Page:Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal Vol 29.djvu/28

16 His face pale with terror and both his lips blue,

And Solomon said to him, “ 0 friend, what meaneth this ?”

He answered, “ The angel ’Izréil

Hath just thrown on me a glance full of wrath and hatred.”

“ Ask,” said the king, “ \vhat boon thou desirest.”

“ Oh thou refuge of the heart, command the wind

That it hear me from hence to Hindustan,

It may be that there I may save my life.”

Then Solomon gave to the wind its mission

And it bore the man away to Somnﬁth.—

Thus too thou may’st see men ﬂying from poverty,

They are swallowed as victims by desire and hope,

That fear of theirs is but like his in the story,

And desire and its greed is their Hindustan 1—-

He commanded the wind that forthwith in haste

It should hear him to Hindustan across the sea.

The next day at the time of audience

King Solomon spake unto ’Izréil,

“ Thou looked’st with wrath on a true heliever,—-

Tell me wherefore, oh messenger of the Lord.

’Twas a strange action, methinks, this of thine,

To frighten him an exile from house and home.”

He answered, “ Oh thou King of an unsetting empire,

His fancy interpreted my action wrong.

How should I have looked with anger on such as him?

I but cast a glance of wonder as I passed him in the road,

For God had commanded me that very day

To seize his soul in Hindustan.

I saw him here and greatly did I marvel,

And I lost myself in a maze of wonder.

I said in my heart, Though he had an hundred wings

He could never ﬂy from hence to Hindustan in a day.

But when I arrived, as God commanded,

I found him there before me and took his soul.”

Few Oriental Apologues have a more striking outline than the above, rising almost to the moral sublime; but it is only one of the many ﬁne legends and fables which are scattered throughout the