J. G. Holland

“ Upon his throne he sat alone, half buried in the gems
That strewed his tapestries like stars, and tipped their tawny hems,
And glittered with the glory of a hundred diadems.
He saw from his pavilion door the nodding heron plumes
His nobles wore upon their brows, while, from the rosy glooms
Which hid his harem, came low songs, on wings of rare perfumes!
The elephants, a thousand strong, had passed his dreaming eye,
Caparisoned with golden plates on head and breast and thigh,
And a hundred flashing troops of horse unmarked had thundered by. ”

“ And stem the hisses that they dare,
And modest truth and beauty save.
No woman, in her soul, is she
Who longs to poise above the roar
Of motley multitudes, and be
The idol at whose feet they pour
The wine of their idolatry.
Coarse labor makes its doer coarse;
Great burdens harden softest hands;
A gentle voice grows harsh and hoarse
That warns and threatens and commands
Beyond the measure of its force.
Oh sweet, beyond all speech, to feel
Within no answer to the drum,
Or echo to the bugle-peal,
That calls to duties which benumb
In service of the commonweal! ”

“ Of a lone lakelet on its breast,
Or but a patch, that, overawed,
Clings humbly to the mountain's hem:
It matters not: it is the charm
That cheers his life, and holds the stem
Of every flower that tempts his arm,
Or greets his snowy diadem.
Dolts talk of largest and of least,
And worse than dolts are they who prate
Of Beauty captive to the Beast;
For man in woman finds his mate,
And thrones her equal at his feast. ”

“ He tossed a handful of the gems down where his minion lay,
Who snatched a jewel from the drift, and swiftly sped away
With his command to Nourmahal, who waited to obey.
But needlessly the mandate fell of silence on the crowd,
For when the Empress swept the path, ten thousand heads were bowed,
And drum and vina ceased their din, and no one spoke aloud.
As comes the moon from out the sea with her attendant breeze,
As sweeps the morning up the hills and blossoms in the trees,
So Nourmahal to Selim came: then fell upon her knees! ”

“ A value stricken from the sum
Which a true woman's hand would raise
To mighty numbers, and endow
With kingly power and crowning praise.
She must be mate of his; but how?
And, dreaming of a thousand ways
Her hands would work, her feet would tread,
She thought to match him as a man!
His books should be her daily bread;
She would run swiftly where he ran,
And follow closely where he led.
XVIII. Since time began, the perfect day
Has robbed the morrow of its wealth,
And squandered, in its lavish sway,
The balm and beauty of the stealth,
And left its golden throne in gray. ”

“ The old life closed: the new before!"
"Dinah, the mistress!" And the maid,
Grown motherly with household care
And loving service, and arrayed
In homely neatness, took the pair
Of small gloved hands held out, and paid
Her low obeisance; then—"this way!"
And when she brought her forth at last,
To him who grudged the long delay,
He found the soil of travel cast,
And Mildred fresh and fair as May.
II "This is our little Manse," he said.
"Now look with both your curious eyes
Around, above and overhead,
And seeing all things, realize
That they are ours, and we are wed! ”

“ He sat upon old Akbar's throne, the heir of power and fame,
But all his glory was as dust, and dust his wondrous name—
Swept into air, and scattered far, by one consuming flame!
For on that day of all the days, and in that festal hour,
He sickened with his glory and grew weary of his power,
And pined to bind upon his breast his harem's choicest flower,
"Oh Nourmahal! oh Nourmahal! why sit I here," he cried,—
"The victim of these gaudy shows, and of my haughty pride,
When thou art dearer to my soul than all the world beside!
"Thy eyes are brighter than the gems piled round gilded seat ”

“ Both, as happy as the day,
Kissed, and rose, and flew away!
And for twice a thousand years,
Floating through the radiant ether,
Lived the happy glendoveers,
Of the other, jealous neither,—
Sapphire naught without the red,
Ruby still by blue bested.
But when weary of their life,
They came down to earth at even—
Purple husband, purple wife—
From the upper deeps of heaven,
And reclined upon the grass,
That their little lives might pass.
Wing to wing and arms enwreathed,
Sank they from their life's long dreaming;—
Into earth their souls they breathed ”

