Abu Midjan
“If I sit in the dust
For lauding good wine,
Ha, ha! it is just:
So sits the vine!”
Abu Midjan sang as he sat in chains,
For the blood of the grape ran the juice of his veins.
The Prophet had said, “O Faithful, drink not!”
Abu Midjan drank till his heart was hot;
Yea, he sang a song in praise of wine,
He called it good names—a joy divine,
The giver of might, the opener of eyes,
Love’s handmaid, the water of Paradise!
Therefore Saad his chief spake words of blame,
And set him in irons—a fettered flame;
But he sings of the wine as he sits in his chains,
For the blood of the grape runs the juice of his veins:
“I will not think
That the Prophet said
‘Ye shall not drink
Of the flowing red!’ ”
“ ’Tis a drenched brain
Whose after-sting
Cries out, ‘Refrain:
’Tis an evil thing!’
“But I will dare,
With a goodly drought,
To drink, nor spare
Till my thirst be out.
“I do not laugh
Like a Christian fool
But in silence quaff
The liquor cool
“At door of tent
’Neath evening star,
With daylight spent,
And Uriel afar!
“Then, through the sky,
Lo, the emerald hills!
My faith swells high,
My bosom thrills:
“I see them hearken,
The Houris that wait!
Their dark eyes darken
The diamond gate!
“I hear the float
Of their chant divine,
And my heart like a boat
Sails thither on wine!
“Can an evil thing
Make beauty more?
Or a sinner bring
To the heavenly door?
“The sun-rain fine
Would sink and escape,
But is drunk by the vine,
Is stored in the grape:
“And the prisoned light
I free again:
It flows in might
Through my shining brain
“I love and I know;
The truth is mine;
I walk in the glow
Of the sun-bred wine.
“I will not think
That the Prophet said
‘Ye shall not drink
Of the flowing red!’
“For his promises, lo,
Sevenfold they shine
When the channels o’erflow
With the singing wine!
“But I care not, I!—’tis a small annoy
To sit in chains for a heavenly joy!”
Away went the song on the light wind borne;
His head sank down, and a ripple of scorn
Shook the hair that flowed from his curling lip
As he eyed his brown limbs in the iron’s grip.
Sudden his forehead he lifted high:
A faint sound strayed like a moth-wing by!
Like beacons his eyes burst blazing forth:
A dust-cloud he spied in the distant north!
A noise and a smoke on the plain afar?
’Tis the cloud and the clang of the Muslim war!
He leapt aloft like a tiger snared;
The wine in his veins through his visage flared;
He tore at his fetters in bootless ire,
He called the Prophet, he named his sire;
From his lips, with wild shout, the Tecbir burst;
He danced in his irons; the Giaours he cursed;
And his eyes they flamed like a beacon dun,
Or like wine in the crystal twixt eye and sun.
The lady of Saad heard him shout,
Heard his fetters ring on the stones about
The heart of a warrior she understood,
And the rage of the thwarted battle-mood:
Her name, with the cry of an angry prayer,
He called but once, and the lady was there.
“The Giaour!” he panted, “the Godless brute!
And me like a camel tied foot to foot!
Let me go, and I swear by Allah’s fear
At sunset I don again this gear,
Or lie in a heaven of starry eyes,
Kissed by moon-maidens of Paradise!
O lady, grant me the death of the just!
Hark to the hurtle! see the dust!”
With ready fingers the noble dame
Unlocked her husband’s iron blame;
Brought his second horse, his Abdon, out,
And his second hauberk, light and stout;
Harnessed the warrior, and hight him go
An angel of vengeance upon the foe.
With clank of steel and thud of hoof
Away he galloped; she climbed the roof.
She sees the cloud and the flashes that leap
From the scythe-shaped swords inside it that sweep
Down with back-stroke the disordered swath:
Thither he speeds, a bolt of wrath!
Straight as an arrow she sees him go,
Abu Midjan, the singer, upon the foe!
Like an eagle he vanishes in the cloud,
And the thunder of battle bursts more loud,
Mingled of crashes and blows and falls,
Of the whish that severs the throat that calls,
Of neighing and shouting and groaning grim:
Abu Midjan, she sees no more of him!
Northward the battle drifts afar
On the flowing tide of the holy war.
Lonely across the desert sand,
From his wrist by its thong hung his clotted brand,
Red in the sunset’s level flame
Back to his bonds Abu Midjan came.
“Lady, I swear your Saad’s horse—
The Prophet himself might have rode a worse!
Like the knots of a serpent the play of his flesh
As he tore to the quarry in Allah’s mesh!
I forgot him, and mowed at the traitor weeds,
Which fell before me like rushes and reeds,
Or like the tall poppies that sudden drop low
Their heads to an urchin’s unstrung bow!
Fled the Giaour; the faithful flew after to kill;
I turned to surrender: beneath me still
Was Abdon unjaded, fresh in force,
Faithful and fearless—a heavenly horse!
Give him water, lady, and barley to eat;
Then haste thee and fetter the wine-bibber’s feet.”
To the terrace he went, and she to the stall;
She tended the horse like guest in hall,
Then to the warrior unhasting returned.
The fire of the fight in his eyes
