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So they, whose lot it was, cast stones;
That they flew thick and bruis'd him sore;
But he praised Allah with loud voice,
And remained kneeling as before.

My lord had cover'd up his face :
But when one told him," He is dead,"
Turning him quickly to go in,
"Bring thou to me his corpse," he said.

And truly, while I speak, O King,
I hear the bearers on the stair.
Wilt thou they straightway bring him in?
Ho! enter ye who tarry there!

THE VIZIER.

O King, in this I praise thee not,
Now must I call thy grief not wise.
Is he thy friend, or of thy blood,
To find such favor in thine eyes?

Nay, were he thine own mother's son,
Still, thou art king, and the law stands.
It were not meet the balance swerv'd,
The sword were broken in thy hands.

But being nothing, as he is,
Why for no cause make sad thy face?
Lo, I am old: three kings, ere thee,
Have I seen reigning in this place.

But who, through all this length of time
Could bear the burden of his years,
If he for strangers pain'd his heart
Not less than those who merit tears?
Fathers we must have, wife and child;
And grievous is the grief for these:
This pain alone, which must be borne,
Makes the head white, and bows the knees.

But other loads than this his own
One man is not well made to bear.
Besides, to each are his own friends,
To mourn with him and shew him care.

Look, this is but one single place,
Though it be great: all the earth round,
If a man bear to have it so,

Things which might vex him shall be found.

Upon the Russian frontier, where
The watchers of two armies stand
Near one another, many a man,
Seeking a prey unto his hand,

Hath snatch'd a little fair-hair'd slave:
They snatch also, towards Merve,
The Sh ah dogs, who pasture sheep,
And up from thence to Orgunje.

And these all, laboring for a lord,
Eat not the fruit of their own hands:
Which is the heaviest of all plagues,
To that man's mind who understands.
The kaffirs also (whom God curse!)
Vex one another, night and day:
There are the lepers, and all sick :
There are the poor who faint alway.

All these have sorrow, and keep still, Whilst other men make cheer, and sing. Wilt thou have pity on all these? No, nor on this dead dog, O King!

THE KING.

O Vizier, thou art old, I young. Clear in these things I cannot see. My head is burning; and a heat Is in my skin which angers me.

But hear ye this, ye sons of men!
They that bear rule, and are obeyed,
Unto a rule more strong than theirs
Are in their turn obedient made.

In vain therefore, with wistful eyes
Gazing up hither, the poor man,
Who loiters by the high-heaped booths,
Below there, in the Registan,

Says, "Happy he, who lodges there!
With silken raiment, store of rice,
And for this drought, all kinds of fruits,
Grape syrup, squares of color'd ice,

"With cherries serv'd in drifts of snow."
In vain hath a king power to build
Houses, arcades, enamell'd mosques ;
And to make orchard closes, fill'd

With curious fruit trees, brought from far; With cisterns for the winter rain; And in the desert, spacious inns In divers places; — if that pain

Is not more lighten'd, which he feels,
If his will be not satisfied;
And that it be not, from all time
The Law is planted, to abide.

Thou wert a sinner, thou poor man!
Thou wert athirst; and didst not see,
That, though we snatch what we desire,
We must not snatch it eagerly.

And I have meat and drink at will,
And rooms of treasures, not a few.
But I am sick, nor heed I these :
And what I would, I cannot do.

Even the great honor which I have,
When I am dead, will soon grow still.
So have I neither joy, nor fame,
But what I can do, that I will.

I have a fretted brick-work tomb
Upon a hill on the right hand,
Hard by a close of apricots,
Upon the road of Samarcand:

Thither, O Vizier, will I bear
This man my pity could not save;
And, plucking up the marble flags,
There lay his body in my grave.

Bring water, nard, and linen rolis, Wash off all blood, set smooth each limb. Then say; "He was not wholly vile, Because a king shall bury him."

COVENTRY PATMORE.

HONORIA.

RESTLESS and sick of long exile
From those sweet friends, I rode to sce
The church repairs; and, after a while,
Waylaying the Dean, was asked to tea.
They introduced the cousin Fred

I'd heard of, Honor's favorite; grave,
Dark, handsome, bluff, but gently bred,
And with an air of the salt wave.
He stared, and gave his hand, and I

(Born 1823).

Stared too: then donned we smiles, the shrouds

Of ire, best hid while she was by,

A sweet moon 'twixt her lighted clouds.

Whether this cousin was the cause

I know not, but I seemed to see, The first time then, how fair she was, How much the fairest of the three. Each stopped to let the other go;

But he, being time-bound, rose the first. Stayed he in Sarum long? If so,

I hoped to see him at the Hurst.
No: he had called here on his way

To Portsmouth, where the Arrogant,
His ship, was; and should leave next day,
For two years' cruise in the Levant.

