Part 10

And did she find him grave, or gay? Perchance his palace breathed that day With psalters sounding solemnly-- Or cymbals' merrier minstrelsy-- Perchance the wearied monarch heard Some loose-tongued prophet's meddling word;-- None knows, no one--but Solomon!

She looked--with eyne wherein were blent All ardors of the Orient; She spake--all magics of the South Were compassed in the witch's mouth;-- He thought the scarlet lips of her More precious than En Gedi's myrrh, The lips of that Sabean girl;

By many an amorous sun caressed, From lifted brow to amber breast She gleamed in vivid loveliness-- And lithe as any leopardess-- And verily, one blames thee not If thine own proverbs were forgot, O Solomon, wise Solomon!

She danced for him, and surely she Learnt dancing from some moonlit sea

Where elfin vapors swirled and swayed While the wild pipes of witchcraft played Such clutching music 'twould impel A prophet's self to dance to hell-- So spun the light Sabean girl.

He swore her laughter had the lilt Of chiming waters that are spilt In sprays of spurted melody From founts of carven porphyry, And in the billowy turbulence Of her dusk hair drowned soul and sense-- Dark tides and deep, O Solomon!

Perchance unto her day belongs His poem called the Song of Songs, Each little lyric interval Timed to her pulse's rise and fall;-- Or when he cried out wearily That all things end in vanity Did he mean that Sabean girl?

The bright barbaric opulence, The sun-kist Temple, Kedar's tents,--

How many a careless caravan 'Twixt Beersheba and ruined Dan, Within these forty centuries, Has flung their dust to many a breeze, With dust that was King Solomon!

But still the lesson holds as true, O King, as when she lessoned you: That very wise men are not wise Until they read in Folly's eyes The wisdom that escapes the schools, That bids the sage revise his rules By light of some Sabean girl!

NEWS FROM BABYLON

"Archaeologists have discovered a love-letter among the ruins of Babylon." --Newspaper report.

The world hath just one tale to tell, and it is very old, A little tale--a simple tale--a tale that's easy told: "There was a youth in Babylon who greatly loved a maid!" The world hath just one song to sing, but sings it unafraid, A little song--a foolish song--the only song it hath: "There was a youth in Ascalon who loved a girl in Gath!"

Homer clanged it, Omar twanged it, Greece and Persia knew!-- Nimrod's reivers, Hiram's weavers, Hindu, Kurd, and Jew-- Crowning Tyre, Troy afire, they have dreamed the dream; Tiber-side and Nilus-tide brightened with the gleam--

Oh, the suing, sighing, wooing, sad and merry hours, Blisses tasted, kisses wasted, building Babel's towers! Hearts were aching, hearts were breaking, lashes wet with dew, When the ships touched the lips of islands Sappho knew; Yearning breasts and burning breasts, cold at last, are hid Amid the glooms of carven tombs in Khufu's pyramid-- Though the sages, down the ages, smile their cynic doubt, Man and maid, unafraid, put the schools to rout; Seek to chain love and retain love in the bonds of breath, Vow to hold love, bind and fold love even unto death!

The dust of forty centuries has buried Babylon, And out of all her lovers dead rises only one; Rises with a song to sing and laughter in his eyes, The old song--the only song--for all the rest are lies!

For, oh, the world has just one dream, and it is very old-- 'Tis youth's dream--a silly dream--but it is flushed with gold!

A RHYME OF THE ROADS

PEARL-SLASHED and purple and crimson and fringed with gray mist of the hills, The pennons of morning advance to the music of rock-fretted rills, The dumb forest quickens to song, and the little gusts shout as they fling A floor-cloth of orchard bloom down for the flashing, quick feet of the Spring.

To the road, gipsy-heart, thou and I! 'Tis the mad piper, Spring, who is leading; 'Tis the pulse of his piping that throbs through the brain, irresistibly pleading; Full-blossomed, deep-bosomed, fain woman, light-footed, lute-throated and fleet, We have drunk of the wine of this Wanderer's song; let us follow his feet!

Like raveled red girdles flung down by some hoidenish goddess in mirth The tangled roads reach from rim unto utter-most rim of the earth-- We will weave of these strands a strong net, we will snare the bright wings of delight,-- We will make of these strings a sweet lute that will shame the low wind-harps of night.

The clamor of tongues and the clangor of trades in the peevish packed street, The arrogant, jangling Nothings, with iterant, dissonant beat, The clattering, senseless endeavor with dross of mere gold for its goal, These have sickened the senses and wearied the brain and straitened the soul.

"Come forth and be cleansed of the folly of strife for things worthless of strife, Come forth and gain life and grasp God by foregoing gains worthless of life"--

It was thus spake the wizard wildwood, low-voiced to the hearkening heart, It was thus sang the jovial hills, and the harper sun bore part.

O woman, whose blood as my blood with the fire of the Spring is aflame, We did well, when the red roads called, that we heeded the call and came-- Came forth to the sweet wise silence where soul may speak sooth unto soul, Vine-wreathed and vagabond Love, with the goal of Nowhere for our goal!

What planet-crowned Dusk that wanders the steeps of our firmament there Hath gems that may match with the dew-opals meshed in thine opulent hair? What wind-witch that skims the curled billows with feet they are fain to caress Hath sandals so wing'd as thine art with a god-like carelessness?

And dare we not dream this is heaven?--to wander thus on, ever on. Through the hush-heavy valleys of space, up the flushing red slopes of the dawn?-- For none that seeks rest shall find rest till he ceaseth his striving for rest, And the gain of the quest is the joy of the road that allures to the quest.

THE LAND OF YESTERDAY