And the dark Arab, with that last disgrace All fire, answered: "Thou, perhaps, hast heard The Koran text that says--'tis God's own word!-- 'The day will come when each soul shall be prompt To bow before Me and to give accompt.'" Then wroth indeed was Hisham: fiercely said, "He braves us!--Headsman, ho! his peevish head! See: canst thou medicine its speech anew; Doctor its multiplying words to few: Divorce them well." So, where the Arab stood, Bound him; made kneel upon the cloth of blood. With curving sword the headsman leaned, at pause, And,--as 'tis custom, made of Moslem laws,-- To the descendant of the Prophet quoth, "O Khalif, shall I strike?" "By Iblis' oath! Strike!" answered Hisham. But again the slave Questioned; and yet again the Khalif gave His nodded "yea"; and for the third time then He asked: and knowing neither men nor Jinn Might save him if the Khalif spake assent, Signalled the sword, the youth with body bent Laughed--till the wang-teeth of each jaw appeared; Laughed--as with scorn the King of kings he'd beard, Deriding Death. So, with redoubled spleen, Roared Hisham, rising, "It is truly seen This one is mad who mocks at Azrael!" Then said the Arab: "Listen!--Once befell, Commander of the Faithful, that a hawk, A hungry hawk, pounced on a sparrow-cock; And winging nestward with his meal in claw, To him the sparrow,--for the creature saw The hawk's conceit,--addressed this slyly, 'Oh, Most great, most royal, there is not, I know, Aught in me that will stay thy stomach's stress: I am too paltry for thy mightiness!' With which the hawk was pleased, and flattered so That, in a while, he let the sparrow go." Then smiled the Khalif Hisham: and a sign Staying the scimitar, that hung malign, A threatening crescent, said: "God bless, preserve The Prophet whom all true believers serve!-- Now, by my kinship to the Prophet! and Had he at first but spake us thus this hand Had ne'er been wrathful; and, instead of hate, He had had all--except the Khalifate." Bade stuff his mouth with jewels and entreat Him courteously, then from the palace beat. ARABAH "_The third of these heroes, the blind Arabah._"--Gibbon. And one brought pearls and one brought passion-flowers To blind Arabah as he lay in dreams, And one brought visions of the after hours. And he beheld the rainbow-rolling streams Of Eden on harmonious sands of gold, And battlements, builded of prismatic beams. He was not sightless now, nor weak, nor old; For lo! the dark-eyed girls of Paradise Rained on him gifts and kisses.