Our marriage, often set--
By miracle delayed--
At last is consummate,
And cannot be unmade.

Live, then, whom Life shall cure,
Almost, of Memory,
And leave us to endure
Its immortality.

V. A. D. (MEDITERRANEAN)

Ah, would swift ships had never been, for then we ne'er had found,
These harsh AEgean rocks between, this little virgin drowned,
Whom neither spouse nor child shall mourn, but men she nursed
through pain
And--certain keels for whose return the heathen look in vain.

'THE CITY OF BRASS'

1909

Here was a people whom after their works thou shalt see wept over
for their lost dominion: and in this palace is the last information
respecting lords collected in the dust.

_The Arabian Nights_

_In a land that the sand overlays--the ways to her gates are
untrod--
A multitude ended their days whose fates were made splendid by God,
Till they grew drunk and were smitten with madness and went to their
fall,
And of these is a story written: but Allah alone knoweth all!_

When the wine stirred in their heart their bosoms dilated,
They rose to suppose themselves kings over all things created--
To decree a new earth at a birth without labour or sorrow--
To declare: 'We prepare it to-day and inherit to-morrow.'
They chose themselves prophets and priests of minute understanding,
Men swift to see done, and outrun, their extremest commanding--
Of the tribe which describe with a jibe the perversions of Justice--
Panders avowed to the crowd whatsoever its lust is.

Swiftly these pulled down the walls that their fathers had made
them--
The impregnable ramparts of old, they razed and relaid them
As playgrounds of pleasure and leisure with limitless entries,
And havens of rest for the wastrels where once walked the sentries;
And because there was need of more pay for the shouters and
marchers,
They disbanded in face of their foemen their bowmen and archers.
They replied to their well-wishers' fears--to their enemies'
laughter,
Saying: 'Peace! We have fashioned a God Which shall save us
hereafter.
We ascribe all dominion to man in his factions conferring,
And have given to numbers the Name of the Wisdom unerring.'
They said: 'Who has hate in his soul? Who has envied his neighbour?
Let