POETRY.

JEUSHID IN EXILE. •

CALLED by his name he trembled at the word : Through the dim languor of the exile's eyes, While memory clove him like a two-edged sword, Jemshid beheld his former state arise: All woman's beauty and all love's desire

Were to him dreaming like a tale unknown. He lived again that day of pride and gloom When like a forest fire About the hollow mountain of his throne Men cried him God and God decreed his doom.

Long was that reign whose record yet remains Time's witness of the vanity of man.

He turned a desert into fruitful plains Before the golden age of Greece began : He taught all arts and banished all disease With sloth and idleness from out his realm, Bent with his resolute and victorious hand Great genii to their knees, Covered the sea with ships and learned to whelin Men's hearts with gladness over all the land.

Then like some vampire in a restful night Pride rode the easy wind of his success, Sucked sweet humility from Jemshid's might And led th' unconquered king in boastfulness To claim at last even God was less than he, Forgetful that the utmost power he had Was but vouchsafed him for a borrower's use Out of God's treasury, To be recalled what time Omniscience bade, Leaving a dry skin trodden of its juice.

Swift fell the wrath, and driven from that land Jemahid's worn feet must bleed like other men's; He who had won a garden from the sand Must find a desert world for recompense. And evil Zohak, Iblis' victim, reigned On Jemshid's throne, the throne he built with pearls, In Jemshid's crown, that crown with rubies set; And should what now remained Of Jsmshid be a dallier among girls Hiding himself from an usurper's net ?

" I am not Jemshid; he is gone away

Upon the ocean on a mighty quest

To found the kingdom of a future day In unknown countries of the distant West.

I may not live to see his face again

And all my grief is to be left behind.

Once—once I saw him in a blaze of spears, And while I yet remain Between the stones that aortal passions grind His name calls forth these uncontrolled tears."

"Deny thyself to others, not to me—

Or call thyself by any other name Since thou art still that wondrous majesty Under whatever guise to me the same.

My nurse beheld thee in my horoscope, Thy painted image lights my father's ball And fed by aspiration to thine eyes My life grew all one hope : Beloved, claim thine own and own thyself

Thyself ere one more moment of thee dies."

Her looeen'd tresses rippling to the ground

Fill the soft air with perfume and her breast In close impulsive pressure murmurs " Found " As her arms clasp him to oblivious rest.

Broken he yields and like a little child Nestles to comfort cradled in her love; "Before" is past and " after " is not yet; On odorous zephyrs mild The fireflies dance and in the skies above Gleam the star-jewels of night's carcanet.

A. neon Franca.