And when the Sultan of those most distant lands knew that the Creator
of All had contrived a device so vastly to his delight his merriment
knew no bounds. On a sudden he spake and said, and this was the gist
of his saying, that upon that line of boundary or limit that divided
the North from the South a palace be made, where in the Northern
courts should summer be, while in the South was winter; so should he
move from court to court according to his mood, and dally with the
summer in the morning and spend the noon with snow. So the Sultan's
poets were sent for and bade to tell of that city, foreseeing its
splendour far away to the South and in the future of time; and some
were found fortunate. And of those that were found fortunate and were
crowned with flowers none earned more easily the Sultan's smile (on
which long days depended) than he that foreseeing the city spake of it
thus:

"In seven years and seven days, O Prop of Heaven, shall thy builders
build it, thy palace that is neither North nor South, where neither
summer nor winter is sole lord of the hours. White I see it, very
vast, as a city, very fair, as a woman, Earth's wonder, with many
windows, with thy princesses peering out at twilight; yea, I behold
the bliss of the gold balconies, and hear a rustling down long
galleries and the doves' coo upon its sculptured eaves. O Prop of
Heaven, would that so fair a city were built by thine ancient sires,
the children of the sun, that so might all men see it even today, and
not the poets only, whose vision sees it so far away to the South and
in the future of time.

"O King of the Years, it shall stand midmost on that line that
divideth equally the North from the South and that parteth the seasons
asunder as with a screen. On the Northern side when summer is in the