 | Fantasy and Passion |  |
85
PEST.
I came at midnight to the city's great
Last gate.
Last gate.
Below me gleamed its shadowy stately maze
Of ways;
Of ways;
Domes, minarets, obelisks, firm- reared to dare
Mid-air;
Mid-air;
Masses of blended roofs in shadow deep
As sleep;
As sleep;
And woven among its thousand streets and sites,
Dim lights.
Dim lights.
But now, as I bore onward to that great
Last gate,
Last gate,
A dark shape stole toward me, glided fast
And past.
And past.
With wonderment I turned, not trusting quite
My sight,
My sight,
When lo! the shape beneath me on the hill
Stood still,
Stood still,
And even as I had turned, so turned apace
Its face.
Its face.
Wherewith the moon, from out a cloudy lair,
Broke fair,
Broke fair,
86
And showed me, lit with large eyes burning dull,
A skull!
A skull!
Days after, this news reached me in the West:
“The pest
“The pest
“Sweeps Ispahan with its embittered breath
Of death!
Of death!
“Within the temples prayers and maddened cries
Arise;
Arise;
“And by her heaps, forever newly fed,
Of dead,
Of dead,
“Our city moans for Allah to disperse
The curse.”
The curse.”
| Fantasy and Passion | |