University of Virginia Library

Near a wide Asian desert, ruled of old
King Thalmak, monarch of a Median race.
Foes oft had gloomed his realm with ire and threat,
Though past a decade peace had reigned therein,
Bought at the gory price of countless lives.
For Thalmak towered a warrior vast of shape,
With breasts where sinews bulged like knotted ropes
And wrists whose veins were large as common thews.
Down o'er his fierce brows poured the tangled curls;
His hands were hammer and broadsword both in one;
He had slain a hundred men in equal fight;
To meet his eyes when wrathful was to see
Globed lightning—and to die of it, perchance.
Yet many a mood of clemency was his;
The people he swayed were loyalty's firm self,
Knowing him just in council, shrewd in pacts,
And roughly leal to those he roughly loved.

One son had Thalmak, now at manhood's verge,
Named Tharak, stately of shape as any palm
Whose green crest peers to see the Caspian flash
Beyond lone stretches of Cadusian slopes.
Yet though in brawn and stature sire and boy
Were like as are two bosks of terebinth
Pluming high Zagros, yet the younger lacked
All hint of savagery in face and mien.
So mild he loomed, with blue deep thoughtful gaze
And lips the ceaseless ambush of a smile,
That many a watcher mused concerning him—
“It is no wonder they so oft have said
His mother was the daughter of a star.”

For so the tale in earlier years had run...
King Thalmak, while his throne was girt with hates,
Passed home, one twilight, through a land of hills,
Victorious after terrible clash of spears
With his own brother's host, the desperate hordes
Of Parmys. Tired, he paused to pitch his tents
Beside a stream that brawled through tamarisks.
The army on shield and sword slept all night long,
And Thalmak, after parley among his peers,
Flung himself in full harness on a couch
The slaves had fashioned from stray wools and silks.
But when with reverences they passed from him
And every noise except the hurrying stream
Was hushed, King Thalmak, it is chronicled,
Rose, tingling from a dream of that dread sort
Which jars the nerves of soldiers after fray,
Ere yet the first light sleep hath merged itself
Into such opiate blank as mends fatigue.
“Oh, peace,” he murmured, “I that oft craved war,
Desire thee now! I am sick at last of fight!
Visit me, peace, Amaiti, by the will
Of thy great lord and mine, the worshipful
Ahuramazda!” Therewith, speaking so,
He cleft the curtains of his tent and moved
Out where in opulence of pallor swarmed
The brooding stars. His army in apathy
Lay prone like swaths of new-shorn wheat; the winds
Had shod themselves with sandals echoless
And to mysterious whispers tuned their throats.
“O peace,” again he murmured, “visit me!”
Then suddenly, as though in sweet response
The oracular night had heard and heeded him,
He looked upon a woman, white of robe,
With eyes where chastity and passion met,
And brow so pure and so self-luminous
It seemed to make a moonlight of her face.

When on the morrow in triumph he drew near
His capital, between the palace-gates
A veiled shape entered swiftly at his side.
But none had seen his new mysterious mate
Save in this fleet phantasmal way; for weeks
The court with gossip and conjecture burned.
Who was the stranger? Whence her race and name?
How had she fallen upon the King? Where now
Did she stay hid among the multiplex
Chambers of his close-barred seraglios?...
Meanwhile the King himself was taciturn
As his own trusted mutes, yet from his mien
A secret joy would flash its mellow ray
And many a phrase or gesture now was clad
With clemency where likelier in the past
Had been curt dealing. So a year wore out
And all this while 'twas rumored that aloof,
In rooms one tiger-lily of luxury,
Bode the pent lady, and that a subtle fear
Clouded the King's deep love, lest possibly
Those delicate symmetries that lured him so
Might fade as fades a fern at hint of frost;
Since not with waste of malady she drooped,
And yet the change to slenderer, airier,
Kept ever growing. And when that year had fled,
Still was it rumored that her shape at last
Glimmered as immaterial as a ghost's,
Though gifted with such charm of willowy curves
A man would die to clasp it, while her eyes
Held all fate's gloom below each ivory lid,
Yet with warm Orient langours ever brimmed.
And Thalmak, seeing her piteously wane,
Trembled with anguish, for he guessed or knew
That she was born of that bright sisterhood
Called Children of the Stars, who had come down
To earth among the Scythians, wedding them,
Being spirits made like women out of light.
And one day in his passionate clasp, 'twas told,
Her frame to vaporous nullity dissolved,
Even as the pangs of childbirth racked her sore;
And while intangibly a wreath of haze,
Globed with two dark similitudes of eyes,
Floated above the unhappy King, he heard
That frighted wail which leaves a new-born child.

