She took me for a vision, and she lay
  With her sleep’s smile unaltered, as in doubt
  Whether real life had stolen into her dreams,
  Or dreaming stretched into her outer life. 
  I was not graceless to a woman’s eyes. 
  The girls of Damar paused to see me pass,
  I walking in my rags, yet beautiful. 
  One maiden said, “He has a prince’s air!”
  I am a prince; the air was all my own. 
  So thought the lily on the Imam’s breast;
  And lightly as a summer mist, that lifts
  Before the morning, so she floated up,
  Without a sound or rustle of a robe,
  From her coarse pillow, and before me stood
  With asking eyes.  The Imam never moved. 
  A stride and blow were all my need, and they
  Were wholly in my power.  I took her hand,
  I held a warning finger to my lips,
  And whispered in her small expectant ear,
  “Adeb, the son of Akem!” She replied
  In a low murmur, whose bewildering sound
  Almost lulled wakeful me to sleep, and sealed
  The sleeper’s lids in tenfold slumber, “Prince,
  Lord of the Imam’s life and of my heart,
  Take all thou seest,—­it is thy right, I know,—­
  But spare the Imam for thy own soul’s sake!”
  Then I arrayed me in a robe of state,
  Shining with gold and jewels; and I bound
  In my long turban gems that might have bought
  The lands ’twixt Babelmandeb and Sahan. 
  I girt about me, with a blazing belt,
  A scimitar o’er which the sweating smiths
  In far Damascus hammered for long years,
  Whose hilt and scabbard shot a trembling light
  From diamonds and rubies.  And she smiled,
  As piece by piece I put the treasures on,
  To see me look so fair,—­in pride she smiled. 
  I hung long purses at my side.  I scooped,
  From off a table, figs and dates and rice,
  And bound them to my girdle in a sack. 
  Then over all I flung a snowy cloak,
  And beckoned to the maiden.  So she stole
  Forth like my shadow, past the sleeping wolf
  Who wronged my father, o’er the woolly head
  Of the swart eunuch, down the painted court,
  And by the sentinel who standing slept. 
  Strongly against the portal, through my rags,—­
  My old, base rags,—­and through the maiden’s veil,
  I pressed my knife,—­upon the wooden hilt
  Was “Adeb, son of Akem,” carved by me
  In my long slavehood,—­as a passing sign
  To wait the Imam’s waking.  Shadows cast
  From two high-sailing clouds upon the sand
  Passed not more noiseless than we two, as one,
  Glided beneath the moonlight, till I smelt
  The fragrance of the stables.  As I slid
  The wide doors open, with a sudden bound
  Uprose the startled horses; but they stood
  Still as the man who in a foreign land
  Hears his strange language, when my Desert call,
  As low and plaintive as the nested dove’s,
  Fell on their listening ears.  From stall to stall,