  And all the rapture of the earth that turns,
|  New every morning to the wondering sun,
|  Refashioned in still nights of starry dews:
|  But one, the while, unseen of me,
|  Watched my unconscious hand, approving:
|  And I was set, next morning,
|  Among the craftsmen, who so deftly limned
|  The hunts and battles for the palace walls.
|  And, happily, with them I lived
|  A life of loving labour, for each line
|  Flowed from the knowledge of my heart:
|  I drew the startled ostrich
|  Fleeing from the far-flung noose:
|  The brindled lynx; the onaga
|  In dewy-plashing flight;
|  The bristling boar, at bay,
|  Crouched in a deadly ring of threatening spears,
|  With streaming nostrils, and red eyes ablaze;
|  The striped hyæna; the gaunt, green-eyed wolf;
|  The skulking jackal; the grey, brush-tailed fox;
|  The hunting leopard and the antelope,
|  In mid-chase tense,
|  With every thew astrain;
|  The dappled panther; the brown-eyed gazelle,
|  Butting with black horns through the tangled brake
|  The nimble hare, alert, with pricked-up ears;
|  The tiger, crouched, with yellow eyes afire;
|  The shaggy mountain-goat,
|  Perched on the utmost crag,
|  Against the afterglow of lucent ruby,
|  Or, poised with bunching hoofs
|  In mid-spring over a dark, yawning chasm;
|  Or the black stallion, with his tameless troop,
|  Fording a mountain-river in the dawn.
|  And, sometimes, as we toiled,
|  A terrible fleeting rapture
|  Would come upon me, when the Queen
|  Passed by us with her maidens;
|  Or paused, a moment, gazing,
|  With tranced and kindling eyes upon our labours:
|  But never did I dare, at any time,
|  To lift my eyes to hers,
|  And look, as soul on soul,
|  As on the day her beauty brought to birth
|  The strange new life within me.
|  In silence she would ever leave us;
|  And ever with her passing perished
|  The light and colour of my work;
|  So that my heart failed, daunted by that glimpse
|  Of the ever-living beauty.
|  And, sometimes, I would carve in ruddy teak,
|  Or ivory, from the Indian merchants bought,
|  Or in the rare, black basalt, little beasts
|  To please the idle fancies of the King;
|  Or model in wet clay, and cast in bronze,
|  Great bulls and lions for the palace-courts;
|  Or carve him seals of lapis-lazuli,
|  Of jasper, amethyst and serpentine,
|  Chalcedony--carnelian, chrysoprase,
|  Agate, sardonyx, and chalcedonyx--
|  Green jade, and alabaster;
|  Or cut in stones that flashed and flickered
|  Like a glancing kingfisher,
|  Or, in the sun-filled amber,
|  The kite with broad wings spread,
|  Or little fluttering doves that pecked
|  A golden bunch of dates:
|  And then of these in settings of fine gold
|  Made fillets, rings and ear-rings.

|  Thus, one day,
|  Dreaming, as ever, of the Queen,
|  I wrought a golden serpent for her hair:
|  And when I brought it to the King, next morn,
|  Where he sat brooding over chess,
|  He bade me bear it to the Queen, myself,
|  And so, I went unto her, where she sat,
|  Among her singing maidens, at the loom,
|  Weaving a silken web of Tyrian dye.
|  I laid the trinket at her feet, in silence:
|  And she arose, and set it in her hair,
|  Whose living lustre far outshone
|  The cold, dead metal I had fashioned,
|  As she stood before me, dreaming,
|  In her robe of flowing blue;
|  Then looked a moment on me with kind eyes.
|  And though she spoke no word,
|  I turned, and fled, in trembling,
|  Before the light that shivered through me,
|  And struck my soul with shuddering ecstasy:
|  And, still, through many days,
|  Although I did not look again
|  Upon those dreaming eyes,
|  Their visionary light
|  Within my soul, revealed eternity.

|  Thus, have the mortal years
|  Flowed onward to the perfect end--
|  This day of days,
|  That never night shall quench,
|  Nor darkness vanquish:
|  And, at dawn,
|  I die.

