XXI.

  She sat in Philip’s vacant chair,
  And pondered long her doubtful way;
  And, in her impotent despair,
  Lifted her longing eyes to pray,
  When on a shelf, far up, and bare,

  She saw an ancient volume lie;
  And straight her rising thought was checked. 
  What were its dubious treasures?  Why
  Had it been banished from respect,
  And from its owner’s hand and eye?

  The more she gazed, the stronger grew
  The wish to hold it in her hand. 
  Strange fancies round the volume flew,
  And changed the dust their pinions fanned
  To atmospheres of red and blue,

  That blent in purple aureole,—­
  As if a lymph of sweetest life
  Stood warm within a golden bowl,
  Crowned with its odor-cloud, and rife
  With strength and solace for her soul!

  And there it lay beyond her arm,
  And wrought its fine and wondrous spell,
  With all its hoard of good or harm,
  Till curious Mildred, struggling well,
  Surrendered to the mighty charm.

  The steps were scaled for boon or bale,
  The book was lifted from its place,
  And, bowing to the fragrant grail,
  She drank with pleased and eager face
  This draught from off an Eastern tale: 

  Selim, the haughty Jehangir, the Conqueror of the Earth,
  With royal pomps and pageantries and rites of festal mirth
  Was set to celebrate the day—­the white day—­of his birth.

  His red pavilions, stretching wide, crowned all with globes of gold,
  And tipped with pinnacles of fire and streamers manifold,
  Flamed with such splendor that the sun at noon looked pale and cold!

  And right and left, along, the plain, far as the eye could gaze,
  His nobles and retainers who were tented in the blaze,
  Kept revel high in honor of that day of all the days.

  The earth was spread, the walls were hung, with silken fabrics fine,
  And arabesque and lotus-flower bore each the broidered sign
  Of jewels plucked from land and sea, and red gold from the mine.

  Upon his throne he sat alone, half buried in the gems
  That strewed his tapestries like stars, and tipped their tawny hems,
  And glittered with the glory of a hundred diadems.

  He saw from his pavilion door the nodding heron plumes
  His nobles wore upon their brows, while, from the rosy glooms
  Which hid his harem, came low songs, on wings of rare perfumes!

  The elephants, a thousand strong, had passed his dreaming eye,
  Caparisoned with golden plates on head and breast and thigh,
  And a hundred flashing troops of horse unmarked had thundered by.

  He sat upon old Akbar’s throne, the heir of power and fame,
  But all his glory was as dust, and dust his wondrous name—­
  Swept into air, and scattered far, by one consuming flame!