That day again at dead of night I heard the stifled heart-breaking sobs
of some one--as if below the bed, below the floor, below the stony
foundation of that gigantic palace, from the depths of a dark damp
grave, a voice piteously cried and implored me: "Oh, rescue me! Break
through these doors of hard illusion, deathlike slumber and fruitless
dreams, place by your side on the saddle, press me to your heart, and,
riding through hills and woods and across the river, take me to the warm
radiance of your sunny rooms above!"

Who am I? Oh, how can I rescue thee? What drowning beauty, what
incarnate passion shall I drag to the shore from this wild eddy of
dreams? O lovely ethereal apparition! Where didst thou flourish and
when?" By what cool spring, under the shade of what date-groves, wast
thou born--in the lap of what homeless wanderer in the desert? What
Bedouin snatched thee from thy mother's arms, an opening bud plucked
from a wild creeper, placed thee on a horse swift as lightning, crossed
the burning sands, and took thee to the slave-market of what royal city?
And there, what officer of the Badshah, seeing the glory of thy bashful
blossoming youth, paid for thee in gold, placed thee in a golden
palanquin, and offered thee as a present for the seraglio of his master?
And O, the history of that place! The music of the sareng, the jingle
of anklets, the occasional flash of daggers and the glowing wine of
Shiraz poison, and the piercing flashing glance! What infinite
grandeur, what endless servitude!

The slave-girls to thy right and left waved the chamar as diamonds
flashed from their bracelets; the Badshah, the king of kings, fell on
his knees at thy snowy feet in bejewelled shoes, and outside the
terrible Abyssinian eunuch, looking like a messenger of death, but
clothed like an angel, stood with a naked sword in his hand! Then, O,