The poems of Thomas Bailey Aldrich :: :: University of Virginia Library

CLOTH OF GOLD

PROEM

I

You ask us if by rule or no
Our many-colored songs are wrought:
Upon the cunning loom of thought
We weave our fancies, so and so.

II

The busy shuttle comes and goes
Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves
A tissue out of autumn leaves,
With here a thistle, there a rose.

III

With art and patience thus is made
The poet's perfect Cloth of Gold:
When woven so, nor moth nor mould
Nor time can make its colors fade.

AN ARAB WELCOME

Because thou com'st, a weary guest
Unto my tent, I bid thee rest.
This cruse of oil, this skin of wine,
These tamarinds and dates are thine;
And while thou eatest, Medjid, there,
Shall bathe the heated nostrils of thy mare.

Illah il' Allah! Even so
An Arab chieftain treats a foe,
Holds him as one without a fault
Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt;
And, in fair battle, strikes him dead
With the same pleasure that he gives him bread.

A TURKISH LEGEND

A certain Pasha, dead these thousand years,
Once from his harem fled in sudden tears,

And had this sentence on the city's gate
Deeply engraven, Only God is great.

So those four words above the city's noise
Hung like the accents of an angel's voice,

And evermore, from the high barbacan,
Saluted each returning caravan.

Lost is that city's glory. Every gust
Lifts, with dead leaves, the unknown Pasha's dust.

And all is ruin—save one wrinkled gate
Whereon is written, Only God is great.

THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS

Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land,
Remembered me with such a gracious hand,
And sent this Moorish Crescent which has been
Worn on the haughty bosom of a queen.
No more it sinks and rises in unrest
To the soft music of her heathen breast;
No barbarous chief shall bow before it more,
No turbaned slave shall envy and adore.

I place beside this relic of the Sun
A Cross of Cedar brought from Lebanon,
Once borne, perchance, by some pale monk who trod
The desert to Jerusalem and his God.
Here do they lie, two symbols of two creeds,

Each with deep meaning to our human needs,
Both stained with blood, and sacred made by faith,
By tears, and prayers, and martyrdom, and death.
That for the Moslem is, but this for me.
The waning Crescent lacks divinity:
It gives me dreams of battles, and the woes
Of women shut in dim seraglios.
But when this Cross of simple wood I see,
The Star of Bethlehem shines again for me,
And glorious visions break upon my gloom—
The patient Christ, and Mary at the Tomb.

THE UNFORGIVEN

Near my bed, there, hangs the picture jewels could not buy from me:
'T is a Siren, a brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery,
Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea.

In the east, the rose of morning seems as if 't would blossom soon,
But it never, never blossoms, in this picture; and the moon
Never ceases to be crescent, and the June is always June.

And the heavy-branched banana never yields its creamy fruit;
In the citron-trees are nightingales forever stricken mute;
And the Siren sits, her fingers on the pulses of the lute.

In the hushes of the midnight, when the heliotropes grow strong
With the dampness, I hear music—hear a quiet, plaintive song—
A most sad, melodious utterance, as of some immortal wrong;

Like the pleading, oft repeated, of a Soul that pleads in vain,
Of a damnèd Soul repentant, that would fain be pure again!—
And I lie awake and listen to the music of her pain.

And whence comes this mournful music?—whence, unless it chance to be
From the Siren, the brown Siren, in her sea-weed drapery,
Playing on a lute of amber, by the margin of a sea.

DRESSING THE BRIDE

A FRAGMENT

So, after bath, the slave-girls brought
The broidered raiment for her wear,
The misty izar from Mosul,
The pearls and opals for her hair,
The slippers for her supple feet,
(Two radiant crescent moons they were,)
And lavender, and spikenard sweet,
And attars, nedd, and richest musk.
When they had finished dressing her,
(The Eye of Dawn, the Heart's Desire!)
Like one pale star against the dusk,
A single diamond on her brow
Trembled with its imprisoned fire.

