"A mile outside of Baldacca's gate

I left my forces to lie in wait,

Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand,

And forward dashed with a handful of men,
To lure the old tiger from his den
Into the ambush I had planned.

Ere we reached the town the alarm was spread,
For we heard the sound of gongs from within:
And with clash of cymbals and warlike din
The gates swung wide; and we turned and fled;
And the garrison sallied forth and pursued,
With the gray old Kalif at their head,

And above them the banner of Mohammed:

So we snared them all, and the town was subdued.

"As in at the gate we rode, behold,

A tower that is called the Tower of Gold!
For there the Kalif had hidden his wealth,
Heaped and hoarded and piled on high,
Like sacks of wheat in a granary;
And thither the miser crept by stealth
To feel of the gold that gave him health,

And to gaze and gloat with his hungry eye

On jewels that gleamed like a glow-worm's spark,
Or the eyes of a panther in the dark.

"I said to the Kalif:-Thou art old;
Thou hast no need of so much gold.

Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here
Till the breath of battle was hot and near,

But have sown through the land these useless hoards
To spring into shining blades of swords,
And keep thine honor sweet and clear.
These grains of gold are not grains of wheat;

These bars of silver thou canst not eat;

These jewels and pearls and precious stones
Cannot cure the aches in thy bones,

Nor keep the feet of Death one hour
From climbing the stairways of thy tower!'

"Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,
And left him to feed there all alone

In the honey-cells of his golden hive:
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan,
Was heard from those massive walls of stone,
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive!

"When at last we unlocked the door,

We found him dead upon the floor;

The rings had dropped from his withered hands,
His teeth were like bones in the desert sands:
Still clutching his treasure he had died;
And as he lay there, he appeared

A statue of gold with a silver beard,
His arms outstretched as if crucified.»

This is the story, strange and true,
That the great Captain Alau

Told to his brother the Tartar Khan,
When he rode that day into Kambalu
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan.

THE NEW HOUSEHOLD

From The Hanging of the Crane'

O

FORTUNATE, O happy day,

When a new household finds its place
Among the myriad homes of earth,
Like a new star just sprung to birth,
And rolled on its harmonious way

Into the boundless realms of space!
So said the guests in speech and song,
As in the chimney, burning bright,
We hung the iron crane to-night,
And merry was the feast and long.

And now I sit and muse on what may be,
And in my vision see, or seem to see,
Through floating vapors interfused with light,
Shapes indeterminate, that gleam and fade,
As shadows passing into deeper shade
Sink and elude the sight.

For two alone, there in the hall

Is spread the table round and small:

Upon the polished silver shine.

The evening lamps, but, more divine,

The light of love shines over all;

Of love, that says not "mine" and "thine,"

But ours," for ours is thine and mine.

They want no guests, to come between
Their tender glances like a screen,
And tell them tales of land and sea,

And whatsoever may betide

The great, forgotten world outside;

They want no guests: they needs must be
Each other's own best company.

A

CHAUCER

N OLD man in a lodge within a park;

The chamber walls depicted all around

With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound,

And the hurt deer. He listeneth to the lark,

Whose song comes with the sunshine through the dark
Of painted glass in leaden lattice bound;

<

He listeneth and he laugheth at the sound,
Then writeth in a book like any clerk.
He is the poet of the dawn, who wrote
The Canterbury Tales,' and his old age
Made beautiful with song; and as I read
I hear the crowing cock, I hear the note
Of lark and linnet, and from every page

Rise odors of plowed field or flowery mead.

XVI-575

I

MILTON

PACE the sounding sea-beach and behold
How the voluminous billows roll and run,
Upheaving and subsiding, while the sun
Shines through their sheeted emerald far unrolled,
And the ninth wave, slow gathering fold by fold
All its loose-flowing garments into one,
Plunges upon the shore, and floods the dun

Pale reach of sands, and changes them to gold.

So in majestic cadence rise and fall

The mighty undulations of thy song,

O sightless bard, England's Mæonides!
And ever and anon, high over all
Uplifted, a ninth wave superb and strong,

Floods all the soul with its melodious seas.

Ο

HAROUN AL RASCHID

NE day, Haroun Al Raschid read
A book wherein the poet said:—

"Where are the kings, and where the rest
Of those who once the world possessed?

"They're gone with all their pomp and show,
They're gone the way that thou shalt go.-

"O thou who choosest for thy share
The world, and what the world calls fair,

"Take all that it can give or lend,
But know that death is at the end!"

Haroun Al Raschid bowed his head;
Tears fell upon the page he read.

DIVINA COMMEDIA

I

FT have I seen at some cathedral door

OFT

A laborer, pausing in the dust and heat,
Lay down his burden, and with reverent feet
Enter, and cross himself, and on the floor
Kneel to repeat his paternoster o'er:

Far off the noises of the world retreat;
The loud vociferations of the street
Become an undistinguishable roar.
So, as I enter here from day to day,

And leave my burden at this minster gate,
Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray,
The tumult of the time disconsolate

To inarticulate murmurs dies away,

While the eternal ages watch and wait.

II

How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers!
This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves
Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves
Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bowers,
And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers!

But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And underneath the traitor Judas lowers!

Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain,

What exultations trampling on despair,

What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong,

What passionate outcry of a soul in pain,

Uprose this poem of the earth and air,
This mediæval miracle of song!