“ Blazons its galaxy of stars.
No more to party strife the slave,
And freed from Hate's infernal spells,
Love pays her tribute to the brave,
And snows her holy immortelles
O'er friend and foe, where'er his grave.
On every Decoration Day
The white-haired Mildred finds her mounds
Decked with the garnered bloom of May—
Flowers planted first within her wounds,
And fed by love as white as they.
And Philip's first-born, strong and sage,
Through Heaven's design or happy chance
Finds the old church his heritage,
And still, The Mistress of the Manse,
Sits Mildred, in her silver age! ”

“ Thy cheeks are softer than the silks that shimmer at my feet,
And purer heart than thine in woman's breast hath never beat!
"My first love—and my only love—Oh babe of Candahar!
Torn from my boyish arms at first, and, like a silver star
Shining within another heaven, and worshipped from afar,
"Thou art my own at last, my own! ”

“ Then paused, and from the Empress changed to improvisatrice,
And wove this song—a golden chain—that led him into peace:
Lovely children of the light,
Draped in radiant locks and pinions,—
Red and purple, blue and white—
In their beautiful dominions,
On the earth and in the spheres,
Dwell the little glendoveers.
And the red can know no change,
And the blue are blue forever,
And the yellow wings may range
Toward the white or purple never.
But they mingle free from strife,
For their color is their life. ”

“ Of glory in her week's long task,
This marvel of the week had wrought,
Had earned the boon she would not ask,
And won more love than she had sought.
III. As two who walk through forest aisles,
Lit all the way by forest flowers,
Divide at morn through twin defiles
To meet again in distant hours,
With plunder plucked from all the miles,
So Philip and his Mildred went
Into their walks of daily life,—
Parting at morn with sweet consent,
And—tireless husband, busy wife—
Together when the day was spent ”

“ Each step a note of music, and each fall and flash a thrill,
The rill goes singing to the meadow levels and is still,
So fell from Nourmahal her song upon the captive sense;
It dashed in spray against the throne, it tinkled through the tents,
And died at last among the flowery banks of recompense;
For when great Selim marked her fire, and read her riddle well,
And watched her from the flushing to the fading of the spell,
He sprang forgetful, from his seat, and caught her as she fell.
He raised her in his tender arms; he bore her to his throne:
"No more, oh! ”

“ Marriage is freedom: only when
The husband turns the prison-key
Knows she herself; nor even then
Knows she more wisely well than he,
Who finds himself least wise of men.
New duties bring new powers to birth,
And new relations, new surprise
Of depths of weakness or of worth,
Until he doubt if her disguise
Mask more of heaven, or more of earth.
Tears spring beneath a careless touch;
Endurance hardens with a word ”

“ And bade them honor as his own, fair Nourmahal's command.
And on the minted silver that his largess scattered wide,
And on the gold of commerce, till the mighty Selim died,
Her name and his in shining boss stood equal, side by side.
XXII. The opening of the wondrous tome
Was like the opening of a door
Into a vast and pictured dome,
Crowded, from vaulted roof to floor,
With secrets of her life and home.
To be like Philip was to be
Another Philip—only less!
To win his wit in full degree
Would bear to him but nothingness,
From one no wiser grown than he! ”

“ Those whose pleasures are unstinted,
And whose purple hair and wings
Give them place with queens and kings.
When a purple glendoveer
Flits along the mute expanses,
They surround him, far and near,
With their glancing wings and dances,
And do honor to the hue
Loved by all and worn by few. ”

“ That charged her with so sweet a debt.
So ran her thought; and in her breast
Her wifely pride to pity grew,
That Philip, by his Lord's behest—
To duty and to nature true—
Must do his bravest and his best. ”

“ When their color dies, they die,—
Blent with earth or ether slowly—
Leaving where their spirits lie,
Not a stain, so pure and holy
Is the essence and the thought
Which their fading brings to naught! ”

“ And I found it at last with a cry:
"Oh dear little jewel!" said I;
And I washed it with tears all the day;
Then I kissed it, and put it away.
"Poor little lamb of the sheepfold!
Unlovely and feeble it grew ”

“ Come to me, Nourmahal! Oh come, and hallow with thy grace
The glories that without thy love are meaningless and base!"
He spoke a word, and, quick as light, before him lying prone
A dark-eyed page, with gilded vest and crimson-belted zone,
Looked up with waiting ear to mark the message from the throne.
"Go summon Nourmahal, my queen ”