Part 16 (1/2)

O merchant, tell me what you bring, With music sweet of camel bells; How long have you been travelling With these sweet smells?

O merchant, tell me what you bring.

A lovely lady is my freight, A lock escaped of her long hair, -- That is this perfume delicate That fills the air -- A lovely lady is my freight.

Her face is from another land, I think she is no mortal maid, -- Her beauty, like some ghostly hand, Makes me afraid; Her face is from another land.

The little moon my cargo is, About her neck the Pleiades Clasp hands and sing; Hafiz, 't is this Perfumes the breeze -- The little moon my cargo is.

As I came down from Lebanon. [Clinton Scollard]

As I came down from Lebanon, Came winding, wandering slowly down Through mountain pa.s.ses bleak and brown, The cloudless day was well-nigh done.

The city, like an opal set In emerald, showed each minaret Afire with radiant beams of sun, And glistened orange, fig, and lime, Where song-birds made melodious chime, As I came down from Lebanon.

As I came down from Lebanon, Like lava in the dying glow, Through olive orchards far below I saw the murmuring river run; And 'neath the wall upon the sand Swart sheiks from distant Samarcand, With precious spices they had won, Lay long and languidly in wait Till they might pa.s.s the guarded gate, As I came down from Lebanon.

As I came down from Lebanon, I saw strange men from lands afar, In mosque and square and gay bazar, The Magi that the Moslem shun, And grave Effendi from Stamboul, Who sherbet sipped in corners cool; And, from the balconies o'errun With roses, gleamed the eyes of those Who dwell in still seraglios, As I came down from Lebanon.

As I came down from Lebanon, The flaming flower of daytime died, And Night, arrayed as is a bride Of some great king, in garments spun Of purple and the finest gold, Outbloomed in glories manifold, Until the moon, above the dun And darkening desert, void of shade, Shone like a keen Damascus blade, As I came down from Lebanon.

The Only Way. [Louis V. Ledoux]

I

Memphis and Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, the Nile: Of these your letters told; and I who read Saw loom on dim horizons Egypt's dead In march across the desert, mile on mile, A ghostly caravan in slow defile Between the sand and stars; and at their head From unmapped darkness into darkness fled The G.o.ds that Egypt feared a little while.

There black against the night I saw them loom With captive kings and armies in array Remembered only by their sculptured doom, And thought: What Egypt was are we to-day.

Then rose obscure against the rearward gloom The march of Empires yet to pa.s.s away.

II

I looked in vision down the centuries And saw how Athens stood a sunlit while A sovereign city free from greed and guile, The half-embodied dream of Pericles.

Then saw I one of smooth words, swift to please, At laggard virtue mock with shrug and smile; With Cleon's creed rang court and peristyle, Then sank the sun in far Sicilian seas.

From brows ign.o.ble fell the violet crown.

Again the warning sounds; the hosts engage: In Cleon's face we fling our battle gage, We win as foes of Cleon loud renown; But while we think to build the coming age The laurel on our brows is turning brown.

III