|  And yet, this morning, as I slowly climbed
|  The steep, ascending stages
|  That lead up to the hanging-gardens--
|  Where, tier on tier,
|  The great brick arches bore
|  Their April wealth of blossoms,
|  Plumed with palm and dusky cypress--
|  I little knew that I
|  Who came to carve a garland
|  Round a fountain's porphry basin,
|  Should scale so soon the utmost peak of life.
|  Throughout the morn I toiled,
|  Until an hour ere noon--
|  For no one, save the King and Queen,
|  May walk in those high gardens, after midday--
|  When, underneath a cypress shade,
|  I paused, a moment, resting;
|  And looking down upon the basking city,
|  Beneath me slumbering deeply--
|  Garden on garden glowing, grove on grove,
|  Like some green fabric, shot with myriad hues,
|  And chequered with white clusters of flat roofs,
|  Aquiver in clear heat:
|  And then I gazed up through the aching azure,
|  At the restless kites that hover
|  Ever over Babylon:
|  And, as I watched one broad-winged bird that hung
|  Above the seven-coloured pyramid
|  Of Bel's great temple,
|  With wide pinions spread,
|  As though it kept eternal vigil over
|  The golden image in the golden shrine,
|  I thought of eagles poised
|  Above the peaks of glittering snows,
|  Beyond the Eastern plains.
|  Half-dreaming, thus, I lay,
|  Lulled by the tinkling waters,
|  Till, unawares, sleep slowly overcame me;
|  And noonday drifted by:
|  And still, I slept, unheeding:
|  And, in my sleep,
|  I looked on Beauty in a quiet place
|  Of forest gloom and immemorial dream:
|  When, something rousing me from slumber,
|  With waking eyes that yet seemed dream-enchanted,
|  I looked upon the Queen,
|  Where, in a secret close,
|  Set thickly round with screens of yew and ilex,
|  She stood upon the dark, broad brim
|  Of a wide granite basin, gazing down,
|  With dreaming eyes, into the glooming cool,
|  Unraimented, save of the flickering gleam,
|  Reflected from the lucent waters,
|  That flowed before her silently:
|  And slowly, from her feet,
|  The cold light rippled up her body, till,
|  Entangled in the meshes of her hair,
|  It flooded the calm rapture of her face:
|  When, dreaming still, she lifted up her eyes,
|  Unseeing; and I looked upon her soul,
|  Unveiled, in naked immortality,
|  Untrammelled by the trappings of brief time,
|  And cloaks of circumstance.
|  How long I looked upon the perfect beauty,
|  I cannot tell--
|  Each moment, flowing to eternity,
|  Bearing me further from time's narrow shores;
|  Though, yet, a little while,
|  From those unshadowed deeps time sought to hold me.

|  Suddenly, I felt
|  A ghostly arrow pierce my life;
|  And I leapt up, and turning,
|  I saw the King beside me,
|  With steely, glittering eyes
|  Shooting barbed anger,
|  Though he coldly spake,
|  With evil, curling lips:
|  "Slave, thou art dead!"
|  And yet I did not quail:
|  But, looking 'twixt his brows,
|  I answered: and he blenched before my words:
|  "Nay!  I have seen:
|  "And am newborn, a King!"
|  And then his craven fingers
|  Went quaking to his wagging beard,
|  As if he felt my clutch upon his throat:
|  Yet, though, with one quick blow,
|  I might have hurled him down to death,
|  I never stirred:
|  And, eyeing me, he summoned
|  The negro-eunuchs, who kept watch below:
|  But I, ere they could spring up the first stage,
|  Went forth to meet them;
|  And they bound my wrists.

|  And so, down from the hills, my life has flowed,
|  Until, at fullest flood, it meets the sea.
|  With calm and unregretful heart, I wait
|  Till dawn shall loose the arrow from the bow.
|  I, who, with eager, faltering hand have sought
|  To fashion a little beauty, in the end,
|  Have looked on the perfect beauty, and I die--
|  Even as the priest, who, in the heart of night,
|  Trembling before the thunder-riven shrine,
|  Looks on the face of God, and perishes.
|  I die...
|  And yet, maybe, when earth lies heavily
|  Upon the time-o'ertoppled towers,
|  And tumbled walls, and broken gates of brass;
|  And the winds whisper one another:
|  "Where, Oh! where is Babylon?"
|  In the dim underworld of dreaming shades,
|  My soul shall seek out beauty
|  And look, once more,
|  Upon the unveiled vision...
|  And not die.

|  Night passes: and already in the court,
|  Amid the plash of fountains,
|  There sounds the pad of naked feet approaching.
|  With slow, deliberate pace,
|  As though they trod out all my perished years,
|  The Nubians come, to lead me out to death.
|  Slowly the great door opens;
|  And clearer comes the call of waters;
|  Cool airs are on my brow ...
|  Lo! ... in the East, the dawn.

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   LONDON: PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED.

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