A Pre-Existence.

An intimation of some previous life,     Or dark dream, in the present dim-divined,     Of some uncertain sleep - or lived or dreamed     In some dead life - between a dusk and dawn;     From heathen battles to Toledo's gates,     Far off defined, his corselet and camail,     Damascened armet, shattered; in an eve's     Anger of brass a galloping glitter, one     Rode arrow-wounded. And the city caught     A cry before him and a wail behind,     Of walls beleaguered; battles; conquered kings;     Triumphant Taric; broken Spain and slaves.     And I, a Moslem slave, a miser Jew's,     Housed near the Tagus - squalid and alone     Save for his slave, held dear - to beat and starve -     Leaner than my lank shadow when the moon,     A burning beacon, westerns; and my bones     A visible hunger; famished with the fear,     Soul-garb of slaves, I bore him - I, who held     Him soul and self, more hated than his God,     Stood silent; fools had laughed; I saw my way.     War-time crops weapons; and the blade I bought     Was subtly pointed. For, I knew his ways:     The nightly nuptials of his jars of gems     And bags of doublas - oh, I knew his ways.     A shadow, woven in the hangings, hid     Till time said now; gaunt from the hangings stole     Behind him; humped and stooping so, his heart     Clove through the faded tunic, murrey-dyed;     Grinned exultation while the grim, slow blood     Drenched black and darkened round the oblong wound,     And his old face thinned grayer than morn's moon.     Rubies from Badakhshn in rose lights dripped     Slim tears of poppy-purple crystal; dull,     Red, ember-pregnant, carbuncles wherein     Fevered a captive crimson; bugles wan     Of cat-eyed hyacinths; moon-emeralds     With starry greenness stabbed; in limpid stains     Of liquid lilac, Persian amethysts;     Fire-opals savage and mesmeric with     Voluptuous flame, long, sweet, and sensuous as     Soft eyes of Orient women; sapphires beamed     With talismanic violet, from tombs,     Deev-guarded, of primordial Solimans;     Length-agonized with fire, diamonds of     Golconda - This, a sandaled dervise bare     Seven days, beneath a red Arabian sun,     Seven nights, beneath a round Arabian moon,     Under his tongue; an Emeer's ransom, held     Of some wild tribe.... Bleached in the perishing waste     A Bedouin Arab found sand-strangled bones,     A skeleton, vulture-torn, fierce in whose skull     One blazing eye the diamond. At Aleppo     Bartered, a bauble for his desert love.     Jacinth and Indian pearl, gem jolting gem,     Flashed, rutilating in the irised light,     A rain of splintered fire; and his head,     Long-haired, white-sunk among them.                                         Yet I took     All though his eyes burned in them; though, meseemed,     Each several jewel glared a separate curse....     Well! dead men work us mischief from the grave.     Richer than all Castile and yet not dare     Drink but from cups of Roman murra, spar     Bowl-sprayed with fibrile gold! spar sensitive     Of poison! I, no slave, yet all a slave     To fear a dead fool's malice! Still, how else!     Feasting within the music of my halls,     While perfumed beauty danced in sinuous robes,     Diaphanous, more silken than those famed     Of loomed Amorgos or of classic Kos,     Draining the unflawed murrhine, Xeres-brimmed,     Had I reeled poisoned, dying wolfsbane-slain!