TWO SONGS FROM THE PERSIAN

I

O cease, sweet music, let us rest!
Too soon the hateful light is born;
Henceforth let day be counted night,
And midnight called the morn.

O cease, sweet music, let us rest!
A tearful, languid spirit lies,
Like the dim scent in violets,
In beauty's gentle eyes.

There is a sadness in sweet sound
That quickens tears. O music, lest
We weep with thy strange sorrow, cease!
Be still, and let us rest.

II

Ah! sad are they who know not love,
But, far from passion's tears and smiles,
Drift down a moonless sea, beyond
The silvery coasts of fairy isles.

And sadder they whose longing lips
Kiss empty air, and never touch
The dear warm mouth of those they love—
Waiting, wasting, suffering much.

But clear as amber, fine as musk,
Is life to those who, pilgrim-wise,
Move hand in hand from dawn to dusk,
Each morning nearer Paradise.

Oh, not for them shall angels pray!
They stand in everlasting light,

They walk in Allah's smile by day,
And slumber in his heart by night.

TIGER-LILIES

I like not lady-slippers,
Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms,
Nor yet the flaky roses,
Red, or white as snow;
I like the chaliced lilies,
The heavy Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow.

For they are tall and slender;
Their mouths are dashed with carmine;
And when the wind sweeps by them,
On their emerald stalks
They bend so proud and graceful—
They are Circassian women,
The favorites of the Sultan,
Adown our garden walks.

And when the rain is falling,
I sit beside the window
And watch them glow and glisten,
How they burn and glow!

Oh for the burning lilies,
The tender Eastern lilies,
The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow!

THE SULTANA

In the draperies' purple gloom,
In the gilded chamber she stands,
I catch a glimpse of her bosom's bloom,
And the white of her jewelled hands.

Each wandering wind that blows
By the lattice, seems to bear
From her parted lips the scent of the rose,
And the jasmine from her hair.

Her dark-browed odalisques lean
To the fountain's feathery rain,
And a paroquet, by the broidered screen,
Dangles its silvery chain.

But pallid, luminous, cold,
Like a phantom she fills the place,
Sick to the heart, in that cage of gold,
With her sumptuous disgrace.

THE WORLD'S WAY

At Haroun's court it chanced, upon a time,
An Arab poet made this pleasant rhyme:

“The new moon is a horseshoe, wrought of God,
Wherewith the Sultan's stallion shall be shod.”

On hearing this, the Sultan smiled, and gave
The man a gold-piece. Sing again, O slave!

Above his lute the happy singer bent,
And turned another gracious compliment.

And, as before, the smiling Sultan gave
The man a sekkah. Sing again, O slave!

Again the verse came, fluent as a rill
That wanders, silver-footed, down a hill.

The Sultan, listening, nodded as before,
Still gave the gold, and still demanded more.

The nimble fancy that had climbed so high
Grew weary with its climbing by and by:

Strange discords rose; the sense went quite amiss;
The singer's rhymes refused to meet and kiss:

Invention flagged, the lute had got unstrung,
And twice he sang the song already sung.

The Sultan, furious, called a mute, and said,
O Musta, straightway whip me off his head!

Poets! not in Arabia alone
You get beheaded when your skill is gone.

LATAKIA

I

When all the panes are hung with frost,
Wild wizard-work of silver lace,
I draw my sofa on the rug
Before the ancient chimney-place.
Upon the painted tiles are mosques
And minarets, and here and there
A blind muezzin lifts his hands
And calls the faithful unto prayer.
Folded in idle, twilight dreams,

I hear the hemlock chirp and sing
As if within its ruddy core
It held the happy heart of Spring.
Ferdousi never sang like that,
Nor Saadi grave, nor Hafiz gay:
I lounge, and blow white rings of smoke,
And watch them rise and float away.

II

The curling wreaths like turbans seem
Of silent slaves that come and go—
Or Viziers, packed with craft and crime,
Whom I behead from time to time,
With pipe-stem, at a single blow.

And now and then a lingering cloud
Takes gracious form at my desire,
And at my side my lady stands,
Unwinds her veil with snowy hands—
A shadowy shape, a breath of fire!

