University of Virginia Library

AFRICA.
Noureddin
(seated at his table buried in thought. He lets the stylus drop from his hand into the box of sand, and sinks back exhausted).
Ha, Fate, why art thou hostile to me still?
My hand is weary with long toil; my eye
Is dim with staring into vacancy.
Where'er I draw my lines, all, all is blank,
And bare and barren as Saharah's sand.
To the mountain still they point near Ispahan:
There do they seek the lamp's small eye of flame.
But woe is me! all bootless is the search!
Without the lamp I stumble in the dark;
For what I seek is with the magic lamp
Link'd closely, wholly,—yea, inseparably.
This much, alas! I see,—too well, too well!
Oh execrable fate! Accursèd boy,
Long, long ere now thy wretched frame is dust,
And thy bleach'd bones lie freezing in the brook.
And can it really be, that mortal hands
Shall never more obtain the wondrous lamp?
Is there no measure, none, I still may try?
Or have I tried them all? Full well I know,
Open the cave again I never can,
And all that has relation to this cave—
As, for example, what befel the boy—
Is shrouded from mine eyes, that see all else.
It is not true. Thou liest, Noureddin! What
Prevents thee seeing further? Ha, 'tis this!
I would not even confess it to myself.
I shrank till now with shuddering from the sight;
For all too well I knew what I should see,—
The loathsome, livid body, half decay'd.
Now that is past! A whited skeleton,
What's horrible in that, or grim to view?
Down, weakness, down! Courage! I'll probe again.
That glorious cave, the seat of every joy,
Shall be no more to me a den of woe.
[He puncturates, and drops the stylus from his hand in affright.
Oh, Heavens! Allah! Mecca and Medina!
Happy! A prince! And on the eve of wedding
The Sultan's daughter! Master of the lamp!
Saved by the ring, which I—I, like a fool,
Placed on his finger! Fury, Death and Hell!
What devil robb'd me of my memory,
That I could thus so totally forget
My magic ring? Ha, malapert! and thou
Art reaping now the fruits of all my toil?
Plundering the tree I planted? I must know,
How all has come about,—I must, and shall.
Straight will I call the Water Spirit here,
The only spirit, from which my present powers
Can now constrain obedience to my will. (Makes signs.)

Thou Spirit of the Stream, appear, appear!
Answer thy master all that he demands.

The Water Spirit
(appears).
What would'st thou with me? Ho!
Be brief, and let me go!
I cannot keep my shape
For long, but must escape
On every side, and flow,
Now trickling fine and slow,
Now tumbling white in foam,
Where'er my fancies roam;
And ever must I range
In sunshine and in storm,
And pass from change to change,
And shift from form to form.

Noureddin.
Thou art a feeble spirit, but still a spirit;
And, as the denizen of yonder world,
Know'st more than he, whose summons brought thee here.
Say, then, who 'twas that drugg'd my memory?
How hath it chanced that I forgot my ring,
And by what spell have I been cheated thus?

Spirit.
The little golden snake,
That wears a diadem
Of precious stone and gem,
Blood-red and emerald bright,
And diamantine light;
The little golden snake
Doth at the water quake;
She is no water snake.

Noureddin.
She is no water snake?

Spirit.
It is for her too chill,
Where dreary billows scream;
She shuns the sphere of dream,
She loves the palpable.

Noureddin.
She loves the palpable?

Spirit.
Her home is fixed and still.
The vague desires, that rise
Before the schemer's eyes,
Are banished thence alway;
She bows to nature's sway.

Noureddin.
She bows to nature's sway?

Spirit.
In meads she loves to stray,
Where nobly fashion'd flowers
Bloom on through endless hours;
Where fresh buds still unfold,
And time is never old;
She bows to nature's sway.

Noureddin.
Own I not nature's sway?

Spirit.
Thou art to dreams a prey!
Her bounds they will not 'bide,
They reel from side to side;
Mere foam-flakes are they, chased
O'er ocean's formless waste.
The little golden snake
Doth at the water quake,
It is for her too chill;
She is no water snake,
She loves the palpable.

Noureddin.
Am I not palpable?

Spirit.
Thine is a rebel's will
Against creation's course!
Thou dost essay by force
Its limits to o'erleap,
And far beyond to sweep.
Thou dost not own the ring,
That girdles everything.
The little golden snake
Is nothing but the ring.

