The complete works of N.P. Willis

I.
Night in Arabia. An hour ago,
Pale Dian had descended from the sky,
Flinging her cestus out upon the sea,
And at their watches now the solemn stars
Stood vigilant and lone; and, dead asleep,
With not a shadow moving on its breast,
The breathing earth lay in its silver dew,
And, trembling on their myriad viewless wings,
Th' imprisoned odors left the flowers to dream,
And stole away upon the yielding air.
Ben Khorat's tower stands shadowy and tall
In Mecca's loneliest street; and ever there,
When night is at the deepest, burns his lamp
As constant as the Cynosure, and forth
From his looped window stretch the brazen tubes,
Pointing for ever at the central star
Of that dim nebula just lifting now
Over Mount Arafat. The sky to-night
Is of a clearer blackness than is wont,
And far within its depths the colored stars[2]
Sparkle like gems — capricious Antares[3]
Flushing and paling in the southern arch;
And azure Lyra, like a woman's eye,
Burning with soft blue lustre; and away
Over the desert the bright Polar-star,
White as a flashing icicle; and here,
Hung like a lamp above th' Arabian sea,
Mars with his dusky glow; and, fairer yet,
Mild Sirius,[4] tinct with dewy violet,
Set like a flower upon the breast of Eve;
And in the zenith the sweet Pleiades,[5]
(Alas — that ev'n a star may pass from heaven
And not be missed!) — the linked Pleiades
Undimned are there, though from the sister band
The fairest has gone down; and, south away,
Hirundo[6] with its little company;
And white-browed Vesta, lamping on her path
Lonely and planet-calm, and, all through heaven,
Articulate almost, they troop to-night,
Like unrobed angels in a prophet's trance.
Ben Khorat knelt before his telescope,[7]
Gazing with earnest stillness on the stars.
The gray hairs, struggling from his turban folds,
Played with the entering wind upon his cheeks,
And on his breast his venerable beard
With supernatural whiteness loosely fell.
The black flesh swelled about his sandal thongs,
Tight with his painful posture, and his lean
And withered fingers to his knees were clenched,
And the thin lashes of his straining eye
Lay with unwinking closeness to the lens,
Stiffened with tense up-turning. Hour by hour,
Till the stars melted in the flush of morn,
The old astrologer knelt moveless there,
Ravished past pain with the bewildering spheres,
And, hour by hour, with the same patient thought,
Pored his pale scholar on the characters
Of Chaldee writ, or, as his gaze grew dim
With weariness, the dark-eyed Arab laid
His head upon the window and looked forth
Upon the heavens awhile, until the dews
And the soft beauty of the silent night
Cooled his flushed eyelids, and then patiently
He turned unto his constant task again.
The sparry glinting of the Morning Star
Shot through the leaves of a majestic palm
Fringing Mount Arafat; and, as it caught
The eye of the rapt scholar, he arose
And clasped the volume with an eager haste,
And as the glorious planet mounted on,
Melting her way into the upper sky,
He breathlessly gazed on her: —
“Star of the silver ray!
Bright as a god, but punctual as a slave —
What spirit the eternal canon gave
That bends thee to thy way?
What is the soul that on thine arrowy light
Is walking earth and heaven in pride to-night?
“We know when thou wilt soar
Over the mount — thy change, and place, and time —
'Tis written in the Chaldee's mystic rhyme
As 'twere a priceless lore!
I knew as much in my Bedouin garb —
Coursing the desert on my flying barb!
“How oft amid the tents
Upon Sahara's sands I've walked alone,
Waiting all night for thee, resplendent one!
With what magnificence,
In the last watches, to my thirsting eye,
Thy passionate beauty flushed into the sky!
“Oh, God! how flew my soul
Out to thy glory — upward on thy ray —
Panting as thou ascendedst on thy way,
As if thine own control —
This searchless spirit that I can not find —
Had set its radiant law upon my mind!
“More than all stars in heaven
I felt thee in my heart! my love became
A phrensy, and consumed me with its flame.
Ay, in the desert even —
My dark-eyed Abra coursing at my side —
The star, not Abra, was my spirit's bride!