O Love, if you were only here
Beside me in this mellow light,
Though all the bitter winds should blow,
And all the ways be choked with snow,
'T would be a true Arabian night!

WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN

When the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan,
Even before he gets so far
As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
At the last of the thirty palace-gates,
The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
Orders a feast in his favorite room—
Glittering squares of colored ice,
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 spicèd 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
Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,
Making a sudden mist in air
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.

A PRELUDE

Hassan ben Abdul at the Ivory Gate
Of Bagdad sat and chattered in the sun,
Like any magpie chattered to himself
And four lank, swarthy Arab boys that stopped
A gambling game with peach-pits, and drew near.
Then Iman Khan, the friend of thirsty souls,
The seller of pure water, ceased his cry,
And placed his water-skins against the gate—
They looked so like him, with their sallow cheeks
Puffed out like Iman's. Then a eunuch came
And swung a pack of sweetmeats from his head,
And stood—a hideous pagan cut in jet.
And then a Jew, whose sandal-straps were red
With desert-dust, limped, cringing, to the crowd;
He, too, would listen; and close after him
A jeweller that glittered like his shop.
Then two blind mendicants, who wished to go
Six diverse ways at once, came stumbling by,
But hearing Hassan chatter, sat them down.
And if the Khalif had been riding near,
He would have paused to listen like the rest,
For Hassan's fame was ripe in all the East.
From white-walled Cairo to far Ispahan,
From Mecca to Damascus, he was known,
Hassan, the Arab with the Singing Heart.

His songs were sung by boatmen on the Nile,
By Beddowee maidens, and in Tartar camps,
While all men loved him as they loved their eyes;
And when he spake, the wisest, next to him,
Was he who listened. And thus Hassan sung.
—And I, a stranger lingering in Bagdad,
Half English and half Arab, by my beard!
Caught at the gilded epic as it grew,
And for my Christian brothers wrote it down.

TO HAFIZ

Though gifts like thine the fates gave not to me,
One thing, O Hafiz, we both hold in fee—
Nay, it holds us; for when the June wind blows
We both are slaves and lovers to the rose.
In vain the pale Circassian lily shows
Her face at her green lattice, and in vain
The violet beckons, with unveilèd face—
The bosom's white, the lip's light purple stain,
These touch our liking, yet no passion stir.
But when the rose comes, Hafiz—in that place
Where she stands smiling, we kneel down to her!

AT NIJNII-NOVGOROD

“A crafty Persian set this stone;
A dusk Sultana wore it;
And from her slender finger, sir,
A ruthless Arab tore it.

“A ruby, like a drop of blood—
That deep-in tint that lingers
And seems to melt, perchance was caught
From those poor mangled fingers!

“A spendthrift got it from the knave,
And tossed it, like a blossom,
That night into a dancing-girl's
Accurst and balmy bosom.

“And so it went. One day a Jew
At Cairo chanced to spy it
Amid a one-eyed peddler's pack,
And did not care to buy it—

“Yet bought it all the same. You see,
The Jew he knew a jewel.
He bought it cheap to sell it dear:
The ways of trade are cruel.

“But I—be Allah's all the praise!—
Such avarice, I scoff it!
If I buy cheap, why, I sell cheap,
Content with modest profit.

“This ring—such chasing! look, milord,
What workmanship! By Heaven,
The price I name you makes the thing
As if the thing were given!

“A stone without a flaw! A queen
Might not disdain to wear it.
Three hundred roubles buys the stone;
No kopeck less, I swear it!”

Thus Hassan, holding up the ring
To me, no eager buyer.—
A hundred roubles was not much
To pay so sweet a liar!

THE LAMENT OF EL MOULOK

Within the sacred precincts of the mosque,
Even on the very steps of St. Sophia,
He lifted up his voice and spoke these words,
El Moulok, who sang naught but love-songs once
And now was crazed because his son was dead:

O ye who leave
Your slippers at the portal, as is meet,
Give heed an instant ere ye bow in prayer.

