A Legend of Old Persia and Other Poems | Page 5

he raised a vacant eye?Into the empyrean.?And as he lay upon his back?The pealing centuries rolled back....?He saw the blue ?gean.
And thus he dreamt: "My palace home?With minaret and marble dome?Upon the sapphire strait.?My garden full of nightingales,?One singing as the other fails?While evening groweth late.
"And from my watch-tower I behold?Beneath a sky of molten gold?My argosies return.?A homeward wind is in their sails,?Freighted are they with costly bales,?Vast fires behind them burn.
"I have a room with shining floors?And lofty roof and polished doors,?Wherein I love to dine?With two good friends at left and right,?Whose converse is my soul's delight?And glads my heart like wine.
"Or in my marble portico?We sit and watch the summer glow?And talk of love and death;?And when the amber twilight fails?We listen to the nightingales,?And evening holds her breath.
"Oh! Charicles and Charmides,?Much have I dreamt of hours like these,?My friends I never knew--?Whose voices and whose grave, sweet words?Were lovelier than the songs of birds,?And fresher than the dew.
"For Charicles has love and youth,?And all his words are sweet with truth,?Like a garden with the rain;?And Charmides is mild and wise,?But with his tear-washed, violet eyes?Yet can he smile again.
"Perhaps I knew you, ancient lords?Of nobler wit and finer chords--?But this I cannot tell;?For ever lovely things I sought?In some strange borderland of thought,?Content therein to dwell.
"For who could blame or who could praise?If one should choose to pass his days?In a phantasy of dreams,?And, finding thus his own ideal?In things dissevered from the real,?Be happier than he seems?
"Ah! who could praise or who could blame,?Tho' glimmers all my way the same,?Like a dyke-road thro' a fen.?Far on, far on--a ruddy spark--?The toll-light glows adown the dark,?And I, like other men,
"Must pay my toll and pass beyond,--?I made no vow, I signed no bond,?Nor lose my self-esteem,?But pass, unknown, unloved, unlost,?The man who knew and weighed the cost,?The man who dared to dream.
"For what is Fame and what's a Name,?Your cries of sorrow, wrath, and shame,?Your Hamlets and King Lears,?The night must cover them again?Did they last a thousand lives of men,?A thousand thousand years.
"The world may say that I have missed;?Ah! no--I am an egoist?Of subtle, fixed design.?My dreams a garden are to me?To which no other holds the key,?I wish to keep them mine.
"All mine--those tender, half-thought things,?Which flutter gossamer rainbow wings?And hover near, near, near.?Why should I catch and pin them down?And lose their beauty for a crown?Would chafe my brows to wear.
"And thus, a baser alchemist?In some perverted plan persist?To turn my gold to dross.?If I turned my gold their soul were sold?Tho' I wore a crown and cloth of gold,?Their soul were then the loss.
"If I sat high, a crown��d king,?With lofty brows in a royal ring,?A lustrous diadem,?If I wore the titles 'High, Strong, and Wise,'?And garments stained with purple dyes,?All jewelled at the hem
"With emeralds, rubies and jacinth stones,?Such as great kings wear on their golden thrones,?And a royal mantle of vair,?And held a sceptre in my hand,?Which showed me ruler of all the land,?In my palace, where none might dare
"To cross my word, but all must bow?As the courtly throng are bending now,?And give the King his meed,?And slaves waved forests of peacock fans?And a cry went up like a single man's,?'This is the King indeed.'
"For I could be King and Overlord?In the wondrous realm of the written word,?Am King there ... in my dreams.?So, loving dreams, this life I choose--?The tramp's with tattered coat and shoes,?Yet happier than it seems.
"Thus, oh! my dreams, you grow not old,?No process dims you, leaves you cold,?Immortal, bright, you come,?And if you come not, I am wise,?I have my trusted old allies,?Tobacco, beer, and rum."
His chin sank down upon his breast,?And suddenly the brown bird ceased?To pour her strain abroad.?A sound less sweet to mortal ear?Uprose (had one been there to hear)....?It was the tramp who snored.
The Black Dwarf.
Certain it is that of those qualities?We are enamoured which we most do lack.?So he, fantastic out of human guise,?Bent, broken, bowed, small, apish, humped of back,?Marred in the mint, perfection's contrary,?To sweet perfection found his marred life thrall,?And--the great artist without jealousy--?Knew beauty more than all.
Much he loved flowers and their frail loveliness,?But if they pined thro' blight or thirsty want,?Or spiteful wind had made his blossoms less,?Or mouse or mole had gnawed some tender plant,?Then seemed the edge of life all dull and blunt,?And passion thwarted tore his twisted frame,?And, 'neath the penthouse of the shaggy front,?The yellow eyes flashed flame.
But most he joyed whenever country maid,?Prizing his taste, or damsel highly born?To judgment came, and anxiously displayed?For him submission as for others scorn.?Then, peering keenly from his peat-roofed home,?Calm in his power he scanned her as he chose,?And, if she pleased, the swart and twisted gnome?Gave her a white, white