  Among the fruit-trees still he slumbers. All Mourned for their brother with one heavy heart. Even Tous drooped, swaying weakly in his stride; Until Farid Bahadur, cheapjack, spoke, One bootlessly afoot whose years had brought For profit this, to see existence clear And empty as a solid ball of glass. Erstwhile, he said, my peddling carried me Clean through two empires like a paper hoop, Setting me down upon the olive slopes Where Smyrna nestles back to mother earth, And so lures in the ocean. I filled my pack With kerchiefs, beads, dross, chaffering with a Greek, Although he vowed a much-loved partner's death Left him no heart for it. He blew his nose, Asking strange prices as a man distraught. I had no heart to bargain while he crooned: "Our loves were woven of one splendid thread, But not our lives, though we had been, we twain, Linked as in worship at the Spartan fane Of him who brought his brother from the dead. Ah, would our God were like his gods that said: Such love as this shall not have flowered in vain, And let the younger Castor live again The space that Pollux lay with Death instead. Dear, I had lain so gladly in the grave Not for a part of time but for God's whole Eternity, had died, yea oft, to save Not half your life, but one short hour. Your soul Was all too pure; mine had no right to ask From heaven such mercy as a saviour's task. "They say the Olympian grace was not content With housing Death, but giving Love the key. It set the troths that guided you and me Among the jewels of the firmament; And there they dwell for ever and assent To each propitious ploughing of the sea. The coasting-pilots of Infinity Well know The Brothers. So your sails were bent, Young fathomer of the blue. I linger here With following gaze that tugs my heart-strings taut All day; but every night an Argonaut Slips through the streets and darkness, seaward, far Beyond the limitations of his sphere Into the vacant place beside a star." So crooned he desolate in his dim shop, Till I became all ears and had no eyes. The fellow cheated me of three dinars. |
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