"The still, white, creeping road slips on, Marked by the bones of man and beast. What comeliness and might have gone To pad the highway of the East! Long dynasties of fallen rose, The glories of a thousand wars, A million lovers' hearts compose The dust upon the road to Fars. "No tears have ever served to hold This shifting velvet, fathom-deep, Though vain and ceaseless winds have rolled Its pile wherein the ages sleep. Between your fingers you may sift Kings, poets, priests and _charvadars_. Heaven knows how many make a drift Of dust upon the road to Fars. "The wraiths subside. And, One with All, Soon, in the brevity of length, Our lives shall hear the voiceless call That builds this earth of love and strength. Eternal, breathless, we shall wait, Till, last of all the Avatars, God finds us in his first estate: The dust upon the road to Fars." So still he lay, so still the pilgrims deemed He was no longer there. The deepening shade Covered him softly. With his latest breath Slave Obeidullah looked upon the Queen: "You whom I loved so steadfastly, If all the blest should ask to see The cause for which my spirit came Among them with so little claim To peace, this book should speak for me. "I strove and only asked in fee Hope of your immortality Not mine--I had no other aim You whom I loved. "The Judge will bend to hear my plea, And take my songs upon his knee. Perhaps His hand will make the lame Worthy to worship you, the same As here they vainly tried to be, You whom I loved." Then, turned towards her, Obeidullah slept. VIII THE TALE OF THE CHEAPJACK Among the fruit-trees still he slumbers. All Mourned for their brother with one heavy heart. Even Tous drooped, swaying weakly in his stride; Until Farid Bahadur, cheapjack, spoke, One bootlessly afoot whose years had brought For profit this, to see existence clear And empty as a solid ball of glass. Erstwhile, he said, my peddling carried me Clean through two empires like a paper hoop, Setting me down upon the olive slopes Where Smyrna nestles back to mother earth, And so lures in the ocean. I filled my pack With kerchiefs, beads, dross, chaffering with a Greek, Although he vowed a much-loved partner's death Left him no heart for it. He blew his nose, Asking strange prices as a man distraught. I had no heart to bargain while he crooned: