Came hot upon my face. She stopped: she rolled
A deep-voiced note of pleasure and of love,
And gathering up her spotted length, lay down,
Her head upon my lap, and forward thrust
One heavy-moulded paw across my knees,
The glittering talons sheathing tenderly.
Thus we, in that oasis all alone,
Sat when the sun went down the Pard and I,
Caressing and caressed : and more of love
And more of confidence between us came,
I grateful for my safety, she alive
With the dumb pleasure of companionship,
Which touched with instincts of humanity
Her brutish nature. When I slept, at last,
My arm was on her neck.
No rupture of the bond between us twain.
The creature loved me; she would bounding come, Cat-like, to rub her great, smooth, yellow head Against my knee, or with rough tongue would
The hand that stroked the velvet of her hide.
How beautiful she was! how lithe and free
The undulating motions of her frame!
How shone, like isles of tawny gold, her spots, Mapped on the creamy white! And when she
No princess, with the crown about her brows,
Looked so superbly royal. Ah, my friends,
Smile as you may, but I would give this life
With its fantastic pleasures-ay, even that
One leads in Paris to be back again
In the red Desert with my splendid Pard.
That grove of date-trees was our home, our world,
A star of verdure in a sky of sand.
Without the feathery fringes of its shade
The naked Desert ran, its burning round
Sharp as a sword: the naked sky above,
Awful in its immensity, not shone
There only, where the sun supremely flamed,
But all its deep-blue walls were penetrant
With dazzling light. God reigned in Heaven and
Earth,
An Everlasting Presence, and his care
Fed us, alike his children. From the trees
That shook down pulpy dates, and from the spring,
The quiet author of that happy grove,
My wants were sated; and when midnight came,
Then would the Pard steal softly from my side,
Take the unmeasured sand with flying leaps
And vanish in the dusk, returning soon
With a gazelle's light carcass in her jaws.
So passed the days, and each the other taught
Our simple language. She would come at call
Of the pet name I gave her, bound and sport
When so I bade, and she could read my face
Through all its changing moods, with better skill
Than many a Christian comrade. Pard and beast,
Though you may say she was, she had a soul.
But Sin will find the way to Paradise.
Erelong the sense of isolation fed
My mind with restless fancies. I began
To miss the life of camp, the march, the fight,
The soldier's emulation: youthful blood
Ran in my veins: the silence lost its charm,
And when the morning sunrise lighted up
The threshold of the Desert, I would gaze
With looks of bitter longing o'er the sand.
At last, I filled my soldier's sash with dates,
Drank deeply of the spring, and while the Pard
Roamed in the starlight for her forage, took
A westward course. The grove already lay
A dusky speck- -no more-when through the
night
Came the forsaken creature's eager cry.
Into a sandy pit I crept, and heard
Her bounding on my track until she rolled
Down from the brink upon me.
Of joy and of distress, the touching proof
Of the poor beast's affection, did she strive
To lift me- Pardon, friends! these foolish eyes
Must have their will: and had you seen her then,
In her mad gambols, as we homeward went,
Your hearts had softened too.
By some vile devil of mistrust, became
More jealous and impatient. In my heart
I cursed the grove, and with suspicions wronged
The noble Pard. She keeps me here, I thought,
Deceived with false caresses, as a cat
Toys with the trembling mouse she straight de
Will she so gently fawn about my feet,
When the gazelles are gone? Will she crunch
And drink the spring, whose only drink is blood? Am I to ruin flattered, and by whom?
Not even a man, a wily beast of prey.
Thus did the Devil whisper in mine ear,
Till those black thoughts were rooted in my heart And made me cruel. So it chanced one day,
That as I watched a flock of birds, that wheeled,
And dipped, and circled in the air, the Pard,
Moved by a freak of fond solicitude
To win my notice, closed her careful fangs
About my knee. Scarce knowing what I did,
In the blind impulse of suspicious fear,
I plunged, full home, my dagger in her neck.
God! could I but recall that blow! She loosed
Her hold, as softly as a lover quits
His mistress' lips, and with a single groan,
Full of reproach and sorrow, sank and died.
What had I done! Sure never on this earth
Did sharper grief so base a deed requite.
Its murderous fury gone, my heart was racked
With pangs of wild contrition, spent itself
In cries and tears, the while I called on God
To curse me for my sin. There lay the Pard,
Her splendid eyes all film, her blazoned fell
Smirched with her blood; and I, her murderer,
Less than a beast, had thus repaid her love.
Ah, friends! with all this guilty memory
My heart is sore: and little now remains
To tell you, but that afterwards - how long,
I could not know our soldiers picked me up,
Wandering about the Desert, wild with grief
And sobbing like a child. My nerves have grown
To steel, in many battles; I can step
Without a shudder through the heaps of slain;
But never, never, till the day I die,
Prevent a woman's weakness when I think
Upon my desert Pard: and if a man
Deny this truth she taught me, to his face
I say he lies: a beast may have a soul.
ARIEL IN THE CLOVEN PINE.
OW the frosty stars are gone:
I have watched them, one by one,
Fading on the shores of Dawn.
Round and full the glorious sun
Walks with level step the spray,
Through his vestibule of Day,
While the wolves that late did howl
Slink to dens and coverts foul,
Guarded by the demon owl,
Who, last night, with mocking croon,
Wheeled athwart the chilly moon,
And with eyes that blankly glared
On my direful torment stared.
The lark is flickering in the light;
Still the nightingale doth sing;·
All the isle, alive with Spring,
Lies, a jewel of delight,
On the blue sea's heaving breast:
Not a breath from out the West,
But some balmy smell doth bring
From the sprouting myrtle buds,
Or from meadowy vales that lie
Like a green inverted sky,
Which the yellow cowslip stars,
And the bloomy almond woods,
Cloud-like, cross with roseate bars.
All is life that I can spy,
To the farthest sea and sky,
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