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496 Pause at the Treatise of Parmenides And hide it there, for Caliphs to world's end Must keep that perfect, as they keep her song So great its fame.

When fitting time has passed The parchment will disclose to some learned man A mystery that else had found no chronicler But the wild Bedouin. Though I approve Those wanderers that welcomed in their tents What great Harun-al-Rashid, occupied With Persian wars or Greek ambassadors Or those who need his bounty or his law, Must needs neglect; I cannot hide the truth That wandering in a desert, featureless As air under a wing, can give bird's wit. In after time they will speak much of me And speak but fantasy. Recall the year When our beloved Caliph put to death His Vizier Jaffer for an unknown reason; "If but the shirt upon my body knew it I'd tear it off and throw it in the fire." That speech was all that the town knew, but he Seemed for a while to have grown young again; Seemed so on purpose, muttered Jaffer's friends, That none might know that he was conscience-struck— But that's a traitor's thought. Enough for me That in the early summer of the year The mightiest of the princes of the world Came to the least considered of his courtiers Sat down upon the fountain's marble edge One hand amid the goldfish in the pool; And thereupon a colloquy took place That I commend to all the chroniclers To show how violent great hearts can lose Their bitterness and find the honeycomb. "I have brought a slender bride into the house; You know the saying 'change the bride with Spring,' And she and I, being sunk in happiness, Cannot endure to think you tread these paths,