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Another year, and-hist! What craft is it Duhl designs?
He alights not at the door of the tent, as he did last time,
But, creeping behind, he gropes his stealthy way by the trench
Half round till he finds the flap in the folding, for night combines
With the robber-and such is he: Duhl, covetous up to crime,
Must wring from Hóseyn's grasp the Pearl, by whatever the wrench.

"He was hunger-bitten, I heard: I tempted with half my store,
And a gibe was all my thanks. Is he generous like Spring dew?
Account the fault to me who chaffered with such an one!

He has killed, to feast chance comers, the creature he rode: nay

more

For a couple of singing-girls his robe has he torn in two:

I will beg! Yet I nowise gained by the tale of my wife and son.

"I swear by the Holy House,* my head will I never wash

Till I filch his Pearl away.

And now I resort to force.

Fair dealing I tried, then guile,
He said we must live or die:

Let him die, then-let me live! Be bold-but not too rash!

I have found me a peeping place: breast, bury your breathing while I explore for myself! Now, breathe! He deceived me not, the spy!

"As he said there lies in peace Hóseyn-how happy! Beside Stands tethered the Pearl: thrice winds her headstall about his wrist : 'Tis therefore he sleeps so sound-the moon through the roof reveals. And loose, on his left, stands too that other, known far and wide, Buhéyseh, her sister born: fleet is she yet ever missed

The winning tail's fire-flash a-stream past the thunderous heels.

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No less she stands saddled and bridled, this second, in case some thief

Should enter and seize and fly with the first, as I mean to do.

What then? The Pearl is the Pearl: once mount her we both

escape."

Through the skirt-fold in glides Duhl-so a serpent disturbs no leaf
In a bush as he parts the twigs entwining a nest; clean through,
He is noiselessly at his work: as he planned, he performs the rape.

* Holy House,-in general a temple, a sanctuary; here probably the Mosque at Mecca, known as "the house of Allah," which contains the Kaaba or sacred stone. See Koran, Sale's trans., chap. ii., p. 14 and note, Warne & Co., 1888.

He has set the tent-door wide, has buckled the girth, has clipped
The headstall away from the wrist he leaves thrice bound as before,
He springs on the Pearl, is launched on the desert like bolt from bow.
Up starts our plundered man: from his breast though the heart be
ripped,

Yet his mind has the mastery: behold, in a minute more,

He is out and off and away on Buhéyseh, whose worth we know !

And Hóseyn-his blood turns flame, he has learned long since to ride
And Buhéyseh does her part, they gain-they are gaining fast
On the fugitive pair, and Duhl has Ed Dárraj to cross and quit,
And to reach the ridge El Sabán, no safety till that be spied!
And Buhéyseh is, bound by bound, but a horse length off at last,
For the Pearl has missed the tap of the heel, the touch of the bit.

She shortens her stride, she chafes at her rider strange and queer:
Buhéyseh is mad with hope--beat sister she shall and must,
Though Duhl, of the hand and heel so clumsy, she has to thank.
She is near now, nose by tail-they are neck by croup-joy! fear!
What folly makes Hóseyn shout, " Dog Duhl, damned son of the Dust,
Touch the right ear and press with your foot my Pearl's left flank!"
And Duhl was wise at the word, and Muléykeh as prompt perceived
Who was urging redoubled pace, and to hear him was to obey,
And a leap indeed gave she, and evanished forever more.
And Hoseyn looked one long last look as who, all bereaved,
Looks, fain to follow the dead so far as the living may :
Then he turned Buhéyseh's neck slow homeward, weeping sore.
And lo, in the sunrise, still sat Hóseyn upon the ground
Weeping and neighbors came, the tribesmen of Bénu-Asád,
In the vale of green Er-Rass, and they questioned him of his grief;
And he told from first to last how, serpent-like, Duhl had wound
His way to the nest, and how Dubl rode like an ape, so bad!
And how Buhéyseh did wonders, yet Pearl remained with the thief.

And they jeered him, one and all: "Poor Hóseyn is crazed past hope!
How else had he wrought himself his ruin, in fortune's spite?
To have simply held the tongue were a task for a boy or girl,
And here were Muléykeh again, the eyed like an antelope,

The child of his heart by day, the wife of his breast by night!"--
"And the beaten in speed!" wept Hóseyn. "You never have loved
my Pearl.”

