The Window Looking Eastward

                        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.