836

“My Abra is no more!
My `desert-bird' is in a stranger's stall —
My tribe, my tent — I sacrificed them all
For this heart-wasting lore! —
Yet, than all these, the thought is sweeter far —
Thou wert ascendant at my birth, bright star!
“The Chaldee calls me thine —
And in this breast, that I must rend to be
A spirit upon wings of light like thee,
I feel that thou art mine!
Oh, God! that these dull fetters would give way
And let me forth to track thy silver ray!”
* * * Ben Khorat rose
And silently looked forth upon the East.
The dawn was stealing up into the sky
On its gray feet, the stars grew dim apace,
And faded, till the Morning Star alone,
Soft as a molten diamond's liquid fire,
Burned in the heavens. The morn grew freshlier —
The upper clouds were faintly touched with gold;
The fan palms rustled in the early air;
Daylight spread cool and broadly to the hills;
And still the star was visible, and still
The young Bedouin with a straining eye
Drank its departing light into his soul.
It faded — melted — and the fiery rim
Of the clear sun came up, and painfully
The passionate scholar pressed upon his eyes
His dusky fingers, and with limbs as weak
As a sick child's, turned fainting to his couch,
And slept.
II.
* * It was the morning watch once more,
The clouds were drifting rapidly above,
And dim and fast the glimmering stars flew through;
And as the fitful gust soughed mournfully,
The shutters shook, and on the sloping roof
Plashed, heavily, large, single drops of rain —
And all was still again. Ben Khorat sat
By the dim lamp, and, while his scholar slept,
Pored on the Chaldee wisdom. At his feet,
Stretched on a pallet, lay the Arab boy,
Muttering fast in his unquiet sleep,
And working his dark fingers in his palms
Convulsively. His sallow lips were pale,
And, as they moved, his teeth showed ghastly through,
White as a charnel bone, and — closely drawn
Upon his sunken eyes, as if to press
Some frightful image from the bloodshot balls —
His lids a moment quivered, and again
Relaxed, half open, in a calmer sleep.
Ben Khorat gazed upon the dropping sands
Of the departing hour. The last white grain
Fell through, and with the tremulous hand of age
The old astrologer reversed the glass;
And, as the voiceless monitor went on,
Wasting and wasting with the precious hour,
He looked upon it with a moving lip,
And, starting, turned his gaze upon the heavens,
Cursing the clouds impatiently.
“'Tis time!”
Muttered the dying scholar, and he dashed
The tangled hair from his black eyes away,
And, seizing on Ben Khorat's mantle-folds,
He struggled to his feet, and falling prone
Upon the window-ledge, gazed steadfastly
Into the East: —
“There is a cloud between —
She sits this instant on the mountain's brow,
And that dusk veil hides all her glory now —
Yet floats she as serene
Into the heavens! — Oh, God! than even so
I could o'ermount my spirit cloud, and go!
“The cloud begins to drift!
Aha! Fling open! 'tis the star — the sky!
Touch me, immortal mother! and I fly!
Wider! thou cloudy rift!
Let through! — such glory should have radiant room!
Let through! — a star-child on its light goes home!
“Speak to me, brethren bright!
Ye who are floating in these living beams!
Ye who have come to me in starry dreams!
Ye who have winged the light
Of our bright mother with its thoughts of flame —
(I knew it passed through spirits as it came) —
“Tell me! what power have ye?
What are the heights ye reach upon your wings?
What know ye of the myriad wondrous things
I perish but to see?
Are ye thought-rapid? — Can ye fly as far —
As instant as a thought, from star to star?
“Where has the Pleiad gone?
Where have all missing stars[8] found light and home?
Who bids the Stella Mira[9] go and come?
Why sits the Pole-star lone?
And why, like banded sisters, through the air
Go in bright troops the constellations fair?
“Ben Khorat! dost thou mark?
The star! the star? By heaven! the cloud drifts o'er!
Gone — and I live! nay — will my heart beat more?
Look! master! 'tis all dark!
Not a clear speck in heaven? — my eye-balls smother!
Break through the clouds once more! oh, starry mother!
“I will lie down! Yet stay,
The rain beats out the odor from the gums,
And strangely soft to-night the spice-wind comes!
I am a child alway
When it is on my forehead! Abra sweet!
Would I were in the desert at thy feet!
“My barb! my glorious steed!
Methinks my soul would mount upon its track
More fleetly, could I die upon thy back!
How would thy thrilling speed
Quicken my pulse! — Oh, Allah! I get wild!
Would that I were once more a desert-child!
“Nay — nay — I had forgot!
My mother! my star mother! — Ha! my breath
Stifles! — more air! — Ben Khorat! this is — death!
Touch me! — I feel you not!
Dying! — Farewell! good master! — room! more room!
Abra! I loved thee! star — bright star! I — come!”
How idly of the human heart we speak,
Giving it gods of clay! How worse than vain
Is the school homily, that Eden's fruit
Can not be plucked too freely from “the tree
Of good and evil.” Wisdom sits alone,
Topmost in heaven; — she is its light — its God!
And in the heart of man she sits as high —
Though grovelling eyes forget her oftentimes,
Seeing but this world's idols. The pure mind
Sees her for ever: and in youth we come
Filled with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
Worshipping God through her sweet altar-fires,
And then is knowledge “good.” We come too oft —
The heart grows proud with fulness, and we soon
Look with licentious freedom on the maid
Throned in celestial beauty. There she sits,
Robed in her soft and scraph loveliness,
Instructing and forgiving, and we gaze
Until desire grows wild, and, with our hands
Upon her very garments, are struck down,
Blasted with a consuming fire from heaven!

