Long ago--so runs the story--in the days of King Akbar,

'Mid the pearly--tinted splendours of the Paradise Bazar,^[12]

Young Jehangir, boyish--hearted, playing idly with his dove,

Lost his fav'rite, lost his boyhood, lost his heart, and found his love.

By a fretted marble fountain, set in broidery of flowers,

Sat a girl, half child, half maiden, dreaming o'er the future hours,

Wond'ring simply, yet half guessing, what the harem women mean

When they call her fair, and whisper, "You are born to be a queen."

Curving her small palms like petals, for a store of glistening spray,

Gazing in the sunny water, where her rippling shadow lay,

Lips that ripen fast for kisses, slender form of budding grace,

Hair that frames with ebon softness a clear, oval, ivory face.

Arched and fringed with velvet blackness, from their shady depths her eyes

Shine as summer lightning flashes in the dusky evening skies.

Mihr un-nissa (queen of women), so they call the little maid

Dreaming by the marble fountain where but yesterday she played.

Heavy-sweet the creamy blossoms gem the burnished orange-groves;

Through their bloom comes Prince Jehangir, on his wrist two fluttering doves.

"Hold my birds, child!" cries the stripling, "I am tired of their play"--

Thrusts them in her hand unwilling; careless saunters on his way.

Culling posies as he wanders from the flowers sweet and rare,

Heedless that the fairest blossom, 'mid the blaze of blossom there,

Is the little dreaming maiden, by the fountain-side at rest,

With the onyx-eyed, bright-plumaged birds of love upon her breast.

Flowers fade, and perfume passes; nothing pleases long to-day;

Back towards his feathered favourites soon the prince's footsteps stray.

Dreaming still sits Mihr-un-nissa, but within her listless hold

Only one fair struggling captive does the boy, surprised, behold.

"Only one?" he queried sharply. "Sire," she falters, "one has flown."

"Stupid! how?" The maiden flushes at the proud, imperious tone.

"So, my lord!" she says, defiant, with a scornful smile, and straight

From her unclasped hands the other, circling, flies to join his mate.

Startled by her quick reprisal, wrath is lost in blank surprise;

Silent stands the heir of Akbar, gazing with awakening eyes

On the small, rebellious figure, with its slender arms outspread,

Rising resolute before him 'gainst the sky of sunset red.

Heavy-sweet the creamy blossom gems the gloomy orange-tree,

Where the happy doves are cooing o'er their new-found liberty.

Slowly dies the flush of anger, as the flush of evening dies;

Slowly grow his eyes to brightness, as the stars in evening skies.

"So, my lord!" So Love had flitted from the listless hold of Fate,

And the heart of young Jehangir, like the dove, had found its mate.