Lew Wallace

COMMODUS & THE WOOING OF MALKATOON (Illustrated)


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'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

       Table of Contents

      "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,