837

Yet, oh! how full of music from her lips
Breathe the calm tones of wisdom! Human praise
Is sweet — till envy mars it, and the touch
Of new-won gold stirs up the pulses well;
And woman's love, if in a beggar's lamp
'Twould burn, might light us clearly through the world;
But Knowledge hath a far more 'wildering tongue,
And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries — till gold
Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love,
Light as the breath that breaks it. He who binds
His soul to knowledge steals the key of heaven —
But 'tis a bitter mockery that the fruit
May hang within his reach, and when, with thirst
Wrought to a maddening phrensy, he would taste —
It burns his lips to ashes!

[1]

A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty
years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a
scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for
knowledge, abandoned his wandering tribe, and, applying himself
too closely to astrology, lost his reason and died.

[2]

“Even to the naked eye, the stars appear of palpably different colors; but when viewed with a prismatic glass, they may be very accurately classed into the red, the yellow, the brilliant white, the dull white, and the anomalous. This is true also of the planets, which shine by reflected light; and of course the difference of color must be supposed to arise from their different powers to absorb and reflect the rays of the sun. The original composition of the stars, and the different dispersive powers of their different atmospheres, may be supposed to account also for this phenomenon.”

[3]

This star exhibits a peculiar quality — a rapid and beautiful change in the color of its light; every alternate twinkling being of an intense reddish crimson color, and the answering one of a brilliant white.

[4]

When seen with a prismatic glass, Sirius shows a large brush of exceedingly beautiful rays.

[5]

The Pleiades are vertical in Arabia.

[6]

An Arabic constellation placed instead of the Piscis Australls, because the swallow arrives in Arabia about the time of the hellacal rising of the Fishes.

[7]

An anachronism, the author is aware. The telescope was not invented for a century or two after the time of Ben Khorat.

[8]

“Missing stars” are often spoken of in the old books of astronomy. Hipparchus mentions one that appeared and vanished very suddenly: and in the beginning of the sixteenth century Kepler discovered a new star near the heel of the right foot of Serpentarius, “so bright and sparkling that it exceeded anything he had ever seen before.” He “took notice that it was every moment changing into some of the colors of the rainbow, except when it was near the horizon, when it was generally white.” It disappeared in the following year, and has not been seen since.

[9]

A wonderful star in the neck of the Whale, discovered by Fabricius in the fifteenth century. It appears and disappears seven times in six years, and continues in the greatest lustre for fifteen days together.

	THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN KHORAT.[1] [1]A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for knowledge, abandoned his wandering tribe, and, applying himself too closely to astrology, lost his reason and died. The complete works of N.P. Willis

University of Virginia Library

THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN KHORAT.[1]