Page:The Dial (Volume 76).djvu/617

Rh When evening stirs the jasmine, and yet Are brideless."

"I am falling into years."

"But such as you and I do not seem old Like men who live by habit. Every day I ride with falcon to the river's edge Or carry the ringed mail upon my back, Or court a woman; neither enemy, Game-bird, nor woman does the same thing twice; And so a hunter carries in the eye A mimicry of youth. Can poet's thought That springs from body and in body falls Like this pure jet now lost amid blue sky Now bathing lily leaf and fishes' scale Be mimicry?"

"What matter if our souls Are nearer to the surface of the body Than souls that start no game and turn no rhyme! The soul's own youth and not the body's youth Shows through our lineaments. My candle's bright, My lantern is too loyal not to show That it was made in your great father's reign. And yet the jasmine season warms our blood."

"Great prince, forgive the freedom of my speech; You think that love has seasons, and you think That if the spring bear off what the spring gave The heart need suffer no defeat; but I Who have accepted the Byzantine faith, That seems unnatural to Arabian minds, Think when I choose a bride I choose for ever; And if her eye should not grow bright for mine Or brighten only for some younger eye, My heart could never turn from daily ruin, Nor find a remedy."

"But what if I