For on that day of all the days, and in that festal hour,
  He sickened with his glory and grew weary of his power,
  And pined to bind upon his breast his harem’s choicest flower,

  “Oh Nourmahal! oh Nourmahal! why sit I here,” he cried,—­
  “The victim of these gaudy shows, and of my haughty pride,
  When thou art dearer to my soul than all the world beside!

  “Thy eyes are brighter than the gems piled round gilded seat;
  Thy cheeks are softer than the silks that shimmer at my feet,
  And purer heart than thine in woman’s breast hath never beat!

  “My first love—­and my only love—­Oh babe of Candahar! 
  Torn from my boyish arms at first, and, like a silver star
  Shining within another heaven, and worshipped from afar,

  “Thou art my own at last, my own!  I pine to see thy face;
  Come to me, Nourmahal!  Oh come, and hallow with thy grace
  The glories that without thy love are meaningless and base!”

  He spoke a word, and, quick as light, before him lying prone
  A dark-eyed page, with gilded vest and crimson-belted zone,
  Looked up with waiting ear to mark the message from the throne.

  “Go summon Nourmahal, my queen; and when her radiance comes,
  Bear my command of silence to the vinas and the drums,
  And for your guerdon take your choice of all these gilded crumbs.”

  He tossed a handful of the gems down where his minion lay,
  Who snatched a jewel from the drift, and swiftly sped away
  With his command to Nourmahal, who waited to obey.

  But needlessly the mandate fell of silence on the crowd,
  For when the Empress swept the path, ten thousand heads were bowed,
  And drum and vina ceased their din, and no one spoke aloud.

  As comes the moon from out the sea with her attendant breeze,
  As sweeps the morning up the hills and blossoms in the trees,
  So Nourmahal to Selim came:  then fell upon her knees!

  The envious jewels looked at her with chill, barbaric stare,
  The cloth-of-gold she knelt upon grew lusterless and bare,
  And all the place was cooler in the darkness of her hair.

  And while she knelt in queenly pride and beauty strange and wild,
  And held her breast with both her palms and looked on him and smiled,
  She seemed no more of common earth, but Casyapa’s child.

  He bent to her as thus she smiled; he kissed her lifted cheek;
  “Oh Nourmahal,” he murmured low, “more dear than I can speak,
  I’m weary of my lonely life:  give me the rest I seek.”

  She rose and paced the silken floor, as if in mad caprice,
  Then paused, and from the Empress changed to improvisatrice,
  And wove this song—­a golden chain—­that led him into peace: 

  Lovely children of the light,
  Draped in radiant locks and pinions,—­
  Red and purple, blue and white—­
  In their beautiful dominions,
  On the earth and in the spheres,
  Dwell the little glendoveers.