Arabian Nights' Entertainments - To Elizabeth Robins Pennell

'O mes cheres Mille et Une Nuits!' - Fantasio.     Once on a time     There was a little boy:    a master-mage     By virtue of a Book     Of magic - O, so magical it filled     His life with visionary pomps     Processional!    And Powers     Passed with him where he passed.    And Thrones     And Dominations, glaived and plumed and mailed,     Thronged in the criss-cross streets,     The palaces pell-mell with playing-fields,     Domes, cloisters, dungeons, caverns, tents, arcades,     Of the unseen, silent City, in his soul     Pavilioned jealously, and hid     As in the dusk, profound,     Green stillnesses of some enchanted mere. -     I shut mine eyes . . . And lo!     A flickering snatch of memory that floats     Upon the face of a pool of darkness five     And thirty dead years deep,     Antic in girlish broideries     And skirts and silly shoes with straps     And a broad-ribanded leghorn, he walks     Plain in the shadow of a church     (St. Michael's:    in whose brazen call     To curfew his first wails of wrath were whelmed),     Sedate for all his haste     To be at home; and, nestled in his arm,     Inciting still to quiet and solitude,     Boarded in sober drab,     With small, square, agitating cuts     Let in a-top of the double-columned, close,     Quakerlike print, a Book! . . .     What but that blessed brief     Of what is gallantest and best     In all the full-shelved Libraries of Romance?     The Book of rocs,     Sandalwood, ivory, turbans, ambergris,     Cream-tarts, and lettered apes, and calendars,     And ghouls, and genies - O, so huge     They might have overed the tall Minster Tower     Hands down, as schoolboys take a post!     In truth, the Book of Camaralzaman,     Schemselnihar and Sindbad, Scheherezade     The peerless, Bedreddin, Badroulbadour,     Cairo and Serendib and Candahar,     And Caspian, and the dim, terrific bulk -     Ice-ribbed, fiend-visited, isled in spells and storms -     Of Kaf! . . . That centre of miracles,     The sole, unparalleled Arabian Nights!     Old friends I had a-many - kindly and grim     Familiars, cronies quaint     And goblin!    Never a Wood but housed     Some morrice of dainty dapperlings.    No Brook     But had his nunnery     Of green-haired, silvry-curving sprites,     To cabin in his grots, and pace     His lilied margents.    Every lone Hillside     Might open upon Elf-Land.    Every Stalk     That curled about a Bean-stick was of the breed     Of that live ladder by whose delicate rungs     You climbed beyond the clouds, and found     The Farm-House where the Ogre, gorged     And drowsy, from his great oak chair,     Among the flitches and pewters at the fire,     Called for his Faery Harp.    And in it flew,     And, perching on the kitchen table, sang     Jocund and jubilant, with a sound     Of those gay, golden-vowered madrigals     The shy thrush at mid-May     Flutes from wet orchards flushed with the triumphing dawn;     Or blackbirds rioting as they listened still,     In old-world woodlands rapt with an old-world spring,     For Pan's own whistle, savage and rich and lewd,     And mocked him call for call!     I could not pass     The half-door where the cobbler sat in view     Nor figure me the wizen Leprechaun,     In square-cut, faded reds and buckle-shoes,     Bent at his work in the hedge-side, and know     Just how he tapped his brogue, and twitched     His wax-end this and that way, both with wrists     And elbows.    In the rich June fields,     Where the ripe clover drew the bees,     And the tall quakers trembled, and the West Wind     Lolled his half-holiday away     Beside me lolling and lounging through my own,     'Twas good to follow the Miller's Youngest Son     On his white horse along the leafy lanes;     For at his stirrup linked and ran,     Not cynical and trapesing, as he loped     From wall to wall above the espaliers,     But in the bravest tops     That market-town, a town of tops, could show:     Bold, subtle, adventurous, his tail     A banner flaunted in disdain     Of human stratagems and shifts:     King over All the Catlands, present and past     And future, that moustached     Artificer of fortunes, Puss-in-Boots!     Or Bluebeard's Closet, with its plenishing     Of meat-hooks, sawdust, blood,     And wives that hung like fresh-dressed carcases -     Odd-fangled, most a butcher's, part     A faery chamber hazily seen     And hazily figured - on dark afternoons     And windy nights was visiting of the best.     Then, too, the pelt of hoofs     Out in the roaring darkness told     Of Herne the Hunter in his antlered helm     Galloping, as with despatches from the Pit,     Between his hell-born Hounds.     And Rip Van Winkle . . . often I lurked to hear,     Outside the long, low timbered, tarry wall,     The mutter and rumble of the trolling bowls     Down the lean plank, before they fluttered the pins;     For, listening, I could help him play     His wonderful game,     In those blue, booming hills, with Mariners     Refreshed from kegs not coopered in this our world.     