I watched her face, suspecting germs
Of love her farewell showed me plain
She loved, on the majestic terms

That she should not be loved again.
And so her cousin, parting, felt,

For all his rough sea face grew red,
Compassion did my malice melt;

Then went I home to a restless bed.
I, who admired her too, could see
His infinite remorse at this
Great mystery, that she should be

So beautiful, yet not be his,
And, pitying, longed to plead his part;

But scarce could tell, so strange my whim, Whether the weight upon my heart

Was sorrow for myself or him.

She was all mildness: yet 'twas writ
Upon her beauty legibly,
"He that's for Heaven itself unfit,

Let him not hope to merit me."
And such a challenge, quite apart
From thoughts of love, humbled, and thus
To sweet repentance moved my heart,
And made me more magnanimous,
And led me to review my life,

Inquiring where in aught the least, If question were of her for wife,

Ill might be mended, hope increased:

Not that I soared so far above
Myself, as this great hope to dare:
And yet I half foresaw that love
Might hope where reason would despair.

As drowsiness my brain relieved,
A shrill defiance of all to arms,
Shrieked by the stable-cock, received

An angry answer from three farms. And, first, I dreamt that I, her knight, A clarion's haughty pathos heard, And rode securely to the fight,

Cased in the scarf she had conferred; And there, the bristling lists behind, Saw many, and vanquished all I saw Of her unnumbered cousin-kind,

In Navy, Army, Church, and Law; Then warriors, stern and Norman-nosed, Seemed Sarum choristers, whose song, Mixed with celestial grief, disclosed

More joy than memory can prolong; And phantasms as absurd and sweet Merged each in each, in endless chase, And everywhere I seemed to meet The haunting fairness of her face.

THE CHASE.

SHE wearies with an ill unknown;
In sleep she sobs and seems to float,
A water-lily, all alone

Within a lonely castle-moat;
And as the full-moon, spectral, lies
Within the crescent's gleaming arms,
The present shows her heedless eyes
A future dim with vague alarms:
She sees, and yet she scarcely sees;
For, life-in-life not yet begun,

Too many are life's mysteries

For thought to fix 'tward any one.

She's told that maidens are by youths
Extremely honored and desired;
And sighs, "If those sweet tales be truths,
What bliss to be so much admired!”
The suitors come; she sees them grieve:
Her coldness fills them with despair:
She'd pity if she could believe:

She's sorry that she cannot care.

Who's this that meets her on her way?
Comes he as enemy, or friend;

Or both? Her bosom seems to say
He cannot pass, and there an end.

Whom does he love? Does he confer
His heart on worth that answers his?
Perhaps he's come to worship her:
She fears, she hopes, she thinks he is.
Advancing stepless, quick, and still,

As in the grass a serpent glides,
He fascinates her fluttering will,

Then terrifies with dreadful strides :
At first, there's nothing to resist :
He fights with all the forms of peace;
He comes about her like a mist,

With subtle, swift, unseen increase; And then, unlooked for, strikes amain Some stroke that frightens her to death; And grows all harmlessness again,

Ere she can cry, or get her breath.
At times she stops, and stands at bay;
But he, in all more strong than she,
Subdues her with his pale dismay,
Or more admired audacity.

All people speak of him with praise:
How wise his talk; how sweet his tone;
What manly worship in his gaze!

It nearly makes her heart his own.
With what an air he speaks her name:
His manner always recollects
Her sex and still the woman's claim
Is taught its scope by his respects.
Her charms, perceived to prosper first
In his beloved advertencies,
When in her glass they are rehearsed,
Prove his most powerful allies.

Ah, whither shall a maiden flee,

When a bold youth so swift pursues, And siege of tenderest courtesy,

With hope perseverant, still renews! Why fly so fast? Her flattered breast Thanks him who finds her fair and good; She loves her fears; veiled joys arrest

The foolish terrors of her blood: By secret, sweet degrees, her heart, Vanquished, takes warmth from his desire: She makes it more, with bashful art, And fuels love's late dreaded fire.

The gallant credit he accords

To all the signs of good in her, Redeems itself; his praiseful words

What they attribute still confer. Her heart is thrice as rich in bliss,

She's three times gentler than before: He gains a right to call her his,

Now she through him is so much more! Ah, might he, when by doubts aggrieved, Behold his tokens next her breast, At all his words and sighs perceived

Against its blithe upheaval pressed. But still she flies: should she be won,

It must not be believed or thought She yields she's chased to death, undone, Surprised, and violently caught.

FROST IN HARVEST.