MY LAST DUCHESS.*

Ferrara.

That's my last Duchess painted on the wall,
Looking as if she were alive; I call

That piece a wonder, now: Frà Pandolf's hands
Worked busily a day, and there she stands.
Will't please you sit and look at her? I said
"Frà Pandolf" by design, for never read
Strangers like you that pictured countenance,
The depth and passion of its earnest glance,
But to myself they turned (since none puts by
The curtain I have drawn for you, but I)
And seemed as they would ask me, if they durst,
How such a glance came there; so, not the first
Are you to turn and ask thus. Sir, 'twas not
Her husband's presence only, called that spot
Of joy into the Duchess' cheek: perhaps
Frà Pandolf chanced to say, " Her mantle laps
Over my lady's wrist too much," or "Paint
Must never hope to reproduce the faint
Half flush that dies along her throat;" such stuff
Was courtesy, she thought, and cause enough
For calling up that spot of joy. She had

A heart-how shall I say?-too soon made glad,
Too easily impressed; she liked whate'er
She looked on, and her looks went everywhere.
Sir, 'twas all one! My favor at her breast,
The dropping of the daylight in the West,
The bough of cherries some officious fool
Broke in the orchard for her, the white mule

She rode with round the terrace-all and each

Would draw from her alike the approving speech,

Or blush, at least. She thanked men,-good; but thanked
Somehow I know not how-as if she ranked

My gift of a nine hundred years' old name

With anybody's gift.

This sort of trifling?

Who'd stoop to blame

Even had you skill

In speech-(which I have not)--to make your will

* For admirable analysis of this poem see Alexander's "Introduction to Prowning," p. 10.

Quite clear to such an one, and say "Just this
Or that in you disgusts me; here you miss,
Or there exceed the mark "—and if she let
Herself be lessened so, nor plainly set
Her wits to yours, forsooth, and made excuse,
-E'en then would be some stooping, and I choose
Never to stoop. Oh, sir, she smiled, no doubt,
Whene'er I passed her; but who passed without
Much the same smile? This grew; I gave commands;
Then all smiles stopped together. There she stands
As if alive. Will it please you rise? We'll meet

The company below, then. I repeat,

The Count your Master's known munificence
Is ample warrant that no just pretence
Of mine for dowry will be disallowed;
Though his fair daughter's self, as I avowed
At starting, is my object. Nay, we'll go
Together down, sir! Notice Neptune, tho'
Taming a sea horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innspruck cast in bronze for me.

EPILOGUE.

From "Asolando."

At the midnight in the silence of the sleep-time,

When you set your fancies free,

Will they pass to where-by death, fools think, imprisoned— Low he lies who once so loved you, whom you loved so,— Pity me?

Oh, to love so, be so loved, yet so mistaken!

What had I on earth to do

With the slothful, with the mawkish, the unmanly?
Like the aimless, helpless, hopeless, did I drivel—

Being-who?

One who never turned his back but marched breast forward,

Never doubted clouds would break,

Never dreamed, though right were worsted, wrong would

triumph,

Held we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better,

Sleep to wake.

No, at noonday in the bustle of man's work-time

Greet the unseen with a cheer!

Bid him forward, breast and back as either should be, Strive and thrive!" cry "Speed-fight on, fare ever There as here!"

SELECTIONS FROM TENNYSON.

ODE

On the Death of the Duke of Wellington.
Published in 1852.

Bury the Great Duke

I.

With an empire's lamentation,

Let us bury the Great Duke

To the noise of the mourning of a mighty nation,

Mourning when their leaders fall,

Warriors carry the warrior's pall,

And sorrow darkens hamlet and hall.

II.

Where shall we lay the man whom we deplore?

Here, in streaming London's central roar.

Let the sound of those he wrought for,

And the feet of those he fought for,

Echo round his bones forevermore.

III.

Lead out the pageant: sad and slow,

As fits an universal woe,

Let the long, long procession go,

And let the sorrowing crowd about it grow,
And let the mournful martial music blow;
The last great Englishman is low.

IV.

Mourn, for to us he seems the last,
Remembering all his greatness in the Past.
No more in soldier fashion will he greet
With lifted hand the gazer in the street.

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