Poems (Spofford)/Ali

ALI.

Hot smoked the hills, a sultry breath;
Hot lay the city underneath.
The tired slaves dropped from the hand
The heavy peacock plumes they fanned;
Or brought, with languid step and slow,
The lavendered and sugared snow;
Or swept aside, fold over fold,
The curtains of the cloth of gold,
Where lay the king, with fevered mouth,
In his pavilion to the south.

When, like the answer to some prayer,
Crept a soft rustle on the air,
Up from the gardens stole a breeze
Across the gilded lattices,
And waved the perfumed fountains' flow
Like shining ribbons to and fro;
And sighed across the king's repose
The breath of jasmine and of rose,
The fragrance of the falling fruit;
And brought the tinkle of a lute,
Brought the low song, and brought the stir
Of happy voices praising her
Who sang, and brought, recurring slow,
A far faint cry, a wail of woe.

The monarch turned him in his ease,—
Again that plaint his dream to tease!
Long as the pleasant wind should blow,
That far faint cry, that wail of woe!
Again it came across the noon,
And jarred upon the joyous tune,
And hushed the warbling flute and fret,
Where, underneath their golden net,
The singing birds sprang airily
From myrtle bough and citron-tree;
And as the music welled anew,
The melancholy note came too,
And mingled in discordant strain
This world of bliss, that world of pain.
"Fetch me the wretch!" cried Haroun then;
"Fetch me that wretchedest of men,
Who lifts, to vex the soul in me,
His pipe of petty misery!
Shall such a base and trivial thing
Prevent my peace, and I be king?"

"Let thy slave speak," a voice replied.
"By the king's word one will have died
Before this shining day grows dim,—
'T is Ali's women mourning him."

Upon his silken cushions then
The king his slumber sought again;
But far away all slumber kept
The while those wailing women wept.
Dull to his sense the sweet sounds came,
And dark the sunshine's fragrant flame,—
Dark as the shameful day should be
That set on Ali's treachery.
"Let music cease, let none be glad!"
The eunuch cried. "The king is sad.
But hither bid the Jew, to sing,
And satisfy my lord the king,
Out of the ancient songs he knows
Of prophets prophesying woes."

And the Jew sang: "O king! the air
Blows o'er the fair earth everywhere,
And blows again. From day to day
The sun sheds his eternal ray.
Stars rise and set, but every night
The same, their terrible white light
Searching the little soul of man
Born of a woman, and a span
Measures whose being, scarce less brief
Than the space left the dancing leaf.
The beauty of the world remains;
But man, with all his pride and pains,
Is but a smoke,—ay, like the breath
Of his own nostril vanisheth.
The generations go their ways;
A pinch of dust is all that stays,—
A pinch of dust that idle air
Blows o'er the fair earth everywhere.

""Build thee thy palace. Let the doors
Be cedarn, and of brass the floors;
And let thy purple curtains swing
Their cunning work, thy fountains fling
Their silver waters; have thy fill
Of milk and honey from the hill,
While moon-faced damsels round thee sing,—
One day thou art not, thou, O king!

"Build thee thy tomb. Of mountain rock
Fashion its members, that they mock
Time's thrusts, and overlay its arch
In gold to stay an army's march,
And carve the crypt out for thy bones,
And lay the walks in pleasant stones,
And wrap round thy magnificence
Aloes and myrrh and frankincense,
And light thy lamp. At last the sod
Some laborer turns, himself a clod,
Within its tangled roots and mould
All that is left of thee shall hold.

"Where are the kings long dead? Their tombs
Are overgrown with bitter blooms.
There is no king, there is no slave,
Nor work, nor wisdom, in the grave.
The lice that plagued th' Egyptian day,
Man were more pitiable than they,
If one thing passed not these vain things,—
The mercy of the King of kings."
And the Jew sang, "O king! thus saith
The Lord of life, the Lord of death."

Propped upon either hand, Haroun
Gazed wide-eyed on the vacant noon,
Listening; then rent his scarf, and cried:
"What boots it that my land is wide;
That my victorious armies go
Only to meet a crawling foe;
That Justice sits upon my seat,
With the drawn sword beneath her feet;
That all my palaces are fair
In pillared arches everywhere,
Set all in gold and precious stones
And carven ivory of thrones,
Beneath the shade of branching palms,
Among the gardens and their balms?
Why do I watch the almonds shake,
Day long, their blossoms in the lake,
Or take my pleasure in the court
To see the laughing children sport,
Rose-limbed, in all their dimpled pranks,
Within the shallow water tanks?
Why do my dancers make delight,
When the pale cressets throw at night
Long lights on the delicious dusk
Heavy with ambergris and musk,
While softly steals the liquid note,
Shaking the nightingale's pure throat,
Then mounts to some ecstatic height
As a wing beats when lost in light?
What joyance should I take in love?
Why should my blood the swifter move
When over me the white slave bends,
The gold haired woman Venice sends
From the far isles beyond the sea?
What blessedness in these can be,
When to no end I draw my breath
But loathsome and disgusting death,
That holds me beggared in his thrall,
Till nothing is the close of all?
The stars shall keep their awful place,
But I and all my mighty race
Are but a song when sound has fled,
Cease like a story that is said.
Accurst the day when I was born,
The purple night, the melting morn!
Accurst the breast whereon I lay!
Accurst this handful of red clay!
Haroun is but some meanest thing,—
O dust and ashes, you are king!"

And the king wept. And through the place
Crept silence for a little space,
Till once more came, recurring slow,
That far faint cry, that wail of woe.
"What!" whispered Haroun; "weep they still
That Ali suffers the king's will?
Is the slight remnant of his year
So little Worth, yet worth a tear?
And can the breaking heart so praise
The nothingness of length of days?
Bid the sound cease!" he cried. "Give o'er!
I never was a king before.
Here I defy the powers that slay!
The breath upon the lip I stay!
Are life and death the king's to give?
Bring Ali forth! Let the worm live!"