DEMETRIUS.

In my life I have had two idols, one my country, one my wife,

And I know I loved them faithfully, and both with one accord;

But the day came, beaded falsely on my brittle leash of life,

When perforce I chose between them, through the wisdom of the Lord.

High upon the rocky summit of a cliff in red Algiers,

Raised against the sky of sunset, like a beaker filled with wine,

While each dome is like a bubble that above the brim appears,

Stands the city I was born in, my belovèd Constantine.

Nobly rise the brick-roofed houses with their heavy gray stone walls,

While here and there, above them all, the mosque and minaret;

Like the voice of some enchanter sounds the bearded muezzin's calls,

And the rustle of the cypress seems a murmur of regret.

Round the ancient Cintran city runs a dark wall broad and strong,

Like the mailed belt of a warrior, and the gate the buckle seems;

While a tower toward the sunset is a dagger hilted long;

Whose blade is bid in foldings of a circling sash of streams.

Far away the Atlas mountains rear their heads of lasting snow,

And seem like old men grouped around in high-backed chairs of space;

And they bathe their feet like children in the brooks that run below,

Or smoke their pipes in silence till the clouds obscure each face.

I was poor: they say they found me lying naked in the street,

And a beggar so befriended me and brought me to his door,

And cared for me and tended me, until my growing feet

Could patter through the market-place and there increase our store.

I never knew the tenderness of father or of mother;

My tatters scarcely covered me; my hunger made me thin;

I never knew of sympathy or kindness from another;

I drank the cup of bitterness that comes to want and sin.

All my early youth was squandered, when there came across my thought

A passionate intolerance of the course my life had run;

And I went out to the venders and some meagre fruitage bought,

Till with selling and with buying, lo, a new life was begun.

Soon I found myself the owner of vast houses, wares, and sails,

A very prince of traffic, with my slaves beyond the line,

Where they sold my costly merchandise of cloth and cotton bales,

Of many colored leathers, ostrich feathers, dates, and wine.