Henry Abbey

“ She said she was Eudocia, that Yorghi was her sire;
I said I was Demetrius, a beggar vile and low,
But 'neath my heart's one crucible love lit its fusing fire.
Her sensuous long dark lashes hung above her dreamy eyes,
Like twin clouds of stormy portent balanced over limpid deeps;
Like the wings of birds of passage seen against the hazy skies;
Like the petal o'er the pollen of the flow'ret when it sleeps.
All her vesture was embroidered with the finest lace of gold;
A diamond in her turban with its eye-like glitter shone ”

“ Still I changed not my apparel, still I wore my bezan robe,
Still I donned the self-same turban with its frayed and faded red;
I would have no other garb then had I owned the whirling globe;
Better rich to wear a tatter, than poor, wear silk, I said.
Daily from my mullioned window flew a pigeon in the air,
And beneath its wing lay folded lines for her I loved the best;
Daily from her palace window it returned and brought me there,
Rhymeless idyls full of heart-speech, faithful ardors of her breast. ”

“ For me, 'tis years since there was one,
And that was scarcely mine.
Father and mother both are dead;
I sell sweet flowers to earn my bread—
Their fragrance is my wine.
"Sometimes the house upon the farm,
Sometimes the city's friendly arm,
Shields me from rain and dew.
I did not know that it was late;
The minutes you have had to wait,
Are truly but a few."
A smile shone through her large dark eyes,
As sometimes, in the stormy skies,
The light puts through an arm,
Which, spreading glory far and wide,
Draws the broad curtain cloud aside,
Making the whole earth warm. ”

“ I became a hissing traitor to the land I owed my bread.
All was plain; if I was faithful, then Eudocia was lost;
Recreant, and gaining victory, I could claim her as my right.
I scarcely weighed the balance, and I dared not count the cost;
I stole out from the city to the alien camp that night.
I was loyal to the purpose that within my heart was shrined;
Another might have coped with it, and triumphed o'er its fall.
So men are, they do not vary much, the level of mankind,
What one lacks the next possesses; there are faults enough in all. ”

“ 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! ”

“ In triumph from Magenta; every one
Had heard and praised the fearless marshal's name,
And gloried in the deeds that he had done.
Crowds packed the walks, and at each pane of glass
A face was set to see the hero pass. ”

“ THE WEDDING AND THE FALSE FRIEND.
When the night fell, in the palace all the lights were lit again.
In the hall of silken standards and of Persia-woven mats
There were women fair as houris, there were brave and handsome men;
And the fish leaped up to see them from the fountain's silver vats.
Never yet so fair Eudocia, and she won the wisest praise
From the aliens there assembled to behold our marriage rite;
Not alone her queenly beauty; but the grace of all her ways,
Drew all hearts and eyes toward her, filled like cups with pure delight. ”

“ Stanley, who could not see a wrong excused,
Said, "God is just; he knows nor white nor black.
If war must come, each shackle will be forced,
To make, at last, the nation wholly free."
[Pg 44]
And Karagwe, who pulled a silent oar,
Shut the winged words in cages of his heart;
But Coralline was angry at the speech,
And rained disdain on noble Stanley's head,
Scorning his Northern thought and Northern blood,
And sighed that it had been their lot to meet.
"If that is true," he said, "then let us part,
And let us hope we shall not meet again.
Adieu! for I shall see you never more." ”

“ And every one who has a plan devised,
Is like a foolish walker on a rope,
First balancing on this side, then on that,
Hazarding much to gain a paltry end;
And if the rope of calculation breaks,
Or if the foot slip, added to mishap
Come the world's jeers and gibes; and so 'tis best.
Should half men's schemings find success at last,
I fear God's plans would have but narrow room.
(Michael Gianni, now I know your name,
This premonition gives the hint to me
To trip you in your studied subtleties.
You will not win my Grace, who loves me still;
You will not dare to kiss her hand again.) ”

“ Round the ancient Cintran city runs a dark wall broad and strong,
Like the mailed belt of a warrior, and the gate the buckle seems;
While a tower toward the sunset is a dagger hilted long;
Whose blade is bid in foldings of 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. ”

“ Which shone down in my heart; while the far space
Behind them, pure, but unknown, was the soul.
I thought to test this maiden's charity;
And so, one friendly day, put on a robe
Tattered and soiled with use. As she went by,
I strode abruptly from behind a wall,
And faced her with a face disguised, and held
My hand out while I begged for some small alms.
She gave abundantly from her lean purse,
And with a look of tender pity, passed.
It matters little who it is that asks,
Or whether he deserves the alms or not;
That given with free heart, is given to God,
And not to him who takes. ”

“ When perforce I chose between them, through the wisdom of the Lord.
High upon the rocky summit of a cliff in red Algiers,
Raised against the sky of sunset, like a beaker filled with wine,
While each dome is like a bubble that above the brim appears,
Stands the city I was born in, my belovèd Constantine.
Nobly rise the brick-roofed houses with their heavy gray stone walls,
[Pg 56] While here and there, above them all, the mosque and minaret;
Like the voice of some enchanter sounds the bearded muezzin's calls,
And the rustle of the cypress seems a murmur of regret. ”

“ And tore it up, commanding that the slave
Have fifty lashes for this breach of law.
Long on his sentence pondered Karagwe.
Against the law? Who then could make a law
Decreeing knowledge to a certain few,
To others ignorance? Surely not God;
For God, the white-haired negro with a text
Had said loved justice, and was friend to all.
If man, then the authority was null.
The fifty lashes scourged the slave's bare back,
The red blood running down at every stroke,
The dark skin clinging ghastly to the lash. ”

“ At times lay next his heart, nor did its beat
Defile the fruity knowledge on the leaves.
The words were sweet as wine of Eshcol grapes
To his parched lips. He saw the past arise.
Vague were the people, and the pageant moved,
Uncertain as the figures in the dusk;
Yet One there was, who stood in bold relief;
A lovely, noble face with sweeping beard,
And hair that trailed in beauty round his neck;
A patient man, whose deeds were always good. ”

“ Life is a harp, and all its nervous strings,
Touched by the fingers of the fear of death,
Jar with pathetic music. Having found
No trusty implement to bar the way
Of threatening peril, we embraced,
And kissed with silent kisses mixed with tears,
And waited for the end.
When no more,
Hope, like an eagle in the mountain air,
Soars in time's future, it mounts up with wings
Toward the unmapped city walled by death. ”

“ Her mother sleepeth
Beneath the green mound;
A white cross standeth
To show man the place.
Now close to the ground
Blanche bendeth her face.
She quickly riseth
As she hears my walk,
And sadly smileth
Through mists of tears;
We mournfully talk
Of departed years.
She downward droopeth
Her beautiful head,
And a blue-bell seemeth
That blossometh down;
Trembling with dread,
Lest the sky should frown.
She dearer seemeth
Than ever before.
She gently chideth
[Pg 20] My more distant way.
At her heart's one door
I entered to-day.
No palace standeth
As happy as this. ”

“ Tearing my strange ambition from my heart.
And Veera, too, embraced the Christian Faith.
So we arose, and went upon our way,
And journeying eastward, Eden found at last!
XII.
THE GARDEN.
The trees were housed with nests, and every one
Was like a city of song. The streams too
Were voluble; they laughed and gurgled there
Like men who, at a banquet, sit and drink
And chatter. All the grass was like a robe
Of velvet, and there was no need of rain.
In dells roofed with green leafage, nature spread
Couches meet for a Sybarite. ”

“ There is one Blanche feareth—
She loves not deceit—
She only wisheth
To dazzle his heart.
We promise to meet.
And separate depart.
XVII.
COMPARISONS.
The moon is like a shepherd with a flock of starry lambkins,
The wind is like a whisper to the mountains from the sea,
The sun a gold moth browsing on a flower's pearl-dusted pollen;
But my words can scarcely utter what my love is like to me.
[Pg 21]
She is the sun in light's magnificence across my heart's day shining,
She's the moon when through the heavens of my heart flash meteor dreams ”

“ For I wore, with faith, a secret, o'er the throbbing of my heart,
The symbol of a higher life, a simple silver Cross.
This had turned aside the weapon and spared me many years
For one whose heart has been to me a holy pilgrim shrine,
For one for whom I gave away with bitterness and tears
The city of Jugurtha, my own mother Constantine.
We dwell now in a palace near the white surge of a bay;
But at times my good steed wanders, and in the twilight late,
[Pg 81] I find me near my city, while the muezzin in the gray,
Shouts, "To prayer, to prayer, ye people, only God is good and great!" ”

“ I thus translated: Gihon is the Nile.
A perfect soul may find long life and gold.
Surely, I thought, Veera the maid is pure.
Her life's blue sky has not one cloud of sin.
If her feet press the soil where Eve first trod,
I can but follow and attain. So I
Back to Vienna came and found Veera.
To her I made my double purpose plain,
And prayed her to go with me in my search.
She smiled assent. To be near me, she said,
Had brought her to Vienna; this indeed
Detained her from her kinsmen. Her heart's book
Lay open to me, and I read her love.
So we were wed, and both lives ran to one. ”

“ Were the first heart-beats of a better day.
The avenging angel, with a scourging sword
Of fire and death, with triumph on his face,
Swept o'er the nation with the cry of War!
Ten thousand boroughs, dreaming peace, awake.
War in the South, with the South! War! War!
The shame we nourished stings us to the death. ”

“ Ruth spoke not; but the negro, with one grasp
Upon the white man, caused her quick release.
He turned, and in the face struck Karagwe.
The patient slave did not return the blow,
But the next day they tied him to a post,
And fifty stripes his naked shoulders flayed.
Stricken in mind at being deeply wronged,
Filled with a noble scorn, that men most learned
Would so degrade a brother race of men,
He wept at heart; no groan fled through his lips. ”

“ Ten friends of handsome presence, smooth demeanor, strong, and tall.
Every friend I gave a cloak to, purple velvet ermine-bound;
Every charger was caparisoned—the harness wrought with gold.
At high noon we started gayly, and the palace entrance found;
And I sought the statesman Yorghi with a purpose to unfold.
I had come to wed his daughter; all her heart had long been mine;
I had won her when a beggar, but I loved her more and more
[Pg 66] Now that my wealth was boundless—it but strengthened my design;
If he gave her I would cede him half my fortune, store on store. ”

“ All my gains were vainly gotten, for Eudocia was not mine.
Then my goods I turned to money, all my ships and houses sold,
And sent the glittering product far away from Constantine.
On us like a wild hawk swooping came Damrémont with his men;
But we saw his wing-like banners and we closed and barred the gates;
All the women urged to battle; every man a hero then ”

“ Lo, the doom of Constantine!
There's a traitor in the city, and the populace are dupes.
In the street I met a masker hurrying onward through the night,
And something in his bearing told of one I called a friend.
"Sir," I said, and on his shoulder I had laid my finger quite,
"Tell me why you mask your visage, and whereto your footsteps tend."
By my voice he knew me quickly, and removed his mask to say:
"My footsteps seek the palace; have you heard not of the fête?
In three days old Yorghi's daughter is to wed with Ahmed Bey;
To-night the plighting party; I must hasten; it is late." ”