Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-13.pdf/216

1874.] The widow wept; and some around the dame Twittered, like sparrows in the early morn, Their heads commingled. Others, standing shy Upon the outskirts of the gaudy flock, Cooed, breast to breast, like sunny doves; and some Scolded, like magpies, fiercely to themselves, For want of listeners. Halil only smiled. Then cried another, fine in purple silk, Lifting her henna-tinted hand that blazed With a round ruby, lady by her mien: Shame on you, Pacha! You have taken our seat Upon the hill-side, where we sat and looked At holy Asia as the sun went down,— Ay, and defiled it, made it lairs for dogs In heaps of rubbish!" Here the better sort Essayed a groan, that ended in a sigh Half full of tears,—the woman's way, good lack! Others-declaimed in various treble tones. One said the digging had destroyed her well; Another that her windows all were blind Against the growing wall; another vowed She had been robbed of pics on pics of land By limits falsely run. Halil began To look around him, with his eyes upturned, As though he saw the planets through the roof And held no commerce with terrestrial things. By this the beldame, reaching out her neck, Her eyes no longer running, found a tongue.— Your heart is hard; I see it in your face; But tremble. Pacha, lest the sorrowing poor Should cry against you! For that sacred cry Finds soonest entrance into Allah's ears: Yea, while the very prayers of holy men Stand humbly waiting!" Halil smiled again; For he was skeptical and weak of faith, Like almost all our men of high degree, And scarce saw God in anything, they say,— Praise be to Allah, that such souls are damned! But here his patience failed him. "Get ye gone!" He cried, as though he shouted to his men Amidst the clattering engines—"Get ye gone! Ye flock of talking parrots, badly taught By shallow knaves, my noted enemies! And you, ill-boding raven, evil-eyed, To whom another's pleasure is offence! Ye know no more of custom nor of law Than yawping geese, ye painted harridans! Forgetful of your sex, and what is due To man, your master, you confront me here— Loose tonged and shameless as the Pera-girls Who sell their favors;—and on what pretext? To judge a thing I have already judged, As witness by my actions!" Such his wrath That even the widow trembled, and the rout