For hours he longed in frenzy that the child
Might die, nor looked upon it, loathing it.
Then, as he lay and thrashed his couch of skins,
Or ploughed his riotous locks with rugged hand
While quivering mouth and nostril dumbly said:
“Would Heaven this grief, so gruesome in its qualms,
Were some live enemy I might front and kill,”
A trusted eunuch dared to bring the child
And kneel before him, holding it aloft.
“See, O my King,” the eunuch still dared urge,
“How beauteous is the babe thy lost love bore!”

Then Thalmak, rising, sprang to seize his sword;
And would have slain the eunuch, but that here
A glance involuntary acquainted him
How beauteous was indeed the sleeping babe.
He paused, and from his clenched hand fell the blade
As falls a sapling by the abusive east
Flung prone; his great frame tremulous, he bent
And touched with awe the rose-tinge infantile
Of the small slumberer's cheek; impetuous tears
Gushed from his warrior gaze that had not flinched
When flying javelins wove their giddy nets
Below the steadfast sun, and zigzag fight
Bannered with shameless crimson the meek sward.

Not many days thereafter stood the King
Conspicuous on his palace porch, while throngs
Massed eagerly below him. From his crown
Ten flawless emeralds out of Petra blazed.
Near by, an Ethiop slave, on fire with gems,
Lifted the young child, Tharak, in a robe
Of silvery tissues like spun beams of stars.
Then the King took the child betwixt his hands
And showed it to the people, saying “I name
This boy mine heir, to reign when I am dust.
No other child begot of me shall reign
While he or any of his own line lives on.
This I decree, and by Ardibehest,
The spirit of truth, and Indra, god of war,
Charge ye to reverence him as future king.”

Then all vowed fealty to young Tharak, save
A few that fled the realm and hid themselves,
Headed by Parmys, the King's brother, where
Great cliffs and delving gorges clogged the North.
For Parmys, pierced by envy and discontent,
Cried that this Tharak was in bastardy
Engendered, and that if no lawful heir
Issued from Thalmak's loins, himself must reign
When death made void the throne. He subtly saw
That Thalmak looked upon no woman now,
And therefore counted that this treasured boy
Should bide the single barrier, as years lapsed,
Between his own ambitions and the hope
Of suzerainty. Right he had counted: still,
The King, grown furious at his flight and spleen,
Arrayed against him droves of venturous troops
That pushed him from his fastnesses and faced
The auxiliaries he had lured or bought,
Shattering and scattering them by myriads.
But Parmys, like a stag in those wild steeps,
Hurried with safety from his wiliest foes
And gained a Scythian kinsman, a rude lord
Who hated Thalmak for some petty grudge,
As mean souls hate their betters. There these twain
Crouched vigilant of their chance, while more years rolled,
And Thalmak lived at peace with all the world.

Yet spite of tranquil times throughout his realm,
The King knew Parmys of that serpent sort
Which wraps malignancy in sloth and stealth.
He felt his own strength fail him; sly disease
Crept through his veins with morbid indolence,
Warning yet weakening; his court-doctors tried
In vain their drugs and simples, used in vain
Their spells of alchemy and exorcism.
He wasted as an oak whose day has waned,
Still with live gloss of greenery burgeoning,
Yet now no more that bounteous dome of shade
Where once hath loitered many a lyric breeze.

“Mine hour draws nigh,” he thought, “and when it falls
I would my kingdom were to hardier hands
Entrusted. Not that Tharak is below
Myself in valor and fortitude, for none
More martially than he doth sit his steed,
And none joys more at perils of the chase
While boar-tusks plunge, or tiger-mouths gape death.
And yet my Tharak hath not mettle in him
That makes a ruler. Ever beats his heart
The enemy of his judgment. For a twinge
Of pity, a throe of transient sympathy,
Quick would he toss his regal state aside
And with inferiors droop to comradeship.
Last month by some lorn tale a mere street-waif
So moved him that he plied the oaf with boons
And housed him like a satrap. One week since,
He begged me spare a murderess, black with crime,
Because she had slain her sleeping paramour
In a mad fit of jealousy, and had leaned
Her lips to his while death was fluttering them,
And twined his hair with roses! .. Pah! the boy
Should learn that justice hath a dignity
Even kings must worship, and no crown will stick
So tight on even the most imperial head
But if its wearer bow himself too low
There be not risk the greedy dust will rise
To claim it! .. But how teach him these wise ways
Of rulership? He is all complaisance, all
Deference and filial fondness—yet, ah me!
Better he burned with rebel insolence
Than let stray freaks of ruth so snare his mood!”

