I.
In the silence of my chamber,
As the twilight gathered o’er me,
I sat and read the story
Of an eastern monarchy’s son;
Till the antique-fashioned letters
Wavered, dim and strange before me,
And the long and floating shadows
Had all deepened into one.
‘Twas the story of Prince Hassan—
Whom an evil genius haunted,
And sought by tricks of sorcery
To overwhelm with ill;
But to all whose machinations
No whit of power was granted,
Unless thereto was added
His own consenting will.
For years, the fiend had labored
By spell and incantation
To win the prince to evil,
And labored but to fail;
For though adroit the scheming
And luring the temptation,
Young Hassan’s firm resistance
Made all of no avail.
But at length, the story tells us,
There came an hour of weakness—
As the prince lay idly dreaming,
In his dim kiosk alone,
Lo! a maiden leant above him,
With a face of wondrous sweetness,
And eyes like summer midnight
That looked love into his own
And forgetting all, save only
The warm breath that floated o’er him,
And the red lips gently parted,
That had almost touched his own;
He followed at her bidding,
As she led the way before him,
And listened the beguiling
Of her low and siren tone
Through the gardens, summer-laden
With rare odors, from the flowers,
And beaming in the rosc-light
Of the low declining sun,
And through groves, that seemed to Hassan
Like the houri-haunted bowers
That are promised to the faithful
When their pilgrimage is done:
Still he followed, little heeding,
Till, suddenly around him.
Rose the dark rocks, like a prison,
Shutting out the sun and sky,
And a power that seemed resistless
Like an iron chain had bound him,
While jeers and mooking laughter
In the air came sweeping by.
Then he knew that he had given
To the sorcerer his power,
By his own act lost the kingdom
Over which 'twas his to reign;
Himself conveyed to stranger hands
His birthright and his dower,
And reared the gloomy prison
He should never leave again.
II.
I closed the book, and in the deep'ning stillness
That slowly hushed the day's unquiet strife,
Sat. musing sadly on this fevered illness,
Which in our madness we have christened life.
The shams and falsehood; all we seem but are not,
All that we would be, but can ne'er attain;
Where, while “we would," is waiting on " to dare not,"
Life ebbs, and leaves us stranded on the main.
Still dark, and darker from without came trailing
The fearful shadows, with their vampire wings,
And through the casement, like a spirit wailing,
Come half-breatbed whisperings of forgotten things
Lost! lost! I murmured, groping on through seeming
And doubt, and darkness, down to death at last;
Sleep-walkers all, in this unquiet dreaming.
Waking too late to e'er retrace the past.
Waking. like Hassan, but to find around us
The prison walls which our own hands have made:
To find the chains wherewith our fate has bound us,
With all the records of our lives inlaid.
The linked events, which by our own consenting
Have held us from the kingdom of our right,
Leaving us naught but tears, and vain repenting
For the bright morning wo have turned to night.
Midnight! I murmured; well I know, that never
Will it be lifted from my sight again;
Its leaden shadows will remain forever,
Pressing the life out from my heart and brain.
But now my chamber, where the twilight found me,
Seemed strangely changing in the pulseless air,
I felt the walls grow damp and chill around me.
My heart was stifling in its mute despair.
I could see nothing-but I sat there, feeling
The darkness pressed upon me like a pall.
And stealthy footsteps, liko assassins, stealing
Through the deep stillness that was over all.
They are the fiends, I said, that mock our malness
With dear hopes perished, that will come no more,
Taunting our failures with their demon gladness,
The lost occasion time can ne'er restore.
But while I listened, stilling e’en the beating
Of my own pulses in that awful dread,
I felt the walls about me slowly meeting,
The iron oiling pressed upon my head.
Closer, and closer yet, one moment longer
And life will vanish from the quivering clod,
But in its parting made by anguish stronger,
With one wild shriek my spirit called on God.
* * * *
Lo! in my chamber broad and clear is streaming
The morning sunlight o'er the antique page,
And to my waking dawns a deeper meaning
In what was written by the eastern sage.
We rear no prison by our weak consenting
That will not crumble at our own strong will;
Commit no wrong too grievous for repenting,
Lose no occasion but may serve us still.
Throw back the shutter—I can see the river—
It lies in shadow, but beyond is light;
The eastern hill-tops where the sunbeams quiver,
God's shining army that shall vanquish night.
Celia M. Tibbits Burleigh
