The guard hung round the portal.  Man by man
  They dropped away, save one lone sentinel,
  And on his eyes God’s finger lightly fell;
  He slept half standing.  Like a summer wind
  That threads the grove, yet never turns a leaf,
  I stole from shadow unto shadow forth;
  Crossed all the marble court-yard, swung the door,
  Like a soft gust, a little way ajar,—­
  My body’s narrow width, no more,—­and stood
  Beneath the cresset in the painted hall. 
  I marvelled at the riches of my foe;
  I marvelled at God’s ways with wicked men. 
  Then I reached forth, and took God’s waiting hand: 
  And so He led me over mossy floors,
  Flowered with the silken summer of Shirar,
  Straight to the Imam’s chamber.  At the door
  Stretched a brawn eunuch, blacker than my eyes: 
  His woolly head lay like the Kaba-stone
  In Mecca’s mosque, as silent and as huge. 
  I stepped across it, with my pointed knife
  Just missing a full vein along his neck,
  And, pushing by the curtains, there I was,—­
  I, Adeb the Despised,—­upon the spot
  That, next to heaven, I longed for most of all. 
  I could have shouted for the joy in me. 
  Fierce pangs and flashes of bewildering light
  Leaped through my brain and danced before my eyes. 
  So loud my heart beat that I feared its sound
  Would wake the sleeper; and the bubbling blood
  Choked in my throat, till, weaker than a child,
  I reeled against a column, and there hung
  In a blind stupor.  Then I prayed again;
  And, sense by sense, I was made whole once more. 
  I touched myself; I was the same; I knew
  Myself to be lone Adeb, young and strong,
  With nothing but a stride of empty air
  Between me and God’s justice.  In a sleep,
  Thick with the fumes of the accursed grape,
  Sprawled the false Imam.  On his shaggy breast,
  Like a white lily heaving on the tide
  Of some foul stream, the fairest woman slept
  These roving eyes have ever looked upon. 
  Almost a child, her bosom barely showed
  The change beyond her girlhood.  All her charms
  Were budding, but half opened; for I saw
  Not only beauty wondrous in itself,
  But possibility of more to be
  In the full process of her blooming days. 
  I gazed upon her, and my heart grew soft,
  As a parched pasture with the dew of heaven. 
  While thus I gazed, she smiled, and slowly raised
  The long curve of her lashes; and we looked
  Each upon each in wonder, not alarm,—­
  Not eye to eye, but soul to soul, we held
  Each other for a moment.  All her life
  Seemed centred in the circle of her eyes. 
  She stirred no limb; her long-drawn, equal breath
  Swelled out and ebbed away beneath her breast,
  In calm unbroken.  Not a sign of fear
  Touched the faint color on her oval cheek,
  Or pinched the arches of her tender mouth.