But while this very day the king thus mused,
A noble of rank and privilege drew nigh
And gave him tidings of the Prince, that shocked
For sheer disrelish. Tharak and his train
Were hunting, five days gone, on that bleak land
Which verged the desert's treeless monotone,
When full in view a lion of splendid front
Broke from beyond a towering cone of sand.
The spear of every horseman poised its point,
But moveless in recumbent majesty
Staid the grand beast, nor proffered hint of flight.
Then someone said “He is sick; his eyes are filmed,”
And soon another, “Oh, look, his paws are gashed
As if by conflict with a brother-brute!”
“Slay him at once!” a third cried, “or perchance
He may leap furious from his lassitude!”

But there the Prince, with gesture of command,
Silenced all parley, and in a moment more
Pressed his horse clear to where the lion crouched.
Shuddering, his watchers waited his fleet death;
But, no; the lion, in place of onslaught, reared
His tawny lips and roared voluminously
A vast funereal welcome. Then the Prince,
Quitting his horse with one light spring, approached
Yet nearer, while his ghastly jeopardy
Made them that gazed upon him quake and sweat.
And he who told King Thalmak ended thus:
“O sire, no sooner was this wondrous deed
Of boldness wrought, to our surpassing awe,
Than straightway did the hurt beast thrust his tongue
Out toward the Prince's hand that fearless met
Such hideous courtesy; and like a hound
Grateful for heed, we saw the monster lick
That palm which one day (please the gods, yet far!)
Shall grasp thy sceptre. Turning with a smile,
The Prince enjoined on us we should bring forth
What oils and lenitives the slaves had borne
To ease our own sore bruises got in hunt.
By Indra, sire, but such command seemed weird!
Still, we obeyed; and tenderly thy son
Did wash and bind his new friend's gaping cuts;
Nay, with the lion abode, and sent one half
His train (whereof I am parcel) cityward.
Yet ere we went it was his will to speak,
Erect, with hand that strayed amid the fleece
Of that dense yellow fell whereunder shrank
Great smoldering eyes, black-ringed, that seemed to dart,
Even in their dimness, rays of massacre.

“‘Courtiers and friends,’ he said, with the large voice
He hath from thee, the voice that holds a tone
Melodious as notes tolled by bells of gold,
‘I choose to save, not slay, this couchant bulk.
For though the chase be glorious in its test
Of nerve, skill, courage, oft I have had my doubts
If we should thus on lives below us push
Contention shorn of every finer aim
Save such as fosters crude belligerence...
Nay, I have dreamed far suns may shine on days
When man shall hold it infamy to make
Of man his adversary, and all earth's feuds
Harmoniously shall meet in brotherhood!
But that is dream, dream only, and let it pass...
Here is no dream, this broken and bleeding shape
Our spears and bows had found so tangible
Except for these rough ills that maim his brawn.
Why, friends, if once we pluck from out our souls
All pity, it is forthwith as though we rest
Some garden of all blooms whence odors float.
Thrift, color, beauty of petal still remain,
But fragrance hath eternally retired.
Were we to kill this lion, it were to kill
The loftier something in our secret selves
That makes us more than he. So let him live!’”

King Thalmak, hearing this quaint history, sighed,
And when, days afterward, the Prince returned,
Brown from long rural tarriance, he was fain
To chide the youth with splenetic reproach.
But soon came drifting into Tharak's eyes
That likeness of his dear dead mother's look
Which meant pain, memory, comfort intermixed,
And like a flash the father's heart grew soft...
“Where hast thou left thy lion, O laggard boy?”
He said, with slow smile flickering through his beard...
And Tharak with responsive smile broke out:
“Has the tale reached thee, then?” and flung himself
On the King's couch and clasped the royal feet,
Telling the tale once more with phrase that flowed
Oblivious of its own rich eloquence.
“Oh, father,” he ended, “when I left my charge
He stood nigh whole in hardihood sublime.
I gave him back to the great desert sweeps,
I gave him back to liberty and power,
To murmurs that the earth-god, Mithra, makes,
To large discourses of the wind, Vayu.
I gave him back, nor grudged him all I gave,
Child of the solitude and monarch there,
With eyes that blink not at the torrid suns,
And limbs whose fleetness mocks the gray simooms.
For he is kinglier than we human kings;
He acts out all his nature, free from stint.
His very greeds are generous; what he takes
Of territory is but to loll upon
In transient rest, and his worst fights are waged
At the bluff dictates of his naked self,
Not cultured by ambition's wiles and crafts.”

