'Has my lord forgot
The heron in the marsh?'
"But he, low-voiced
And patient, answered them, 'Nor hawk, nor hound,
Nor heron more for me, for I have seen
A lily with a star's light in its cup.
'Tis something by the breath of Allah blown
This way from Paradise, I swiftly thought,
And all impulsive would have made it mine
But that a voice forbade; and now I go
To find what never mortal eyes have seen—
A pigeon from an eagle's nest escaped,
Or in a lion's den a lamb alive.
So on my breast the lily I may wear,
And in my heart the star's light.'
"Then their eyes
Were hot with dew of tears repressed by awe.
For strangers to the sweet delirium
Which only lovers know, and know to make
The gentle-hearted gentler, and the brave
More covetous as errants in the
Land Of the Impossible, they thought him mad;
And at his feet one wistful flung himself,
With outcry, 'I was born to serve my lord,
And go with him.'
"Whereat the others drowned
His voice with theirs united, 'And so were we.'
"But Othman waved them off: 'Bring me my horse.
But yesterday from noon to set of sun
He kept the shadow of the flying hawk
A plaything 'neath his music-making feet.
I will not comrade else.'
"Tent born and bred,
The steed was brought, its hoofs like agate bowls,
Its breast a vast and rounded hemisphere,
With lungs to gulf a north wind at a draught.
Under its forelock, copious and soft
As tresses of a woman loosely combed,
He set a kiss, and in its nostrils breathed
An exhalation, saying, to be heard
By all around, 'Antar, now art thou brute
No longer. I have given thee a soul,
Even my own.'
"And as he said, it was,
And not miraculously, as the fool
Declares; for midst the other harmonies
By Allah wrought, the hero and his horse
Have always been as one.
"And when they saw
Him in the saddle, face and eyes aglow
With the low-burning, splendor-chastened flame
That serves the Angel of the pallid wing
In lighting martyrs on their rueful way,
They closed around him, and of their charms
And priceless amulets despoiled themselves,
And tied them on Antar until his mane
And forelock jangled as with little bells,
And glistened merrily, though all the time
The true men moaned, 'Oh! Oh! What shall we tell
The good Sheik Ertoghrul?'4 "And in reply, He bade them, 'Say that I to-day have learned The Legend graven on the seal of God, And that it is a holy law in need Of holy lives to prove it.'
Othman in No Man's Land
"Thereupon
He rode away, clad all in hunter's garb,
And all unarmed, save at his belt a sword,
And at his back a shield—into the East
He rode bareheaded, and under a sky
Thrice plated with molten brass of noon,
Nor once looked back. Into the Wilderness,
The far and purple-curtained distances,
Where Nature holds her everlasting courts,
With beasts of prey and hordes of savage men
To keep their portals, questionless he passed
In leading of his faith.
"And to a land
Of lions come at last, of all he met,
Even the women at the black-tent doors,
He asked if lately they had lost a lamb?
And where the tawny thunder-makers kept
Their dread abodes? Or if they knew the cliffs
Whence through the many-folded turbaning
Of sun-touched clouds the nesting eagles launched
Themselves upon their prey? For he had heard
From Allah that 'twas beautiful to love
All helpless things, and shield them from their foes,
And therefore was he come.
"And all the men
Who heard him laughed; the women, pitying,
Were moved to tears, and gave him of their stores,
And at his going blessed him. And in time
He came to know the trails the maned brutes
Affected most, and lay in wait to see
With what of trophies of their craft they took
Their homeward ways. Or on some barefaced rock,
The sky above him like a stainless blue
Pavilion, prone and patient he would watch
The winged Sultans of the aerial world
As forth they issued screaming to the sun,
Which at the call seemed, comrade-like, to stand
And wait for them. And well he came to know,
When from their forays provident they flew,
The victim in their talons. If a bird,
He whistled to his horse, and followed them
With loosened rein. And where they thought their nests
Securest in their envelopes of cloud
And dizzy height, he thither boldly climbed
And gave them battle.
"Thus into a year
The months slow-melting fell, and he became
A hero; so that, went he here or there,
All living things remarked him. Did men see
A troop of eagles circling in the sky
They smiled, and said, 'Our Othman this way comes.'
And mothers, from their midnight slumbers roused
By lions, closer clasped their little ones,
And calmed them,whispering—'Hush! and sleep again!'
For gallop, gallop goes the gray-black steed,