Arthur Colton

“ The counsellors approving the king's word,
And spoke above their even murmuring:
"Let justice be with God and with the king,
Who are not subject to a moment's chance,
Made and unmade by shifting circumstance.
This is the wisdom of the poor and weak:
The smitten cheek shall warn its brother cheek,
And each man to his nook of comfort run,
His little portion of the morning sun,
His little corner of the noonday shade,
His wrongs forgotten as his debts unpaid.
Let not the evil and the good we do
Be ghosts to haunt us, phantoms to pursue. ”

“ Of further trading with this beggar here;
For he nor I have caused the world to be,
Nor govern kingdoms with our equity."
"Art thou so poor then, and the beggar wise,
God's justice hidden, and the king's astray?"
Answered the king, slow-voiced, with brooding eyes.
"Art thou so weak, and strong to drive away
Far from to-day the ghost of yesterday?
Free is thy lifted head, while on mine own
The gathered past lies heavier than the crown?
So be it as thou sayest, with him and thee,
Thou who forgivest evil bitterly."
So spoke the king. ”

“ Who calleth thee a fool, means none but thee,"
Answered the beggar. "For I understood
To pay the evil back and keep the good
Is increase of the good in merchandise;
Therefore I keep the dinar, and am wise."
Which thing was brought to the king's ear, and he
Summoned the two to stand before his knee,
And took the dinar from the beggar's hand,
And giving to Ben Ali, gave command
To those who waited for his word: "Bring stones
That he may beat with them this beggar's bones,
Who mocks at justice, saying 'God is just,'
And boasting wisdom, fouls her in the dust." ”

“ And the king bade them set the Afghan free,
Who in the face of death spoke graciously.
Ben Ali, the young vizier, to his feet
Leaped: "As I hold by counsellors it is meet
Truth should be spoken at a king's demand,
This man reviled thee with a shameful word!"
Whereat the king was mute, as one who heard
A voice in his own breast; turned with his hand
The bracelets on his arm; then speaking low,
Once more he bade them let the Afghan go.
THE KING. "Art thou so upright, and by God made free
To be malignant in integrity?
Is it the truth alone thou owest to the king? ”

“ And left the chattering Afghan with a smile,
To walk among his aloe trees awhile,
Thinking: "Day closes. Ere another close
These things I see no more, for a king's wrath
Leaps foaming down and falls, as cataracts leap
And fall from sleeping pools to pools asleep,
And either ere to-morrow night I die,
Or all my days in exiled penury
Among strange peoples tread the strangers' path." ”

“ And barbed jest that the king's anger stirred,
And he was led beyond the noisy brawls
Of traders chaffering at the market stalls,
And in a pit thrown near the city walls.
Whither the beggar came, and came alone,
A cobble in his hand, beside the pit.
"The wise man waiteth till the time is fit,
The foolish hasteneth to grief," he said,
Casting the cobble on Ben Ali's head:
"I am that beggar, and behold that stone." ”

“ Long lightnings slant, and muffled thunders rise,
And startled forests, helpless to retreat,
Stand with their struggling arms and buried feet.
An aged vizier rose, and bowed his head,
Clasping his gentle withered hands: "He said:
'To two God gives the shelter of His cloak,
Him who keeps down the anger in his breast,
Him who in justice counteth mercy best;
God shelter me and thee.' The man so spoke." ”

“ And sending for the beggar, softly said:
"This is that stone."
The beggar bowed his head:
'"And this my head, which is among the lowly,
As thine is high, and God is just and holy,"
And threw himself lamenting on the floor.
Ben Ali pondered then a moment more.
"Thou sayest truly, God is just; and lo!
Both of our heads have ached beneath a blow.
I in my time grow wiser, and divine
The beating of thy head will not heal mine;
And have considered and have found it wise,
To exchange with thee some other merchandise. ”

“ The ragged Afghan from the marble floor,
Nor longer to the king's feet weeping clung,
But in the babble of his foreign tongue
He cursed him, as that ancient saying goes:
"Who comes to wash himself in death, before
Entering the pool, empties his heart ashore." ”

“ BEN ALI. "It is good law, O King, and good to heed.
Now, of 'religious purposes' it calls
First, 'to relieve the needy of their need.'
Can it be doubted that this Afghan falls
Among the 'needy,' and became a thief
To his own need's immediate relief?
Nay, in the very act of thieving vowed
That 'pious dedication'? Which allowed,
Follows the law's exemption."
The king smiled,
And said: "Set free this good man. To thy wild
Bleak mountains, Afghan. Is the world so small
That thou must steal—if thou must steal at all—
From such a friend as this?" ”

