Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-13.pdf/217

Of party-colored woman, like a flock
Of frightened quail, all huddled in a mass,
And looked for cover. But the widow paused,
Raising her warning finger, and exclaimed:
"God judge between us!—ay, this very day,
God judge between us!" In a swaying throng,
Treading on others' toes and heels and robes,
The frightened women blundered to escape,
And in a hurried stream poured through the door,
Wild-eyed, alarmed, without precedency,
And the room darkened. Halil Pacha laughed,
A low, sly laugh of comfortable power;
For all his rage was feigned. He cared no more,
Save that it wearied him and stole his time,
For all the female clatter he had heard
Than for the baying of a pack of curs.

The Pacha ordered coffee in the air,
A pipe to follow it, and forth he walked
To view his works; the new kiosk, the pond,
That with reflected lightning seemed to flash
When gold and silver fishes darted through;
The flanking walls, at which the dame had railed,
Whose cunning course had won him roods of land.
He saw, and tittered softly to himself
In self-approval. It was wonderful
The day that lay around him; such a day
As makes the stranger, looking o'er Stamboul,
Say to himself devoutly: "I have reached
As near to heaven as mortal in the flesh
Can hope to compass." Woodbine, flaming pinks,
The pendant blossoms of the acacia.
The yellow broom just gilding all the hills,
Made every breeze so heavy with perfume
That it was laggard, as with filmy wings
It swept across the senses, dying out
In satiate murmurs. Everywhere one looked,
Were knots of roses staring at the sun
With the first wonder of awakened love,
Opened from rim to centre, breathing balm;
And maiden buds were asking that their lord
Would enter in their sweet virginity,
And make them flowers, to peer their sisterhood.
God in His Summer walked across the land,
And all was living with the fervid heat
Of re-creation out of wintry void.
The Pacha gazed enraptured. At his feet
Lay the blue Bosphorus overblown with sails,
The smoky waters of the Golden Horn;
And, o'er Seraglio Point, the mounted isles.
And silver glimmer of the Marmora,
Were spread before him. Dolma-Bagtché raised
Its central hall of the Ambassadors
Almost beneath him. There his master dwelt,