But what were these so near,     So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought     The run of Ali Baba's Cave     Just for the saying 'Open Sesame,'     With gold to measure, peck by peck,     In round, brown wooden stoups     You borrowed at the chandler's? . . . Or one time     Made you Aladdin's friend at school,     Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp     In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair     For all the embrowning scars in their white breasts     Went labouring under some dread ordinance,     Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while,     Strange Curs that cried as they,     Till there was never a Black Bitch of all     Your consorting but might have gone     Spell-driven miserably for crimes     Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . .     Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night,     While you lay wondering and acold,     Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon     Queen Labe, abominable and dear,     Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom,     Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw     Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk),     And muttered certain words you could not hear;     And there! a living stream,     The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags     And cresses, glittered and sang     Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness,     Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . .     I was - how many a time! -     That Second Calendar, Son of a King,     On whom 'twas vehemently enjoined,     Pausing at one mysterious door,     To pry no closer, but content his soul     With his kind Forty.    Yet I could not rest     For idleness and ungovernable Fate.     And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame     (That wonder-working word!),     Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans,     And soaring, soaring on     From air to air, came charging to the ground     Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds,     And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled     Flicked at me with his tail,     And left me blinded, miserable, distraught     (Even as I was in deed,     When doctors came, and odious things were done     On my poor tortured eyes     With lancets; or some evil acid stung     And wrung them like hot sand,     And desperately from room to room     Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way),     To get to Bagdad how I might.    But there     I met with Merry Ladies.    O you three -     Safie, Amine, Zobeide - when my heart     Forgets you all shall be forgot!     And so we supped, we and the rest,     On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates,     Almonds, pistachios, citrons.    And Haroun     Laughed out of his lordly beard     On Giaffar and Mesrour (I knew the Three     For all their Mossoul habits).    And outside     The Tigris, flowing swift     Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed     With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars;     The vast, blue night     Was murmurous with peris' plumes     And the leathern wings of genies; words of power     Were whispering; and old fishermen,     Casting their nets with prayer, might draw to shore     Dead loveliness:    or a prodigy in scales     Worth in the Caliph's Kitchen pieces of gold:     Or copper vessels, stopped with lead,     Wherein some Squire of Eblis watched and railed,     In durance under potent charactry     Graven by the seal of Solomon the King . . .     Then, as the Book was glassed     In Life as in some olden mirror's quaint,     Bewildering angles, so would Life     Flash light on light back on the Book; and both     Were changed.    Once in a house decayed     From better days, harbouring an errant show     (For all its stories of dry-rot     Were filled with gruesome visitants in wax,     Inhuman, hushed, ghastly with Painted Eyes),     I wandered; and no living soul     Was nearer than the pay-box; and I stared     Upon them staring - staring.    Till at last,     Three sets of rafters from the streets,     I strayed upon a mildewed, rat-run room,     With the two Dancers, horrible and obscene,     Guarding the door:    and there, in a bedroom-set,     Behind a fence of faded crimson cords,     With an aspect of frills     And dimities and dishonoured privacy     That made you hanker and hesitate to look,     A Woman with her litter of Babes - all slain,     All in their nightgowns, all with Painted Eyes     Staring - still staring; so that I turned and ran     As for my neck, but in the street     Took breath.    The same, it seemed,     And yet not all the same, I was to find,     As I went up!    For afterwards,     Whenas I went my round alone -     All day alone - in long, stern, silent streets,     Where I might stretch my hand and take     Whatever I would:    still there were Shapes of Stone,     Motionless, lifelike, frightening - for the Wrath     Had smitten them; but they watched,     This by her melons and figs, that by his rings     And chains and watches, with the hideous gaze,     The Painted Eyes insufferable,     Now, of those grisly images; and I     Pursued my best-beloved quest,     Thrilled with a novel and delicious fear.     So the night fell - with never a lamplighter;     And through the Palace of the King     I groped among the echoes, and I felt     That they were there,     Dreadfully there, the Painted staring Eyes,     Hall after hall . . . Till lo! from far     A Voice!    And in a little while     Two tapers burning!    And the Voice,     Heard in the wondrous Word of God, was - whose?     Whose but Zobeide's,     The lady of my heart, like me     A True Believer, and like me     An outcast thousands of leagues beyond the pale! . . .     Or, sailing to the Isles     Of Khaledan, I spied one evenfall     A black blotch in the sunset; and it grew     Swiftly . . . and grew.    