“ We thank Thee, Lord, for the years we've had,
For the years that yet shall be.
These are our brothers, the winds of the airs,
These are our sisters, the flowers;
Be near us at evening and hear our prayers,
O God, in the late, grey hours.
THE HOUSE Such an house I'll build and own,
When into old contentment grown
With reaping what my youth has sown.
The drooping roof be low and wide,
Curved like a seashell's inner side;
Let vines the patient pillars hide
Of that deep porch and ample shade ”

“ Ours is the charge to bear it on,
To hold the veering banner high
Until we die,
To meet the issue in whose awe
Our kindred earth we stand above,
If knowing sacrifice is law,
We sacrifice ourselves for love. ”

“ Saving when envy speaks, which spoke in thee.
But thou, my father, shall not thy name be
Henceforth 'The Merciful'? For so thou art.
So spoke the king, and, leaning head to head,
The courtiers whispered, and Ben Ali said:
BEN ALI. "Is it not written: 'When the truth is known,
Then only the king's mercy is his own'? ”

“ Bethink thee, gentle Corydon! A rose lasts all night
long,
A kiss but slips from off your lips like a thrush's
evening song.
A kiss that goes, where no one knows! A rose, a
crimson rose!
Corydon made his choice and took—Well, which do
you suppose?
MAYING Get up, sweet-slug-a-bed!—Herrick.
And Phillida with garlands gaye
Was made the lady of the Maye.—Nicholas Breton.
Come, Phillida, come! for the hours are fleet,
And sweet are the soft meadow murmurs, and sweet
Are the merry May flowers that long for thy feet. ”

“ Whose gain of years is found
A little silt of golden things
Forgotten on the ground!
LET ME NO MORE A MENDICANT Let me no more a mendicant
Without the gate
Of the world's kingly palace wait;
Morning is spent,
The sentinels change and challenge in the tower,
Now slant the shadows eastward hour by hour.
Open the door, O Seneschal! Within
I see them sit,
The feasters, daring destiny with wit,
Casting to win
Or lose their utmost, and men hurry by
At offices of confluent energy. ”

“ But sends the flowers that in its crannies creep,
And in His very scales of justice throws
The young man's dreams, the tears of them that weep,
The words the maiden murmurs to the rose."
The king was still. A passing boatman's oars
Sent the lit ripples to the shadowed shores.
A near muézzin's long, high-towered call
Went yearning up to star-lit architraves,
And dying left a silence over all,
Saving the grassy whisper of small waves.
THE BEGGAR There was a man whom a king loved, and heard
With smiles his swift step and impetuous word
Among the slow-paced counsellors. ”

“ By process of the silent years,"
More fain the busy hands to fold,
More quiet when a tale is told
Where death appears.
It is not that the feet would shrink
From that dark river, lapping, cold,
And hid with mists from brink to brink;
Only one likes to sit and think,
As one grows old. ”

“ WORDSWORTH Not for a kindred reason thee we praise
With those, who in their minstrelsy are lords
Of elfin pipe and witchery of words,
Masters of life, who thread its tangled maze,
And on strange corners turn their curious gaze ”

“ They are waiting to make thee their Lady of May,
And have twined in the midst of the marigolds gay
A little red flower; for pity, they say;
Thou knowest for whom.
And lovers are sighing among the green brake,
And birds in their flying soft madrigals make. ”

“ The constant litanies arise;
The burden of its many sighs
Goes up to thee.
Our lives make murmur and are vain
As ripples bringing tiny shells,
That the great sea behind impels,
And all its waves complain. ”

“ Sometimes—it's strange—one's eyes are wet.
Nannette! Nannette!
What's that! I dream! Did some one speak?
Her hair was blown across my cheek.
It seemed so. How the shutters creak!
Did some one speak?
CHRISTMAS EVE The abbot was counting his beads in his cell
With a flagon beside him. The abbot drank well,
And emptied it oft ere the first matin bell.
All quiet, all well.
"Hist! Brother Menander! A word in thine ear.
I'll show thee a way, if the corridor's clear,
To the abbot's own cellar. The abbot may hear?
Never fear! Never fear!" ”

“ And Tabitha, sweet Tabitha, mine eyes beheld no more.
I've trod in many measures since with widow, wife, and
maid,
In every kind of satin, silk, and spangled lace arrayed,
And through it all have heard the fall of Tabitha's
brocade.
AN IDYL OF THE WOOD Janet and I went jesting
To the wood, to the wood,
In a visionary, questing,
Idle mood.
"Ah! my heart," I said, "it teaches
I shall find among the beeches
A white nymph in the green reaches
Of the wood."—
"Oh, you will! ”

“ Which are themselves but sympathies; that the worn
Fine here a "still Saint Mary's Lake"; because
"The world is too much with us," and through thee
"Old Triton" sometimes blows on "wreathed horn"
A fitful note, clear from infinity. ”