Flight

These are the words of the bard who sings
This ancient story of mystic things.
To the seventh chamber their steps they bent,
And Zulaikha cried in her discontent :
“ Pass not this chamber unnoticed by,
And lay thy foot on this loving eye.”
He entered and sate where she bade him : again
She fastened the door with a golden chain.
No spy, no stranger might there intrude
To break the charm of the solitude.
’Twas made for the loved and the lover alone,
And the dread of the censor was there unknown.
The loved one’s beauty was there more bright,
And the lover’s heart sang a song of delight.
No more was the bosom’s soft flame concealed,
And the spirit of love had a limitless field.
Pull, eyes and heart, of the flame she fanned,
She seized in wild passion her darling’s hand,
And with gentle. magic of words most sweet,
Half led and half drew his slow steps to a seat.
She threw herself there by his side. Then broke
A flood of hot tears from her eyes, and she spoke :
“ Look on me, look on me once, my sweet :
One tender glance from those eyes, I entreat.
Then if the sun saw my glad face, he
Moon-like might borrow new light from me.
How long wilt thou see my poor heart's distress ?
How long wilt thy heart be so pitiless ? ”
She told her love, and her sorrow woke
With a pang renewed at each word she spoke.
But Yusuf looked not upon her : in dread
He lowered his eyes and he bent his head.
As he looked on the ground in a whirl of thought
He saw his own form on the carpet wrought,
Where a bed was figured of silk and brocade,
And himself by the side of Zulaikha laid.
"From the pictured carpet he looked in quest
Of a spot where his eye might, untroubled, rest.
He looked on the wall, on the door ; the pair
Of rose-lipped lovers was painted there.
He lifted his glance to the Lord of the skies :
That pair from the ceiling still met his eyes.
Then the heart of Yusuf would fain relent.
And a tender look on Zulaikha he bent,
While a thrill of hope through her bosom passed
That the blessed sun would shine forth at last.
The hot tears welled from her heart to her eyes,
And she poured out her voice in a storm of sighs :
“ List to my prayer, thou sweet rebel, and calm
The pangs of my heart with thy healing balm.
Thou art Life’s Water : these lips are dry ;
Thou art life for ever : I faint and die.
As thirsty eyes when no water they see,
As the dead without hope, so am I without thee.
Tor years has my heart in its love for thee bled.
And, fasting, outworn, I have tossed on my bed.
Oh, let me no longer in misery weep :
Give my body its food, give mine eyelids their sleep,
Oh, hear my entreaties : on thee I call
In the name of the God who is Lord over all ;
By the excellent bloom of that cheek which He gave,
By that beauty which makes the whole world thy slave ;
By the splendour that beams from that beautiful brow
That bids the fullpaoon to thy majesty bow;
By the graceful gait of that cypress, by
The delicate bow that is bent o’er thine eye ;
By that arch of the temple devoted to prayer,
By each fine- woven mesh of the toils of thy hair ;
By that charming narcissus, that form arrayed
In the sheen and glory of silk brocade ;
By that secret thou callest a mouth, by the hair
Thou callest the -waist of that body most fair ;
By the musky spots on thy cheek’s pure rose,
By the smile of thy lips when those buds unclose ;
By my longing tears, by the sigh and groan
That rend my heart as I pine alone ;
By thine absence, a mountain too heavy to bear,
By my thousand fetters of grief and care ;
By the sovereign sway of my passion, by
My carelessness whether I live or die ;
Pity me, pity my lovelorn grief :
Loosen my fetters and grant relief :
An age has scorched me since over my soul
The soft sweet air of thy garden stole.
Be the balm of my wounds for a little ; shed
Sweet scent on the heart where the flowers are dead.
I hunger for thee till my whole frame is weak :
Oh, give me the food for my soul which I seek.”
“ Fair daughter,” said he, “ of the Peri race —
But no Peri can match thee in form or face —
Tempt me no more to a deed of shame,
Nor break the fair glass of a stainless name.
Brag not my skirt through the dust and mire,
Nor fill my veins with unholy fire.
By the Living God, the great Soul of all.
Inner and outvrard and great and small.
From whose ocean this world like a bubble rose.
And the sun by the flash of His splendour glows ;
By the holy line of my fathers, whence
I have learned the fair beauty of innocence ;
From whom I inherit my spirit’s light.
And through them is the star of my fortune bright ;
If thou wilt but leave me this day in peace.
And my troubled soul from this snare release,
Thou shalt see thy servant each wish obey,
And with faith unshaken thy grace repay.
The lips of thy darling to thine shall be pressed,
And the arms that thou lovest shall lull thee to rest.
Haste not too fast to the goal : .delay
Is often more blessed than speed on the way,
And the first paltry capture is ever surpassed
By' the nobler game that is netted at last.”
Zulaikha answered.: “Ah, never think
That the thirsty will wait for the morrow to drink.
My spirit has rushed to my lips, and how
Can I wait for the joy that I long for now ?
My heart has no pow T er to watch and wait
For the tender bliss that will come so late.
Thy pleading is weak, and no cause I see
Why thou shouldst not this moment be happy with me.”
Then Yusuf answered : “ Two things I fear-—
The judgment of God, and the Grand Vizier.
If the master knew of the shameful deed,
With a hundred sorrows my heart would bleed.
Full well thou knowest my furious lord
Would strike me dead with his lifted sword.
And think of the shame that the sin would lay
On my guilty soul at the Judgment Day,
When the awful book is unclosed wherein
Eecording angels have scored my sin.”
