How Sheddad with his women and his slaves,
His thousand viziers, armored troops as waves
Of ocean countless, God with awful flame--
Shot sheer in thunder on him--God, his shame
Confounded and abolished, ere his eyes
Had glimpsed bright follies of that Paradise;
Lay blotted to a wilderness the land
Accursed, and the city lost in sand:
Among such tales--who questions of their sooth?--
One is recorded of an Arab youth:

The Khalif Hisham ben Abdulmelik
Hunting one day, by some unwonted freak
Rode parted from his retinue and gave
Chase to an antelope. Without or slave,
Amir or vizier to a pasture place
Of sheep he came, where dark, in tattered grace,
Watched one, an Arab youth. And as it came
The antelope drew off, with mouth of flame
And tongue of fire to the youth he turned
Shouting, "Ho! fellow! in what school hast learned!
Seest not the buck escapes me? worthless one!
O desert dullard!"

Rising in the sun,
"O ignorant," he said, "of that just worth
Of those the worthy of our Muslim earth!
In that thou look'st upon me--what thou art!--
As one fit for contempt, thou lack'st no part
Of my disdain?--Allah! I would not own
A dog of thine for friend no other known--
Of speech a tyrant, manners of an ass!"
And flung him, rags and rage, into the grass.

Provoked, astonished, wrinkled angrily,
Hissed Hisham, "Slave! thou know'st me not I see!"
Calmly the youth, "Aye, verily I know,
O mannerless! thy tongue hath told me so,
Thy tongue commanding ere it spake me _peace_--
Soon art thou known, nor late may knowledge cease."

"O dog! I am thy Khalif! by a hair
Thy life hangs rav'ling."

"May it dangle there
Till thou art rotted!--Whiles, upon thy head
Misfortunes shower!--Of his dwelling place,
Allah, be thou forgetful!--What! his grace
Hisham ben Merwan, king of many words--
Few generosities!"...

A flash of swords
In drifts of dust and lo! the Khalif's troops
Surrounding ride. As when a merlin stoops
Some stranger quarry, prey that swims the wind,
Heron or eagle; kenning not its kind
There whence 'tis cast until it, towering, feels
An eagle's tearing talons, falling reels
In broken circles downward--so the youth,
An Arab fearless as t