st flash of sunset. Every fount
Was spouting fire, and all the orange-trees
Bore blazing coals, and from the marble walls
And gilded spires and columns, strangely wrought,
Glared the red light, until my eyes were pained
With the fierce splendor. Till the night grew thick,
I lay within the bushes, next the door,
Still as a serpent, as invisible.
The guard hung round the portal. Man by man
They dropped away, save one lone sentinel,
And on his eyes God's finger lightly fell;
He slept half standing. Like a summer wind
That threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf,
I stole from shadow unto shadow forth;
Crossed all the marble court-yard, swung the door,
Like a soft gust, a little way ajar,--
My body's narrow width, no more,--and stood
Beneath the cresset in the painted hall.
I marvelled at the riches of my foe;
I marvelled at God's ways with wicked men.
Then I reached forth, and took God's waiting hand:
And so He led me over mossy floors,
Flowered with the silken summer of Shirar,
Straight to the Imam's chamber. At the door
Stretched a brawn eunuch, blacker than my eyes:
His woolly head lay like the Kaba-stone
In Mecca's mosque, as silent and as huge.
I stepped across it, with my pointed knife
Just missing a full vein along his neck,
And, pushing by the curtains, there I was,--
I, Adeb the Despised,--upon the spot
That, next to heaven, I longed for most of all.
I could have shouted for the joy in me.
Fierce pangs and flashes of bewildering light
Leaped through my brain and danced before my eyes.
So loud my heart beat that I feared its sound
Would wake the sleeper; and the bubbling blood
Choked in my throat, till, weaker than a child,
I reeled against a column, and there hung
In a blind stupor. Then I prayed again;
And, sense by sense, I was made whole once more.
I touched myself; I was the same; I knew
Myself to be lone Adeb, young and strong,
With nothing but a stride of empty air
Between me and God's justice. In a sleep,
Thick with the fumes of the accursed grape,
Sprawled the false Imam. On his shaggy breast,
Like a white lily heaving on the tide
Of some foul stream, the fairest woman slept
These roving eyes have ever looked upon.
Almost a child, her bosom barely showed
The change beyond her girlhood. All her charms
Were budding, but half opened; for I saw
Not only beauty wondrous in itself,
But po