Poems (Kennedy)/The Prayer Rug

by Sara Beaumont Kennedy

THE PRAYER RUG

AS supple as a tiger's skin
 With wine hues and with ochre blent,
It lies upon my polished floor—
 Four square feet of the Orient.
No more than that, yet space enough
 On which to build a wonder-dream
Of that far town which, half asleep
   And half a myth,
 Lies 'neath the crescent's golden gleam.

I see Bokhara's minarets
 Like sentries o'er the house-tops stand,
And far away the dropping sky
 Melt in the desert's rippled sand.
Through silence born of noonday heat
 And swooning radiance of the air
I hear, from high muezzin tower
   Like conscience-cry,
 The Moslem's solemn call to prayer.

And quick unrolling this bright rug
 I see its owner spread it down
Where'er he stands—in porch or street—
 And turn his face toward Mecca's town.
On this straight line of woven flame
 His knees by Allah's law must rest;
His feet and hands these squares must touch,
   And in this niche
 Of softened hues his brow be pressed.

And prostrate thus, he makes his plea
 To Allah five times e'er the sun,
A flaming chariot through the sky,
 Its course from dawn to dusk has run.
This much I see with half-shut eyes,
 Caught in the wierd rug's thralling snare,
But, ah! I cannot catch the drift
   Of mystic signs
 That fashioned forth the Moslem's prayer.

Prayed he that to his aged woes
 The Prophet's helping hand be lent,
As answering the muezzin's call
 His wing-ed words to Allah went?
Or yet—or yet, not old, but young—
 Young, with his pagan blood on fire
With life and love's eternal quest,
   Prayed he instead
 To gain the port of Heart's Desire?

The while—his face set toward the East—
 He wore the rug smooth with his knees,
Did he recall some harem girl
 Whose eyes flashed him love's dear decrees?
I cannot tell; the rug gives back
 No faintest whisper of his prayer;
He may have asked his rival's blood
   On whetted blade,
 Or yielded him to love's despair.

I only know that o'er the leagues
 Of sand that's gold and sea that's brown
A subtle thread spins in my brain
 To far Bokhara's sunlit town.
And visions haunt me like dim dreams
Whose baffling veil may ne'er be rent;
 I only know, or rich or poor,
I hold in fief
   Four square feet of the Orient.