sire ascetic in the caveAbove the spring; and of the spring he spake,
A wayside comforter of suffering men,
With endless cheer of draught and song and dance,
Lest that way they should pass, and scoffing say,
It is not true that God is everywhere.
And then he told of how he came to see
The wondrous child, and paused to bless the chance—
A favor shaken from the Prophet's sleeve!
And since that hour, he said, the beautiful
Apparent in the other fairest things
Was not for him. Nay, looked he in the sky
At night, the utmost splendor of the stars
Was all a-rust.
"'And is she then so fair ?'
The listener asked.
"'I know not in the world,'
Our Othman said, 'by which to make thee know
How fair she is, surpassing all her kind—
Nothing of perfume to the nostrils sweet,
Nothing lovely to the eye, or to ear,
Nothing of music.'
"Thereupon they gave
Each other hand, and went their several ways:
Othman, a lover with his love in love,
And doing childish things, as if the air
Were not alive with elves to laugh at him;
Now grumbling to his horse of Malkatoon;
Now whipping quatrains rude and cradleish
Until they sung of her as heroine;
Or when a breeze came stepping o'er the grass,
Lusty with life, and promising to go
A distance, with finger or his sword
Upon the sluggish air he wrote her name,
And bade the breeze, 'Ho! slave of Solomon!
Take thou this writing to my Malkatoon,
Nor say thou canst not find her. In a cave
Scarce two hours hence by measure of my steed
In easy gait, a daughter's part she doth
By old Edebali, the Dervish saint
Well known alike to kings and common men.
Below the cave, and in its shade at noon,
There is a spring, the mother of a pool
Of lucent water. There I saw her first,
And there with equal fortune it may be
That, hasting, thou shalt find her; and if so—
O happy breeze!—be careful not to give
Her fright by any rudeness, but approach
Her gently—gently—would 'twere mine to teach
Thee by example! Fingers of the air
Should have a tender touch; therefore I yield
Thee leave to lift her hair—'tis black as night—
And bare her brow, and blow upon her eyes
A breath not strong enough to more than cool
The dewy lids; or thou mayst fluff her hair,
And with it whip the whiteness of her neck,
So thou disturb her not; for it may be
She dreams of me. Begone!'
"Thus Othman went,
Never a man so with his love in love.
Far otherwise the Lord of Eskischeer!
The reins hung low upon his courser's neck,
And nigh asleep, it drowsed and drowsed along,
While he, forgetful of his armed heels,
And of his journey, and the mine of things
About him and above, in grim debate,
But silent rode, his mien that of one
Just stumbled upon a wonder of the world
Within him, half a feeling, half a thought,
A fancy formless, faint, a vague desire
At first without an object, and so strange
He could but question it. So on a waste
Of waters from the bursting of a wave
There springs a spray so pale and thin it seems
To mock the searching eye; and so as clouds
That ere long mantle Heaven, and possess
It utterly, are first but pallid mist
Of breaking waves, the small desire became
A passion with the Lord of Eskischeer.
And on a hill-top, looking back, he stopt
At sight of Othman in the vale below,
And shook his hand at him, and said aloud:
"'Thou black-browed son of Islam, go thy way,
For 'tis the fool's, and thou becomest it,
A torch not more the night. Thou not to know
That every sense we have is but a gate,
An airy gate on downy hinges hung,
For Love to come and go! Keep the way; pave
It end to end with fantasies in rhyme,
And dreams of Allah, and Edebali,
And Malkatoon, and, with thy comrade fools,
Chatter and sing, and plague the fainting sky
With beat of drums and flaunt of flags; nor leave
