Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/76



In one of the spreading valleys overgrown with peach-trees hard by Sana in Araby the Blest, Ildis, the Turkish governor's daughter, had wreathed a mighty garland. In her joy at the silent, limpid Oriental evening she resolved to present the garland to that man of Sana's inhabitants who best understood how to use the moment.

In her great childishness she asked the watchman at the city gate where she could find this man. He led her straightway to a writer of books. Who in Sana knew not the name of the writer of books? With hurried step he was going back and forth in his garden. Finally he stood still with an air of satisfaction and murmured: "At length I discern clearly wherein your charm consists, O evening of the Orient!" Thereafter he wrote on a slip of paper the following:

As soon as he had written down the last exclamation mark he sank down weary on a bench and went to sleep forthwith. Ildis looked at him and said: