WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPA

HAN.

WHEN the Sultan Shuh-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,
At the last of the thirty palace-gates,
The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,
Orders a feast in his favorite room,-
Glittering squares of colored ice,
Sweetened with syrup, tinctured with spice,
Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,
Syrian apples, Othmance quinces,
Lines, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
Of spiced meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors:
Scattered over mosaic floors
Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,
And a musical fountain throws its jets
Of a hundred colors into the air.
The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,
And stains with the henna-plant the tips
Of her pearly nails, and bites her lips
Till they bloom again,-but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows!
Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman
When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand,
The dancing-girls of Samarcand
Float in like mists from Fairy-land!
And to the low voluptuous swoons
Of music rise and fall the moons

Of their full brown bosoms. Orient blood
Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes:
And there, in this Eastern Paradise,
Filled with the fumes of sandal-wood,
And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,
Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,
Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;
And her Arab lover sits with her.
That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Gocs to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light, Flaming, flickering on the night From my neighbor's casement opposite, I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan.

THE MOORLAND.

THE moorland lies a dreary waste:
The night is dark with drizzling rain;
In yonder yawning cave of cloud

The snaky lightning writhes with pain.

O sobbing rain, outside my door,

O wailing phantoms, make your moan; Go through the night in blind despair,Your shadowy lips have touched my own.

No more the robin breaks its heart
Of music in the pathless woods!
The ravens croak for such as I,

The plovers screech above their broods.

All mournful things are friends of mine, (That weary sound of falling leaves !) Ah, there is not a kindred soul

For me on earth, but moans and grieves

I cannot sleep this lonesome night: The ghostly rain goes by in haste, And, further than the eye can reach, The moorland lies a dreary waste.

SONG.

Our from the depths of my heart
Had arisen this single cry,
Let me behold my beloved,
Let me behold her, and die.

At last, like a sinful soul,

At the portals of Heaven I lie, Never to walk with the blest, Ah, never! . . . only to die.

DEAD.

A SORROWFUL woman said to me, "Come in and look on our child."

I saw an Angel at shut of day,
And it never spoke, but smiled.

I think of it in the city's streets, I dream of it when I rest,The violet eyes, the waxen hands, And the one white rose on the breast!

HESPERIDES.

Ir thy soul, Herrick, dwelt with me,
This is what my songs would be:
Hints of our sea-breezes, blent
With odors from the Orient;
Indian vessels deep with spice;
Star-showers from the Norland ice;
Wine-red jewels that seem to hold
Fire, but only burn with cold;
Antique goblets, strangely wrought,
Filled with the wine of happy thought:
Bridal measures, vain regrets,
Laburnum buds and violets;
Hopeful as the break of day;
Clear as crystal; new as May;
Musical as brooks that run
O'er yellow shallows in the sun;
Soft as the satin fringe that shades
The eyelids of thy fragrant maids;
Brief as thy lyrics, Herrick, are,
And polished as the bosom of a star.

PLAIN LANGUAGE FROM TRUTHFUL

JAMES.

TABLE MOUNTAIN, 1870.
WHICH I wish to remark,-
And my language is plain,-
That for ways that are dark

And for tricks that are vain,

The heathen Chinee is peculiar.

Which the same I would rise to explain.

Ah Sin was his name;

And I shall not deny

In regard to the same

What that name might imply,

But his smile it was pensive and childlike,
As I frequent remarked to Bill Nye.

It was August the third;

And quite soft was the skies; Which it might be inferred

That Ah Sin was likewise;

Yet he played it that day upon William
And me in a way I despise.

Which we had a small game,
And Ah Sin took a band:
It was Euchre. The same

He did not understand;

But he smiled as he sat by the table,

With the smile that was childlike and bland.

Yet the cards they were stocked

In a way that I grieve,

And my feelings were shocked

At the state of Nve's sleeve:

Which was stuffed full of aces and bowers, And the same with intent to deceive.

But the hands that were played
By that heathen Chinee,

And the points that he made,

Were quite frightful to see,

Till at last he put down a right bower,

Which the same Nye had dealt unto me.

Then I looked up at Nye,

And he gazed upon me;

In the scene that ensued

I did not take a hand,

But the floor it was strewed

Like the leaves on the strand

With the cards that Ah Sin had been hiding, In the game "he did not understand."

In his sleeves, which were long,

He had twenty-four packs,Which was coming it strong,

Yet I state but the facts;

And we found on his nails, which were taper, What is frequent in tapers,-that's wax.

Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain, That for ways that are dark,

And for tricks that are vain, The heathen Chinee is peculiar,—

Which the same I am free to maintain.

[Born 1837.]

ANDENKEN.

I.

THROUGH the silent streets of the city,

In the night's unbusy noon,

Up and down in the pallor

Of the languid summer moon,

I wander and think of the village,

And the house in the maple-gloom, And the porch with the honeysuckles And the sweet-brier all abloom.

My soul is sick with the fragrance
Of the dewy sweet-brier's breath:
Oh, darling! the house is empty,
And lonesomer than death!

If I call, no one will answer;

If I knock, no one will come ;The feet are at rest forever, And the lips are cold and dumb.

The summer moon is shining

So wan and large and still, And the weary dead are sleeping In the graveyard under the hill.

II.

We looked at the wide, white circle
Around the autumn moon,

And talked of the change of weather,-
It would rain to-morrow, or soon.

And the rain came on the morrow,

And beat the dying leaves

From the shuddering boughs of the maples Into the flooded caves.

The clouds wept out their sorrow;

But in my heart the tears

Are bitter for want of weeping,

In all these autumn years.

III.

It is sweet to lie awake musing
On all she has said and done,
To dwell on the words she uttered,
To feast on the smiles I won,

To think with what passion at parting She gave me my kisses again,Dear adieux, and tears and caresses,Oh, love! was it joy or pain?

To brood, with a foolish rapture,

On the thought that it must be My darling this moment is waking

With tenderest thoughts of me!

O sleep! are thy dreams any sweeter I linger before thy gate:

We must enter at it together,

And my love is loath and late.

IV.

The bobolink sings in the meadow,
The wren in the cherry-tree:
Come hither, thou little maiden,
And sit upon my knee;

And I will tell thee a story

I read in a book of rhyme;

I will but feign that it happened
To me, one summer-time,

When we walked through the meadow,
And she and I were young ;—

The story is old and weary
With being said and sung.

The story is old and weary ;

Ah, child! is it known to thee? Who was it that last night kissed thee Under the cherry-tree?

V.

Like a bird of evil presage,

To the lonely house on the shore Came the wind with a tale of shipwreck, And shrieked at the bolted door,

And flapped its wings in the gables, And shouted the well-known names, And buffeted the windows

Afeard in their shuddering frames.

It was night, and it is daytime,-
The morning sun is bland,

The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking
In to the smiling land.

The white-cap waves come rocking, rocking
In the sun so soft and bright,

And toss and play with the dead man
Drowned in the storm last night.

VI.

I remember the burning brushwood,
Glimmering all day long
Yellow and weak in the sunlight,
Now leaped up red and strong,

And fired the old dead chestnut,

That all our years had stood, Gaunt and gray and ghostly,

Apart from the sombre wood;

And, flushed with sudden summer, The leafless boughs on high