POETRY.
ARABESQUE.
RE-READING on an English wold, Made misty will September light, The thousand stories that of old Made live each long Arabian night, Colour and mystery as a haze
Had drenched their thoughts and made them blind, Until from out the blare and blaze A city rose into my mind—
A city older than the years, Haunting the sense like some old tune, Its towers stand up straight like spears All splashed and spattered by the moon.
Its streets are full of swordsmen grim, And eunuchs with enormous keys, And muffled damsels straight and slim, And laughter behind lattices, And dusky shops, where merchants old, With turbans tall as giant pears, From ebon caskets wrought with gold Draw forth their scented silken wares, Heaped rubies, sullen, beyond price, Great snake-eyed emeralds winking green, Slim jars close-packed with odorous spice To deck some pale Arabian queen.
And sometimes in each shadowed street The sudden doorways light a way To gardens pale and sad and sweet Where bells are heard at close of day.
Would I might see it plain, and yet The real might be so far behind! Alone, I inly contemplate The perfect Baghdad of my mind.
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