a circling sash of streams.

Far away the Atlas mountains rear their heads of lasting snow,
And seem like old men grouped around in high-backed chairs of space;
And they bathe their feet like children in the brooks that run below,
Or smoke their pipes in silence till the clouds obscure each face.

I was poor: they say they found me lying naked in the street,
And a beggar so befriended me and brought me to his door,
And cared for me and tended me, until my growing feet
Could patter through the market-place and there increase our store.

I never knew the tenderness of father or of mother;
My tatters scarcely covered me; my hunger made me thin;
I never knew of sympathy or kindness from another;
I drank the cup of bitterness that comes to want and sin.

All my early youth was squandered, when there came across my thought
A passionate intolerance of the course my life had run;
And I went out to the venders and some meagre fruitage bought,
Till with selling and with buying, lo, a new life was begun.

Soon I found myself the owner of vast houses, wares, and sails,
A very prince of traffic, with my slaves beyond the line,
Where they sold my costly merchandise of cloth and cotton bales,
Of many colored leathers, ostrich feathers, dates, and wine.

II.

THE MAIDEN OF THE GOLDEN KIOSK.

In the days when I, a beggar, wandered idly through the street,
Past the palace, through the vineyards where the scented fountains play,
Standing near the golden kiosk, it befell my lot to meet
One for whom my heart grew larger, and I could not turn away.

Long my eyes upon the banquet of her beauty freely fed;
How could I help but love her, whom the angels might adore!
But at last, tired of my staring, she turned away her head;
Yet I saw the large pearls tremble that about her neck she wore.

Either cheek was sea-shell tinted, and around her dewy lips
Played a smile that lingered lovingly, like star gleam on the sea;
Thus emboldened, on my knees I fell, and kissed her finger tips,
And begged of her, and prayed of her that I her slave might be.

I was dark and swarthy featured, comely still in form and face;
My long black hair hung glossily about my neck and head;
My large jet eyes were lustrous, and I had an easy grace
That almost made a kingly robe my ragged garb of red.

I chained the maiden with my arm, I would not let her go;
She said she was Eudocia, t