“ Fear not thy master,” Zulaikha cried ;
At some high feast when I sit by his side,
A poisoned cup from this hand shall he take,
And sleep till Doomsday shall bid him wake.
And the God thou servest, I hear thee say,
Pardons His creatures who err and stray.
Still, their sole mistress, the keys I hold
Of a hundred vaults full of gems and gold.
All this will I give to atone for thy sin,
And thy God’s forgiveness will surely win.”
“ FTe’er can my heart,” he made answer, “ incline
To injure another by deed of mine ;
Least of all my lord, who with tender thought
Bade thee cherish and honour the slave he bought.
And will my God, whom no thanks can pay,
Take a bribe to pardon my sin to-day ?
Shall the grace which a life cannot buy be sold
By the Living God for thy gems and gold ? ”
“ O King,” she said, “ to high fortune born,
May throne and crown be thine to adorn !
My soul is the mark of the arrows of pain.
And excuse on excuse thou hast marshalled in vain.
Crooked, contemptible, all unmeet
For a noble heart is the way of deceit.
God grant that my heart from deceit may be free,
And let me not hear these pretences from thee.
I am sorely troubled : Oh, give me rest ;
Grant, willing, unwilling, this one request.
In words, idle words, have my days passed by,
And ne’er with my wishes wouldst thou comply.
A truce to pretences, or thou wilt repent
That thine eye would not glow nor thy heart relent.
A fierce flame has lighted the reeds of my heart ;
Thou canst look on the flame and stand heedless apart.
What boots it to burn in this flame of desire,
If thine eyes be undimmed by the smoke of the fire ?
Come, pour a cool stream on the hot flame, if I
Fail, to melt thy cold heart with the heat of a sigh.”
For new excuses his lips unclosed,
But with swift impatience she interposed :
“ My time thou hast stolen while fondly I hung
On the guiling words of thy Hebrew tongue.
No more evasion: my wish deny,
Unless thy warm arm round my neck I feel,
I will sever that neck with the biting steel.
If fondly around me thou wilt not cling,
A streak of my blood shall thy neck enring.
A lily-like dagger shall rend my side,
And my smock in blood like a rose shall be dyed.
Then shall my soul and my body part,
And thy guile no longer distress my heart.
My lifeless corse the Vizier will see,
And the crime of the murder will rest on thee.
Then under the earth, when the doom is passed,
Near this loving heart thou wilt lie at last”
She drew from the pillow, distraught with grief,
A dagger grey as a willow leaf,
And, fierce with the fire of fever, laid
To her thirsty throat the bright cold blade.
Up sprang Yusuf ; his fingers’ hold
Circled her wrist like a bracelet of gold.
“ Master this passion, Zulaikha,” he cried ;
“ Turn from thy folly, oh, turn aside.
Wilt thou not strive for the wished-for goal ?
Wilt thou abandon the aim of thy soul ? ”
She fancied his heart was relenting ; she thought
His love would give her the bliss she sought.
The gleaming steel on the ground she threw,
And hope sprang up in her breast anew.
She sugared his lip with a touch of her own :
One arm was his collar and one his zone.
With a long sweet kiss on his lips she hung,
And an eager arm round his neck was flung.
One nook of the chamber was dark with the shade
Of a curtain that glittered with gold brocade.
And Yusuf questioned her : “ What or who
Is behind the curtain concealed from view ? ”
“ It is he,” she answered, “ to whom, while I live,
My faithful service I still must give :
A golden idol with jewelled eyes —
A salver of musk in his bosom lies.
I bend before him each hour of the day.
And my head at his feet in due worship lay.
Before his presence this screen I drew
To be out of the reach of his darkened view.
If I swerve from religion I would not be
Where the angry eyes of my god may see.”
And Yusuf cried with a bitter cry :
“blot a mite of the gold of thy faith have I.
Thine eye is abashed before those that are dead,
And shrinks from the sight of the lifeless in dread.
And God Almighty shall I not fear,
Who liveth and seeth and ever is near?”
He ceased : from the fond dream of rapture he woke ;
Irom the arms of Zulaikha he struggled and broke.
With hasty feet from her side he sped.
And burst open each door on his way as he fled.
Bolt and bar from the stanchions he drew —
All opened before hhn as onward he flew.
Of his lifted finger a key was made,
Which every lock at a sign obeyed.
But Zulaikha caught him, with steps more fast,
Or ever the farthest chamber he passed.
She clutched his skirt as he fled amain.
And the coat from his shoulder was rent in twain.
' .Reft of his garment he slipped from her hand
Like a bud from its sheath when the leaves expand.
She rent her robe in her anguish ; low
On the earth, like a shadow, she lay in her woe.
A bitter cry from her heart she sent,
And uttered these words in her wild lament :
“ Ah, wde is me for my luckless fate !
He has left my heart. empty and desolate.
Ah, that the game from my net should slip !
Ah, that the honey should mock my lip !
A spider once, X have heard them say,
Went forth in fits hunger to hunt for prey.
On a bough a fad con had taken her stand,
Who had fled from her rest on a royal hand.
The spider would Weave -rmind her wings a snare
To hinder her flight through the fields of air.
It laboured long on this toil intent
Till all the fine threads of its store were spent.
At length the falcon her pinions spread,
And the spider had naught but the broken thread.
I ana that spider : I weep and moan,
The single hope of my heart o’erthrown.
The vein of my heart is the broken thread,
And the bird whom I hoped to ensnare is lied.
Each tie to my life is now broken in twain,
And the severed ends in my hand remain.”