The Caverns of Kaf

One, Benreddin, I have heard,
Near the town of Mosul sleeping,
In a dream beheld a bird,
Wonderful, with plumes of sweeping
Whiteness, crowned pomegranate-red:
And, it seemed, his soul it led,
Brilliant as a blossom, keeping
Near the Tigris as it fled.

Following, at last he came
To a haggard valley, shouldered
Under peaks that had no name:
Where it vanished. ’Mid the bouldered
Savageness a woman, fair,
In a white simarre, stood there,
Auburn-haired; around whom smoldered
Pensive lights of purple air.

And she led him down to vast
Caves of sardonyx, whose ceiling
Domed one chrysoberyl. Blast
On blast of music,--stealing
Out of aural atmospheres,--
Beat like surf upon his ears;
Then receded, faintly pealing
Psalteries and dulcimers.

Living figures seemed to heave
High the walls, where, wild, embattled,
Warred Amshaspand and the Deev:
Over all two splendors rattled
Arms of Heaven, arms of Hell;
Forms of flame that seemed to swell
Godlike: Aherman who battled
With Ormuzd he could not quell.

There she left him wond’ring; till
The reverberant music, drifting,
Strong beyond his utmost will,
Drew him onward where, high lifting
Pillar and entablature,
Vast with emblem, yawned a door--
Valves of liquid lightning, shifting
In and out and up and o’er.

Through the door he swept: deep-domed,
Green with serpentine and beryl,
Loomed a cavern, crusted, foamed,
Tortuous with gems of peril:
Difficult, a colonnade
Seemed, of satin-spar, to braid
Deeps of labyrinthed and sterile
Tiger-spar that, twisting, rayed.

Dizzy stones of magic price
Crammed volute and loaded corbel:
Irridescent shafts of ice
Leapt: with long reëchoed warble
Waters unto waters sang:
Crystal arc and column sprang
Into fire as each marble
Fountain flung its foam that rang.

And around him, filled with sound,
Streams of resonant colors jetted:
Rainbow surf that interwound
Crypts and arcades, crescent-fretted:
Mists of citron and of roon;
Lemon lights that mocked the moon;
Shot with scarlet, veined and netted,
Beating golden hearts of tune.

Suns arose, of blinding blue;
Moons of green-dilating splendor:
In whose centers slowly grew
Spots like serpents’ eyes that, slender,
Glared; at first, prismatic beams;
Then, intolerable gleams;
Hissing trails of fire, tender
As an houri’s breath that dreams.

Characters of Arabic,
Cabalistic, red as coral,
Flashed through violet veils, so quick
None might read: as if, in quarrel,
Iran wrote of Turan there
Hate and scorn, or, everywhere,
Wrought some talisman of moral
Strength no Afrit’s heart would dare.

Sounding splendors drew him on
To another cavern; hollow;
Hewn of alabastar wan;
Lucid; where his gaze could follow
Caves in caves; transparent flights
Rolling, lost in moving lights,
Glaucous gold: he like a swallow
O’er a lake the morning smites.

Down the dome flashed out and in
Instant faces of the Peris:
Restless eyes of Deevs and Jinn
In the walls watched: unseen Faeries
Out of rainbows rained and tossed
Flowers of fire full of frost;
Blossoms where the fire varies,
Gold and green and crimson-mossed.

Then there met him, face to face,
Seven odalisques of Heaven,
Swinging in a silver space
Flaming censers: and the seven,
Crowned with stars of burning green,
Seemed to turn to incense; seen,
As it rose, to be a driven
Hippogrif, or rosmarine.

Aloes, Nard, and Ambergris,
Sandal, Frankincense, and Civet,--
Genii of the fragrances,--
Rein each winged aroma; give it
Spurs and race it down the lull
Of the caverns, clouded dull
With wild manes of musk; now vivid,
Vaporous white and wonderful.

And Benreddin’s aching soul,
In each sense intoxicated,
Reached, at last, what seemed the goal
Of all passion: golden-gated,
Vast, a fountain: where he saw
Limbs of light without a flaw;
Breasts and arms of bloom; that waited
For his soul to nearer draw.

Houri faces shimmered there;
Fluid forms.--It, with a thunder
Of wild music, like the hair
Of a genie, flamed from under
Caverns of the demon-world:
Filled with voices, high it hurled,
Calling him, with beckoning wonder
Of cœrulean forms that swirled.

And with burning lips and eyes
In he plunged: hoarse laughter greeted,
Demon laughter: then sad sighs,
Dying downward: passion-heated
Hands seemed drawing him away,
Downward: where a rocking ray
Flamed and swung, and Eblis-sheeted
Shadows wandered ghostly gray.

And, ’tis said, that he was young,
Young that morning. When the darting,
Anguish-throated bulbuls sung,
In the silent starlight starting,
One, a Baghdad merchant, led
By the hoarness of its head,
Found what seemed a mummy: parting
Hair from brow, Benreddin--dead.