And up from the nooks of the camp, with hoarse plaudit outdealt, The bearded Sabini glanced hotly, and vowed as they knelt, Bare-stretching the wrists that bore also the glowing great boon: ‘Yea! surely as over us shineth the lurid low moon, ‘Not alone of our lord, but of each of us take what he hath! Too poor is the guerdon, if thou wilt but show us the path.’ Her nostril upraised, like a fawn’s on the arrowy air, She sped; in a serpentine gleam to the precipice stair, They climbed in her traces, they closed on their evil swift star: She bent to the latches, and swung the huge portal ajar. Repulsed where they passed her, half-tearful for wounded belief, ‘The bracelets!’ she pleaded. Then faced her the leonine chief, And answered her: ‘Even as I promised, maid-merchant, I do.’ Down from his dark shoulder the baubles he sullenly drew. ‘This left arm shall nothing begrudge thee. Accept. Find it sweet. Give, too, O my brothers!’ The jewels he flung at her feet, The jewels hard, heavy; she stooped to them, flushing with dread, But the shield he flung after: it clanged on her beautiful head. Like the Apennine bells when the villagers’ warnings begin, Athwart the first lull broke the ominous din upon din; With a ‘Hail, benefactress!’ upon her they heaped in their zeal Death: agate and iron; death: chrysoprase, beryl and steel. ’Neath the outcry of scorn, ’neath the sinewy tension and hurl, The moaning died slowly, and still they massed over the girl A mountain of shields! and the gemmy bright tangle in links, A torrent-like gush, pouring out on the grass from the chinks, Pyramidal gold! the sumptuous monument won By the deed they had loved her for, doing, and loathed her for, done. Such was the wage that they paid her, such the acclaim: All Rome was aroused with the thunder that buried her shame. On surged the Sabini to battle. O you that aspire! Tarpeia the traitor had fill of her woman’s desire. Woe: lightly to part with one’s soul as the sea with its foam! Woe to Tarpeia, Tarpeia, daughter of Rome! THE CALIPH AND THE BEGGAR. I. SCORNER of the pleading faces, In the first year of his reign, From the lean crowd and its traces Down the open orchard-lane Walked young Mahmoud in his glory, In his pomp and his disdain And beyond all oratory, Music’s sweetness, ocean’s might, Fell a voice from branches hoary: ‘He whose heart is at life’s height, Who has wisdom, love, and riches, Islam’s greatest, dies this night.’ And he crossed the rampart ditches Blinded, and confused, and slow; High in palaced nooks and niches Clanged his fathers’ shields a-row; And their turrets triple-jointed Shook with tempests of his woe.