Ages ago,
Allah, grown weary of His myriad worlds,
Would one star more to hang against the blue.

Then of men's bones,
Millions on millions, did He build the earth;

Of women's tears,
Down falling through the night, He made the sea;

Of sighs and sobs
He made the winds that surge about the globe.

Where'er ye tread,
Ye tread on dust that once was living man.

The mist and rain
Are tears that first from human eyelids fell.

The unseen winds
Breathe endless lamentation for the dead.

Not so the ancient tablets told the tale,
Not so the Koran! This was blasphemy,

And they that heard El Moulok dragged him thence,
Even from the very steps of St. Sophia,
And loaded him with triple chains of steel,
And cast him in a dungeon.

None the less
Do women's tears fall ceaseless day and night,
And none the less do mortals faint and die
And turn to dust; and every wind that blows
About the globe seems heavy with the grief
Of those who sorrow, or have sorrowed, here.
Yet none the less is Allah the Most High,
The Clement, the Compassionate. He sees
Where we are blind, and hallowed be His Name!

NOURMADEE

THE POET MIRTZY MOHAMMED-ALI TO HIS FRIEND ABOU-HASSEM IN ALGEZIRAS

O Hassem, greeting! Peace be thine!
With thee and thine be all things well!
Give refuge to these words of mine.
The strange mischance which late befell
Thy servant must have reached thine ear;
Rumor has flung it far and wide,
With dark additions, as I hear.

When They-Say speaks, what ills betide!
So lend no credence, O my Friend,
To scandals, fattening as they fly.
Love signs and seals the roll I send:
Read thou the truth with lenient eye.

In Yússuf's garden at Tangier
This happened. In his cool kiosk
We sat partaking of his cheer—
Thou know'st that garden by the Mosque
Of Irma; stately palms are there,
And silver fish in marble tanks,
And scents of jasmine in the air—
We sat and feasted, with due thanks
To Allah, till the pipes were brought;
And no one spoke, for Pleasure laid
Her finger on the lips of Thought.
Then, on a sudden, came a maid,
With tambourine, to dance for us—
Allah il' Allah! it was she,
The slave-girl from the Bosphorus
That Yússuf purchased recently.

Long narrow eyes, as black as black!
And melting, like the stars in June;
Tresses of night drawn smoothly back
From eyebrows like the crescent moon.
She paused an instant with bowed head,

Then, at a motion of her wrist,
A veil of gossamer outspread
And wrapped her in a silver mist.
Her tunic was of Tiflis green
Shot through with many a starry speck;
The zone that clasped it might have been
A collar for a cygnet's neck.
None of the thirty charms she lacked
Demanded for perfection's grace;
Charm upon charm in her was packed
Like rose leaves in a costly vase.
Full in the lanterns' colored light
She seemed a thing of Paradise.
I knew not if I saw aright,
Or if my vision told me lies.
Those lanterns spread a cheating glare;
Such stains they threw from bough and vine
As if the slave-boys, here and there,
Had spilled a jar of brilliant wine.
And then the fountain's drowsy fall,
The burning aloes' heavy scent,
The night, the place, the hour—they all
Were full of subtle blandishment.

Much had I heard of Nourmadee—
The name of this fair slenderness—
Whom Yússuf kept with lock and key
Because her beauty wrought distress
In all men's hearts that gazed on it;

And much I marvelled why, this night,
Yússuf should have the little wit
To lift her veil for our delight.
For though the other guests were old—
Grave, worthy merchants, three from Fez
(These mostly dealt in dyes and gold),
Cloth merchants two, from Mekïnez—
Though they were old and gray and dry,
Forgetful of their youth's desires,
My case was different, for I
Still knew the touch of springtime fires.
And straightway as I looked on her
I bit my lip, grew ill at ease,
And in my veins was that strange stir
Which clothes with bloom the almond-trees.