THE lover who, across a gulf

Of ceremony, views his Love, And dares not yet address herself,

Pays worship to her stolen glove. The gulf o'erleaped, the lover wed, It happens oft (let truth be told), The halo leaves the sacred head,

Respect grows lax, and worship cold, And all love's May-day promising,

Like song of birds before they pair, Or flush of flowers in boastful Spring, Dies out, and leaves the Summer bare. Yet should a man, it seems to me,

Honor what honorable is, For some more honorable plea

Than only that it is not his. The gentle wife, who decks his board And makes his day to have no night, Whose wishes wait upon her lord, Who finds her own in his delight, Is she another now than she

Who, mistress of her maiden charms, At his wild prayer, incredibly

Committed them to his proud arms? Unless her choice of him's a slur

Which makes her proper credit dim, He never enough can honor her Who past all speech has honored him.

THE LOVE-LETTER.

I FOUND your letter, love. How kind
To leave it there! I cannot tell
How happy I am, or how you find
Words to express your thoughts so well.
The girls, to-night, attend the ball

At Wilton. If you can, dear, come :
Or any day this week you call

You'll find papa and me at home.
You said to Mary once-I hope
You meant it-women should be vain:
On Saturday your friend (her Pope)

The Bishop dined with us again,
She put the question, if they ought?
He turned it cleverly away,
(For giddy Mildred cried, she thought

We must,) with, "What we must we may." Dear papa laughed, and said 'twas sad

To think how vain his girls would be, Above all Mary, now she had

Episcopal authority.

But I was very dull, dear Friend.
And went up-stairs at last and cried.
Be sure to come to-day, or send

A rose-leaf kissed on either side.
Adieu! I am not well. Last night

I had startling dreams: I often woke, The summer-lightning was so bright; And when it flash'd I thought you spoke.

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I see the lost Love in beauty
Go gliding over the main :
I feel the ancient sweetness,

The worm and wormwood again.

Earth all one tomb lies round me,
Domed with an iron sky:
And God himself in his power,
God cannot save me! I cry.

With the cry I wake ;—and around me The mother and child at her feet Breathe peace in even whispers ;

And the night falls heavy and sweet.

-And well for thee, the central warmth

And brightness of the hearth,
So lie by these familiar hills,
And in thy native earth.

Yet while our requiem thus we bring,
Ye are not where ye are;
And on this cast-off heap of clay
Your spirits smile from far.

O sister souls! the blue sea strives
To sunder you in vain :
In life, in death, your hearts were one;
Now we are one again.

A DEATH-BED.

Ar length the gusts of anguish cease;
The calm of coming death
Smiles from the eyes in settled peace,

Restores the rhythmic breath.

Such brightness now is round her cast,
Such joy for angels fit,

As if the gate of Heaven were past
Without her knowing it.

Like golden sands the moments go; Each, sparkling light with love, Heaps up the nearing death below, Steals from the life above.

O love that cannot be repair'd Whate'er the future bring! Irrevocable instants, spared

To plant the deeper sting!

O dread alternative of woe

At sight of one so dear! We cannot bear that she should go, Yet may not wish her here!

Ah yet the golden moments spare
That slip and sparkle thus !
The heavenly voices call her there;
But she is more to us.

THE SISTERS.

ONE sleeps where the Biscayan pines
Their changeless shadow shed :
The eternal green of English hills
Is round the sister's bed.

-O well the rustling pine-tree-tops
With the low lulling sea
May chant the litanies of peace
Life could not give to thee!

PRO MORTUIS

WHAT should a man desire to leave? A flawless work; a noble life: Some music harmonized from strife, Some finish'd thing, ere the slack hands at eve Drop, should be his to leave.

One gem of song, defying age;

A hard-won fight; a well-work'd farm; A law, no guile can twist to harm; Some tale as our lost Thackeray's, bright, or sage As the just Hallam's page.

Or, in life's homeliest, meanest spot,

With temperate step from year to year To move within his little sphere, Leaving a pure name to be known, or not,— This is a true man's lot.

He dies he leaves the deed or name,
A gift for ever to his land,

In trust to Friendship's prudent hand, Bound 'gainst all adverse shocks to guard his fame, Or to the world proclaim.

But the imperfect thing, or thought,

The crudities and yeast of youth, The dubious doubt, the twilight truth, The work that for the passing day was wrought, The schemes that came to nought,

The sketch half-way 'twixt verse and prose That mocks the finish'd picture true, The quarry whence the statue grew, The scaffolding 'neath which the palace rose, The vague abortive throes

And fever-fits of joy or gloom :

In kind oblivion let them be!

Nor has the dead worse foe than he Who rakes these sweepings of the artist's room, And piles them on his tomb.

Ah, 'tis but little that the best, Frail children of a fleeting hour, Can leave of perfect fruit or flower! Ah, let all else be graciously supprest

When man lies down to rest!

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