Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;

And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
Of spiced meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;
Scattered over mosaic floors

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows,
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand
The dancing-girls of Samarcand
Making a sudden mist in air
Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,

Of fleecy veils and floating hair

And white arms lifted. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,
Flaming, flickering on the night
From my neighbor's casement opposite,
I know as well as I know to pray,
I know as well as a tongue can say,
That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman
Has gone to the city Ispahan.

PALABRAS CARIÑOSAS

GOOD-NIGHT! I have to say good-night
To such a host of peerless things!
Good-night unto the slender hand
All queenly with its weight of rings;
Good-night to fond, uplifted eyes,
Good-night to chestnut braids of hair,
Good-night unto the perfect mouth,
And all the sweetness nestled there

The snowy hand detains me, then
I'll have to say Good-night again !

But there will come a time, my love,
When, if I read our stars aright,
I shall not linger by this porch

With my farewells. Till then, good-night!
You wish the time were now ? And I.
You do not blush to wish it so ?
You would have blushed yourself to death
To own so much a year ago
What, both these snowy hands! ah, then
I'll have to say Good-night again !

HEREDITY

away

Into the darkness, poets of a day; But thou, O builder of enduring rhyme, Thou shalt not pass! Thy fame in every clime

On earth shall live where Saxon speech has sway.

Waft me this verse across the winter sea, Through light and dark, through mist and blinding sleet,

O winter winds, and lay it at his feet; Though the poor gift betray my poverty, At his feet lay it: it may chance that he

Will find no gift, where reverence is, unmeet.

A SHADOW OF THE NIGHT CLOSE on the edge of a midsummer dawn In troubled dreams I went from land to

land,

Each seven-colored like the rainbow's arc,

At last I came to this our cloud-hung earth, And somewhere by the seashore was a grave,

A woman's grave, new-made, and heaped with flowers;

And near it stood an ancient holy man That fain would comfort me, who sorrowed not

For this unknown dead woman at my feet. But I, because his sacred office held

My reverence, listened; and 't was thus he spake:

"When next thou comest thou shalt find her still

In all the rare perfection that she was.
Thou shalt have gentle greeting of thy love!
Her eyelids will have turned to violets,
Her bosom to white lilies, and her breath
To roses. What is lovely never dies,
But passes into other loveliness,
Star-dust, or sea-foam, flower, or winged
air.

If this befalls our poor unworthy flesh,
Think thee what destiny awaits the soul !
What glorious vesture it shall wear at
last!"

While yet he spoke, seashore and grave and priest

Vanished, and faintly from a neighboring spire

Fell five slow solemn strokes upon my ear. Then I awoke with a keen pain at heart, A sense of swift unutterable loss,

And through the darkness reached my hand

to touch

Will come, and marvel why thou wastest time;

Others, beholding how thy turrets climb "Twixt theirs and heaven, will hate thee all thy days;

But most beware of those who come to praise.

O Wondersmith, O worker in sublime And heaven-sent dreams, let art be all in all;

Build as thou wilt, unspoiled by praise or blame,

Build as thou wilt, and as thy light is given: Then, if at last the airy structure fall, Dissolve, and vanish take thyself no

shame.

They fail, and they alone, who have not striven.

REMINISCENCE

THOUGH I am native to this frozen zone That half the twelvemonth torpid lies, or dead;

Though the cold azure arching overhead
And the Atlantic's never-ending moan
Are mine by heritage, I must have known
Life otherwhere in epochs long since fled;
For in my veins some Orient blood is red,
And through my thought are lotus blossoms

blown.

I do remember . . . it was just at dusk,
Near a walled garden at the river's turn
(A thousand summers seem but yesterday!),
À Nubian girl, more sweet than Khoorja
musk,

Came to the water-tank to fill her urn,
And, with the urn, she bore my heart away!

OUTWARD BOUND

I LEAVE behind me the elm-shadowed