King Thalmak looked a long look on his son
Ere answering, and then only these few words
Fell from his lips, as though phrased half in dream:
“The gods befriend thee, my philosopher,
When thou shalt mount this throne I soon must quit!”
“Not soon!” cried Tharak. “Many a year shall pass
Ere the cold blight that orphans me shall curse
Thy realm with still more piteous orphanage!”

But Tharak's love spake no true prophecy;
For soon the King's distemper grievous grew,
And one fair night, while he lay calm and pale,
And the Prince watched beside him, he desired
That froma casement near his couch be drawn
Its draperies, letting beam full on his bed
The tacit stars. This done, he seemed at peace,
And stared long on the glistening dark as though
Its depths were drink, his own sight eager thirst.
Then twice or thrice low-whispering “She is there,”
He sought the sleep none lives that may elude.

Scarce were the pomps of burial consummate
When Parmys, from his watch-towers of North hills,
Came with an army of wild-eyed skin-clad men
To assault the city gates. But him with troops
Gathered in hot haste though redoubtable,
Tharak undaunted met. Nor would he brook
Siege for a single day, but crying “Attack,”
Unclamped the gates and past their threshold sent
A catapult of thick-serried men that split
His uncle's host in twain as 'twere a fowl
Cleft by the scullion who quick serves a feast.
But rallying both at left and right, the foe
Shot back with twofold shock, one mass being led
By Parmys, by his barbarous kinsman one.
For three long shuddering hours the fields were drenched
With death, and all the insulted blue above
Clamored with shrieks of pain. Like mastiffs clutched
By famine fought the Scythians, and so near
Strove against Tharak's forces that their skill
As warriors failed of profit, and they flung
Spear or bow earthward, with drawn cutlasses
Gashing the Northmen's throats, like bulls' for girth.

But rout and ruin at last beset the son
Of Thalmak, though he fought, those three mad hours,
With such grand heat that round him where he fought
Bodies lay ramparted like upthrown earth.
For Parmys, while he panted from fatigue,
Rushed at him, and with treacherous underblow
Struck from his folded fists the sanguine sword
They leaned on. Staggering, Tharak fell to earth,
Whereat five Scythians leapt upon his frame,
Disarming it and capturing him alive.
Like wind the news of Tharak's overthrow
Sped through his army, and in its wake dismay
Talked with despair. Triumphant, unopposed,
Parmys and all his followers passed erelong
Within the city. On every side they saw
Women, old men and children, terror-struck,
Expecting when the conqueror's hand should smite.
But Parmys aimed at no coarse tyrannies
Of subjugation. Subtle he was, not less
Than savage, and well knew his coming reign
Must plant the bastions of its permanence
In tricks of diplomatic artifice.
Wherefore, on that same day, when fears were lulled,
He spake before the assembled populace.

“Ye are my subjects,” hailed he from the stairs
Of the wide palace-portico. “Our gods,
That equally are mine and yours, decree
My empery. Tharak, born a bastard prince,
Hath fallen below my just revolt. Yet now,
Because I know ye doubt if I shall rule
With such wise tact as fits a lawful king,
Learn from my lips, in solemn plight of faith,
How I shall wear my dear dead brother's crown
As though 'twere some live thing whose gems and gold
Could breathe me counsels caught from those large brows
That late have borne it. Justice, mercy and love
Shall meet as ministers about my throne,
And war crouch only at my low footstool, kept
Like a leashed bloodhound from whose pinioned throat
Brave guardianship of country slips the bond.”

Pausing, shrewd Parmys marked the multitude
Below him. Quick the insidious words he phrased
Had wrought their calming consequence. Yet cries
Rang soon from many an auditor: “Our Prince!”
“Tharak, or bastard or legitimate,
What fate shalt thou apportion him?” .. “Yes, tell
If death or exile be our Tharak's doom!”

While so the tide of clamorous question surged,
Parmys, with looks that counterfeited well
Regret and pity, again found reachful voice:

“If there be those that deem the gods would help
This youth a wandering harlot hath begot,
I shall not shirk the test that either proves
He is prince, or verifies his base-born rank.
For, listen, it is but lately learned of me
That to the south gate of the city a band
Of hunters, all being ignorant if raged
Northward the fight I conquered in, have brought
A living lion, assailed by strategy
And captured thus, intent on proferring him
To Tharak, trophy and tribute both in one.
Therefore to-morrow, I do ordain, this beast
Caged in the public square shall front ye all,
And Tharak shall behind its bars be thrust.
Then, if no harm befall him where he bides,
I swear to vanish with my soldiery
From out the city and leave him once more King.
But if the lion assault him and so slay,
Then shall the message of the gods read clear
To every sense; for surely it would not tax
Omnipotence like theirs to shield and save,
And surely I could not unto holier hands
Confide this cause, deep-freighted with such pith
Of import and so near the nation's weal.”