O shape of blended fire and snow!
Each clime to her some spell had lent—
The North her cold, the South her glow,
Her languors all the Orient.
Her scarf was as the cloudy fleece
The moon draws round its loveliness,
That so its beauty may increase
The more in being seen the less.
And as she moved, and seemed to float—
So floats a swan!—in sweet unrest,
A string of sequins at her throat
Went clink and clink against her breast.
And what did some birth-fairy do

But set a mole, a golden dot,
Close to her lip—to pierce men through!
How could I look and love her not?

Yet heavy was my heart as stone,
For well I knew that love was vain;
To love the thing one may not own!—
I saw how all my peace was slain.
Coffers of ingots Yússuf had,
Houses on land, and ships at sea,
And I—alas! was I gone mad,
To cast my eyes on Nourmadee!
I strove to thrust her from my mind,
I bent my brows, and turned away,
And wished that Fate had struck me blind
Ere I had come to know that day.
I fixed my thoughts on this and that;
Assessed the worth of Yússuf's ring;
Counted the colors in the mat—
And then a bird began to sing,
A bulbul hidden in a bough.
From time to time it loosed a strain
Of moonlit magic that, somehow,
Brought solace to my troubled brain.

But when the girl once, creeping close,
Half stooped, and looked me in the face,
My reason fled, and I arose
And cried to Yússuf, from my place:

“O Yússuf, give to me this girl!
You are so rich and I so poor!
You would not miss one little pearl
Like that from out your countless store!”
“‘This girl’? What girl? No girl is here!”
Cried Yússuf with his eyes agleam;
“Now, by the Prophet, it is clear
Our friend has had a pleasant dream!”
(And then it seems that I awoke,
And stared around, no little dazed
At finding naught of what I spoke:
Each guest sat silent and amazed.)

Then Yússuf—of all mortal men
This Yússuf has a mocking tongue!—
Stood at my side, and spoke again:
“O Mirtzy, I too once was young.
With mandolin or dulcimer
I've waited many a midnight through,
Content to catch one glimpse of Her,
And have my turban drenched with dew.
By Her I mean some slim Malay,
Some Andalusian with her fan
(For I have travelled in my day),
Or some swart beauty of Soudán.
No Barmecide was I to fare
On fancy's shadowy wine and meat;
No phantom moulded out of air
Had spells to lure me to her feet.

O Mirtzy, be it understood
I blame you not. Your sin is slight!—
You fled the world of flesh and blood,
And loved a vision of the night!
Sweeter than musk such visions be
As come to poets when they sleep!
You dreamed you saw fair Nourmadee?
Go to! it is a pearl I keep!”

By Allah, but his touch was true!
And I was humbled to the dust
That I in those grave merchants' view
Should seem a thing no man might trust.
For he of creeping things is least
Who, while he breaks of friendship's bread,
Betrays the giver of the feast.
“Good friends, I'm not that man!” I said.
“O Yússuf, shut not Pardon's gate!
The words I spake I no wise meant.
Who holds the threads of Time and Fate
Sends dreams. I dreamt the dream he sent.
I am as one that from a trance
Awakes confused, and reasons ill;
The world of men invites his glance,
The world of shadows claims him still.
I see those lights among the leaves,
Yourselves I see, sedate and wise,
And yet some finer sense perceives
A presence that eludes the eyes.

Of what is gone there seems to stay
Some subtlety, to mock my pains:
So, when a rose is borne away,
The fragrance of the rose remains!”
Then Yússuf laughed, Abdallah leered,
And Melik coughed behind his hand,
And lean Ben-Auda stroked his beard
As who should say, “We understand!”
And though the fault was none of mine,
As I explained and made appear,
Since then I've not been asked to dine
In Yússuf's garden at Tangier.

Farewell, O Hassem! Peace be thine!
With thee and thine be always Peace!
To virtue let thy steps incline,
And may thy shadow not decrease!
Get wealth—wealth makes the dullard's jest
Seem witty where true wit falls flat;
Do good, for goodness still is best—
But then the Koran tells thee that.
Know Patience here, and later Bliss;
Grow wise, trust woman, doubt not man;
And when thou dinest out—mark this—
Beware of wines from Ispahan!