Noureddin.
At that I do not quake.
Success shall soon be mine;
Soon shall I find the lamp,
And brightly shall it shine.

Spirit.
It bears a life divine;
It burns not in the damp.

Noureddin.
And when I've won the lamp,
Mine too shall be the ring.

Spirit.
The ring shall hold the lamp,
But not the lamp the ring.

Noureddin.
My wish I'll soon command.

Spirit.
Yet both go hand in hand.
The lamp burns near the ring;
The ring shines near the lamp.

Noureddin.
To flout me is thy care;
And dark distrust to shed.

Spirit.
The temple's dome in air
Must meekly lift its head;
That on the altar fair,
The pure flame may be fed.

Noureddin.
Untruly hast thou spoken,
Thou silly vap'rous thing!

Spirit.
Thyself the ring hast broken;
Thou ne'er shalt find the ring.

Noureddin.
Ha! Babbling idly yet!

Spirit.
Thou wilt again forget!

[Vanishes.
Noureddin.
A philosophic spirit! Grant me patience!
The stupidest of dolts that lives on earth
Will mix you physics up with metaphysics,
Proprieties and ethics. What the plague,
Have ethics and proprieties to do
With magic? Pshaw! A moral necromancer!
The art, for which our ancestors subscribed
Allegiance to the fiend with their own blood,
Is to be practised now on moral rules?
Zounds! every day the world grows worse and worse.
I never could have fancied any spirit
Was such a fool, even though he were mere water.

Enter Hindbad.
Hindbad.
How, brother! what does all this fury mean?
You used to pore at night within your room,
As still as owls by daylight, where the wood
Is thickest. What has roused your anger thus?

Noureddin.
To-morrow I set out for Ispahan.
For know, my brother, that the wondrous lamp
Is in the power of that audacious boy,
Who, I believed, was dead.

Hindbad.
Good Heavens! The lamp?

Noureddin.
Thou art my brother; unto me thou owest
Whatever thou hast learned; more hadst thou learned,
Had zeal kept pace with thy ability.
To-morrow I set out, and hope the best;
But destiny is cross, and full of guile.
Then swear to me, and by the Prophet's tomb,
Thou wilt avenge me, like a faithful brother,
If I should fall a victim to my foe.

Hindbad.
I swear to thee as brother and as friend,
If thou shalt fall, no thirsty tongue did e'er
Long more for water in the wilderness,
Than Hindbad's dagger for thy murderer's blood.

Noureddin.
'Tis well! Then take this talisman. Thou see'st,
That now 'tis black; if it shall turn blood red,
It is a token of thy brother's death?

[Exit.
Hindbad.
And is the lamp, then, really on the earth,
And no mere figment of a beldame's tale?
Is this not one of your old lies, Noureddin,
To titillate your shallow vanity?
So, then, your crucibles, your fumes, and stenches,
Have borne some fruit at last! In sober sooth,
I fain would be the lord of such a lamp!
Nought could be handier to one, who loves,
Like me, to link his pleasures with his ease.
Then as I sat o' nights, and wished some girl
Within my arms, who had my fancy hit,
I rub my lamp—and there she lies like Eve,
And I, like Adam, straight in Paradise.
Then when I want to eat, no need have I
To plague myself about a stupid cook:
I send my spirits off to help themselves
To the choice viands of a Sultan's table,
Eat to my fill, and have the jest, besides,
Of thinking how his majesty is starving.
Water shall no man mingle in my wine.
I shall have every cellarer who does
Strangled at once; for to mix wine with water
Is a high crime, which merits instant death.
Such rascals as I relish not I'll have
Hang'd by my spirits on a gallows. Jests
In bushels shall my darling lamp supply!
To be a Sultan were an easy thing;
But I will not be one; I'd rather reign
Incognito, and at my own caprice.
All things which men call duties I detest!
It is not wickedness;—no, by my soul!
'Tis only love of ease, and that I take
Restraint upon my inclinations ill;
And that the world is a mad world, and he
The greatest madman who would govern it;
And he, that is the sagest, angles on
In troubled waters, till he bites the hook
Of death himself at last. This, in few words,
Is my religion and philosophy.
Well, go, Noureddin, I can scarcely blame you,
For seeking to dispose of that same boy.
I will direct my course by your example,
And in due season, on the self-same grounds,
Essay the same experiment with you.
For such a lamp is worth a little stroke
Of private murder, even between brothers.

[Exit.