So Nourmahal to Selim came: then fell upon her knees!

The envious jewels looked at her with chill, barbaric stare,
The cloth-of-gold she knelt upon grew lusterless and bare,
And all the place was cooler in the darkness of her hair.

And while she knelt in queenly pride and beauty strange and wild,
And held her breast with both her palms and looked on him and smiled,
She seemed no more of common earth, but Casyapa's child.

He bent to her as thus she smiled; he kissed her lifted cheek;
"Oh Nourmahal," he murmured low, "more dear than I can speak,
I'm weary of my lonely life: give me the rest I seek."

She rose and paced the silken floor, as if in mad caprice,
Then paused, and from the Empress changed to improvisatrice,
And wove this song--a golden chain--that led him into peace:


Lovely children of the light,
Draped in radiant locks and pinions,--
Red and purple, blue and white--
In their beautiful dominions,
On the earth and in the spheres,
Dwell the little glendoveers.

And the red can know no change,
And the blue are blue forever,
And the yellow wings may range
Toward the white or purple never.