Thus urged the wily conqueror; and he laughed
Low in his own heart, packed with fell intrigue,
To note some faces of his listeners prove
That trust in Tharak's victory had sprung forth
From even so dismal an arbitrament.
For Parmys long ere now had coldly scoffed
At intercessions betwixt gods and men.
“They are heedless of us,” he would jeer, “as we
Are heedless of the autumnal leaf that whirls.”
And now in mockery to his bloody mates,
“I pave,” he said, “my path toward facile sway.
They saw him worsted of our spears, but brim
With faith he is yet a demigod. Full soon,
When he shall be devoured in sight of them,
This idiot cult of theirs will veer like wind.”

That night the city slept, or seemed to sleep,
While even its very babes were sentinelled.
Many that loved their King (who loved him not
Of them that war had spared to hate his foes?)
Went whispering each with each: “The gods are cold;
They love their loves and sin their sins aloof,
Oblivious of our frail mortality;
This Parmys knows them in their dumb blind scorn.”

But on the morrow, amid an eager throng,
The lion, incarcerate within its cage,
Glared from black bars. Here willingly was led
Tharak; who, pausing ere he neared his fate,
With sovereignty of gesture that forbade
The guards to harry or thwart his wish, remained
Moveless, and from his lips these words outflowed:

“My people, I bow to what our gods ordain.
Bow also ye. If death lay hold on me,
Strive that your best obedience wed itself
To your best knowledge of desert in him
Wielding the sceptre. Stifle, I charge of ye,
All hate for one that peradventure seeks
The goal which justice, to his own belief,
Makes duty, and bear in mind how motive lurks
Alike the cause and gauge of human sin.
So, ere ye name him tyrant, watch him well,
Being rather mindful of what good shall hap
Our state hereafter than what ill he wrought
On me, among the irrevocable dead.
For if he is confident my claim of rule
Be empty and valueless, perchance he finds
In my slain corpse a healthier civic boon
Than any a life of banishment might bring:
Since, were I far in exile, faction's mouth
Might ever snarl my name rebelliously,
And sow the realm with internecine feuds
Worse than war's candors when thy hotliest flare.
So now, farewell. I have reigned a little space,
Yet in such reign have sought to serve high creeds.
Think not too tenderly of this my death,
For sorrow is foe of patience, and ye need
Stout hearts to bear these bodeful storms of change.”

Thus having said, King Tharak turned and walked
Unfaltering to the cage, with his own hand
Set in its massive lock the massive key,
Oped wide the door, then closed it, and stood firm
Before the bristling and infuriate brute
That sprang to meet him.

Many an eye was bathed
In tears. Friends, foes, by equal thrills were moved,
Hearing his language of sweet tolerance,
Marking in brow, form, posture, his brave calm.

But as the lion approached him, lo, a smile
Bloomed bright from Tharak's lips! He reached one hand
Serenely forth and stroked the creature's mane,
Knowing the sick beast he had soothed of yore.
And while its poignant eyes grew soft, he felt
The gods indeed had spoken! A mighty cry
Shot from the multitude as all now saw
The lion at Tharak's feet in meekness fawn,
Like some fond dog that greets a master's face
When tedious hours of absence bring him home.

Parmys grew livid, then, with wrath and fear,
Below the silk pavilion where he sat.
“A trick,” he roared, “a lying and cheating trick!
Some sorcerer's impish work! Let both be slain!
Have at them, trusted Scythians, with your spears!”

But no man stirred, of all the enormous host;
As well might Parmys to deaf rocks have shrieked.
And seeing at last how Tharak from the cage
Came forth, and how the lion, at his light beck,
Followed him, with hard haste the false King leapt
To earth, and snatching from a warrior's hold
His long spear, darted for the arena where
Unarmed stood Tharak.

Ill had Parmys planned,
If counting on the lion as always mild.
For while with spear uplifted he bore down
On Tharak, suddenly flamed the topaz eyes,
The amber body in one great bound shot out,
And torn to ghastly shreds the usurper lay,
A bleeding mockery of the man he was.

Thus Tharak to his rightful throne returned;
For all the foe withdrew ere night had come,
Awed by what seemed miraculous evidence
That the gods' anger had flung Parmys low.

And Tharak, having led the lion again
Within its cage, decreed it should be borne
Back to the desert and there given once more
Its freedom. .. But when tales were told to him
Of how this lion had been a god disguised,
He mused and answered with a meaning smile:
“Yes, there is godliness in gratitude
Which makes even beasts that show it seem divine!”