But what were these so near, So neighbourly fancies to the spell that brought The run of Ali Baba’s Cave Just for the saying ‘Open Sesame,’ With gold to measure, peck by peck, In round, brown wooden stoups You borrowed at the chandler’s? . . . Or one time Made you Aladdin’s friend at school, Free of his Garden of Jewels, Ring and Lamp In perfect trim? . . . Or Ladies, fair For all the embrowning scars in their white breasts Went labouring under some dread ordinance, Which made them whip, and bitterly cry the while, Strange Curs that cried as they, Till there was never a Black Bitch of all Your consorting but might have gone Spell-driven miserably for crimes Done in the pride of womanhood and desire . . . Or at the ghostliest altitudes of night, While you lay wondering and acold, Your sense was fearfully purged; and soon Queen Labé, abominable and dear, Rose from your side, opened the Box of Doom, Scattered the yellow powder (which I saw Like sulphur at the Docks in bulk), And muttered certain words you could not hear; And there! a living stream, The brook you bathed in, with its weeds and flags And cresses, glittered and sang Out of the hearthrug over the nakedness, Fair-scrubbed and decent, of your bedroom floor! . . . I was—how many a time!— That Second Calendar, Son of a King, On whom ’twas vehemently enjoined, Pausing at one mysterious door, To pry no closer, but content his soul With his kind Forty. Yet I could not rest For idleness and ungovernable Fate. And the Black Horse, which fed on sesame (That wonder-working word!), Vouchsafed his back to me, and spread his vans, And soaring, soaring on From air to air, came charging to the ground Sheer, like a lark from the midsummer clouds, And, shaking me out of the saddle, where I sprawled Flicked at me with his tail, And left me blinded, miserable, distraught (Even as I was in deed, When doctors came, and odious things were done On my poor tortured eyes With lancets; or some evil acid stung And wrung them like hot sand, And desperately from room to room Fumble I must my dark, disconsolate way), To get to Bagdad how I might. But there I met with Merry Ladies. O you three— Safie, Amine, Zobëidé—when my heart Forgets you all shall be forgot! And so we supped, we and the rest, On wine and roasted lamb, rose-water, dates, Almonds, pistachios, citrons. And Haroun Laughed out of his lordly beard On Giaffar and Mesrour (_I_ knew the Three For all their Mossoul habits). And outside The Tigris, flowing swift Like Severn bend for bend, twinkled and gleamed With broken and wavering shapes of stranger stars; The vast, blue night Was murmurous with peris’ plumes And the leathern wings of genies; words of power Were whispering; and old fishermen,