YASMIN (A Ghazel) How splendid in the morning glows the lily: with what grace he throws His supplication to the rose: do roses nod the head, Yasmin? But when the silver dove descends I find the little flower of friends Whose very name that sweetly ends I say when I have said, Yasmin. The morning light is clear and cold: I dare not in that light behold A whiter light, a deeper gold, a glory too far shed, Yasmin. But when the deep red eye of day is level with the lone highway, And some to Mecca turn to pray, and I toward thy bed, Yasmin; Or when the wind beneath the moon is drifting like a soul aswoon, And harping planets talk love's tune with milky wings outspread, Yasmin, Shower down thy love, O burning bright! For one night or the other night Will come the Gardener in white, and gathered flowers are dead, Yasmin. GATES OF DAMASCUS Four great gates has the city of Damascus, And four Grand Wardens, on their spears reclining, All day long stand like tall stone men And sleep on the towers when the moon is shining. 'This is the song of the East Gate Warden When he locks the great gate and smokes in his garden'. Postern of Fate, the Desert Gate, Disaster's Cavern, Fort of Fear, The Portal of Bagdad am I, the Doorway of Diarbekir. The Persian dawn with new desires may net the flushing mountain spires, But my gaunt buttress still rejects the suppliance of those mellow fires. Pass not beneath, O Caravan, or pass not singing. Have you heard That silence where the birds are dead yet something pipeth like a bird? Pass not beneath! Men say there blows in stony deserts still a rose But with no scarlet to her leaf--and from whose heart no perfume flows. Wilt thou bloom red where she buds pale, thy sister rose? Wilt thou not fail When noonday flashes like a flail? Leave, nightingale, the Caravan! Pass then, pass all! Bagdad! ye cry, and down the billows of blue sky Ye beat the bell that beats to hell, and who shall thrust ye back? Not I. The Sun who flashes through the head and paints the shadows green and red-- The Sun shall eat thy fleshless dead, O Caravan, O Caravan! And one who licks his lips for thirst with fevered eyes shall face in fear The palms that wave, the streams that burst, his last mirage, O Caravan! And one--the bird-voiced Singing-man--shall fall behind thee, Caravan! And God shall meet him in the night, and he shall sing as best he can. And one the Bedouin shall slay, and one, sand-stricken on the way, Go dark and blind; and one shall say--'How lonely is the Caravan!' Pass out beneath, O Caravan, Doom's Caravan, Death's Caravan! I had not told ye, fools, so much, save that I heard your Singing-man. 'This was sung by the West Gate's keeper When heaven's hollow dome grew deeper'. I am the gate toward the sea: O sailor men, pass out from me! I hear you high on Lebanon, singing the marvels of the sea.