Tearing their beards,     The sailors wept and prayed; but the grave ship,     Deep laden with spiceries and pearls, went mad,     Wrenched the long tiller out of the steersman's hand,     And, turning broadside on,     As the most iron would, was haled and sucked     Nearer, and nearer yet;     And, all awash, with horrible lurching leaps     Rushed at that Portent, casting a shadow now     That swallowed sea and sky; and then,     Anchors and nails and bolts     Flew screaming out of her, and with clang on clang,     A noise of fifty stithies, caught at the sides     Of the Magnetic Mountain; and she lay,     A broken bundle of firewood, strown piecemeal     About the waters; and her crew     Passed shrieking, one by one; and I was left     To drown.    All the long night I swam;     But in the morning, O, the smiling coast     Tufted with date-trees, meadowlike,     Skirted with shelving sands!    And a great wave     Cast me ashore; and I was saved alive.     So, giving thanks to God, I dried my clothes,     And, faring inland, in a desert place     I stumbled on an iron ring -     The fellow of fifty built into the Quays:     When, scenting a trap-door,     I dug, and dug; until my biggest blade     Stuck into wood.    And then,     The flight of smooth-hewn, easy-falling stairs,     Sunk in the naked rock!    The cool, clean vault,     So neat with niche on niche it might have been     Our beer-cellar but for the rows     Of brazen urns (like monstrous chemist's jars)     Full to the wide, squat throats     With gold-dust, but a-top     A layer of pickled-walnut-looking things     I knew for olives!    And far, O, far away,     The Princess of China languished!    Far away     Was marriage, with a Vizier and a Chief     Of Eunuchs and the privilege     Of going out at night     To play - unkenned, majestical, secure -     Where the old, brown, friendly river shaped     Like Tigris shore for shore!    Haply a Ghoul     Sat in the churchyard under a frightened moon,     A thighbone in his fist, and glared     At supper with a Lady:    she who took     Her rice with tweezers grain by grain.     Or you might stumble - there by the iron gates     Of the Pump Room - underneath the limes -     Upon Bedreddin in his shirt and drawers,     Just as the civil Genie laid him down.     Or those red-curtained panes,     Whence a tame cornet tenored it throatily     Of beer-pots and spittoons and new long pipes,     Might turn a caravansery's, wherein     You found Noureddin Ali, loftily drunk,     And that fair Persian, bathed in tears,     You'd not have given away     For all the diamonds in the Vale Perilous     You had that dark and disleaved afternoon     Escaped on a roc's claw,     Disguised like Sindbad - but in Christmas beef!     And all the blissful while     The schoolboy satchel at your hip     Was such a bulse of gems as should amaze     Grey-whiskered chapmen drawn     From over Caspian:    yea, the Chief Jewellers     Of Tartary and the bazaars,     Seething with traffic, of enormous Ind. -     Thus cried, thus called aloud, to the child heart     The magian East:    thus the child eyes     Spelled out the wizard message by the light     Of the sober, workaday hours     They saw, week in week out, pass, and still pass     In the sleepy Minster City, folded kind     In ancient Severn's arm,     Amongst her water-meadows and her docks,     Whose floating populace of ships -     Galliots and luggers, light-heeled brigantines,     Bluff barques and rake-hell fore-and-afters - brought     To her very doorsteps and geraniums     The scents of the World's End; the calls     That may not be gainsaid to rise and ride     Like fire on some high errand of the race;     The irresistible appeals     For comradeship that sound     Steadily from the irresistible sea.     Thus the East laughed and whispered, and the tale,     Telling itself anew     In terms of living, labouring life,     Took on the colours, busked it in the wear     Of life that lived and laboured; and Romance,     The Angel-Playmate, raining down     His golden influences     On all I saw, and all I dreamed and did,     Walked with me arm in arm,     Or left me, as one bediademed with straws     And bits of glass, to gladden at my heart     Who had the gift to seek and feel and find     His fiery-hearted presence everywhere.     Even so dear Hesper, bringer of all good things,     Sends the same silver dews     Of happiness down her dim, delighted skies     On some poor collier-hamlet - (mound on mound     Of sifted squalor; here a soot-throated stalk     Sullenly smoking over a row     Of flat-faced hovels; black in the gritty air     A web of rails and wheels and beams; with strings     Of hurtling, tipping trams) -     As on the amorous nightingales     And roses of Shiraz, or the walls and towers     Of Samarcand - the Ineffable - whence you espy     The splendour of Ginnistan's embattled spears,     Like listed lightnings.     Samarcand!     That name of names!    That star-vaned belvedere     Builded against the Chambers of the South!     That outpost on the Infinite!     And behold!     Questing therefrom, you knew not what wild tide     Might overtake you:    for one fringe,     One suburb, is stablished on firm earth; but one     Floats founded vague     In lubberlands delectable - isles of palm     And lotus, fortunate mains, far-shimmering seas,     The promise of wistful hills -     The shining, shifting Sovranties of Dream.