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Both Pope and Sovereign, in double power,
Above a patient people prone to yield;
And he who ruled the souls and lives of men,
Held him above the others in his heart,
And sought for ways to honor him. Afar,
Like a white glacier slidden to the sea,
Rested the marble walls of Beylerbey,
Where the French Empress took her ease one time,—
Alas, for fortune! Then his brooding eyes
Fell on the stretches of the cypress waste,
That long array of grimly marshaled trees,
Crowning the hill-tops with their dusky lines,
And ever growing as the passing hours,
Until they threaten to absorb the space
From Scutari to far off Kadikeni;
Beneath whose shade the tomb-stones stood so close,
So numberless, that Cheops, in his day,
Might with the mass have built his pyramid.
As Halil Pacha gazed, the prophecy,
So strangely made against himself that morn,
Came to his memory, and he slowly sought,
Buried in gloomy fancies, such a spot
As sorted with his mood; there seated him,
Under the shadow of the lofty wall
Cursed by the widow.
The Pipe-bearer came,
Fetching the frothing Moka and the pipe;
But looked aghast, considering the spot
Where sat the Pacha. Then he stooped, and touched
The dusty ground, his mouth and bended head
In deep obeisance, speaking under-breathed,
Though hastily with terror: "Does my lord
Sit here to court the danger of the place?
But yesterday the builder said to us,
'Keep from that wall, I warn ye. It is sprung
Out of the level, and will fall unless
I buttress it securely.'" "Look ye now,"
Said Halil sharply, "if the wall should fall,
It must descend on saucy Fatima,
Outward, not inward. 'Tis the law of things,
As told by English Newton, lines direct
Rule falling bodies." So he sat and smoked,
Complacent that his Pipe-bearer was stunned
Before his learning. But the boy's white face
Woke pity in the Pacha's heart; he rose
With, "Well, to please you;" for he loved the lad,
And followed him with patience to a seat
By an acacia, burdened with its bloom,
Shadowed and cooled. The youthful Pipe-bearer
Went gayly to his duties in the house.
Once more the Pacha looked half wearily
Upon the smoking steamers and the sails,
The crowded bridges and the Asian hills,
The mighty dome, that keeps its Christian name