t your hands on the wall
with its pretty pattern of flowers, in the hope that the bricks might
break and reveal the way to that palace of ivory by the amethyst gulf
where the golden dragons are. For there have been men who have burned
prisons down that the prisoners might escape, and even such
incendiaries those dark musicians are who dangerously burn down custom
that the pining thoughts may go free. Let your elders have no fear,
have no fear. I will not play those tunes in any streets we know. I
will not bring those strange musicians here, I will only whisper the
way to the Lands of Dream, and only a few frail feet shall find the
way, and I shall dream alone of the beauty of Saranoora and sometimes
sigh. We danced on and on at the will of the thirty musicians, but
when the stars were paling and the wind that knew the dawn was
ruffling up the edge of the skirts of night, then Saranoora the
princess of the North led me out into a garden. Dark groves of trees
were there which filled the night with perfume and guarded night's
mysteries from the arising dawn. There floated over us, wandering in
that garden, the triumphant melody of those dark musicians, whose
origin was unguessed even by those that dwelt there and knew the Lands
of Dream. For only a moment once sang the tolulu-bird, for the
festival of that night had scared him and he was silent. For only a
moment once we heard him singing in some far grove because the
musicians rested and our bare feet made no sound; for a moment we
heard that bird of which once our nightingale dreamed and handed on
the tradition to his children. And Saranoora told me that they have
named the bird the Sister of Song; but for the musicians, who
presently played again, she said they had no name, for no one knew who
they were or from what country. Then some one sang quite near us in
the darkness to an instrument of strings telling of Singanee and his
battle against the monster. And soon we saw him sitting on the ground
and singing to the night of that spear-thrust that had found the
thumping heart of the destroyer of Perdondaris; and we stopped awhile
and asked him who had seen so memorable a struggle and he answered
none but Singanee and he whose tusk had scattered Perdondaris, and now
the last was dead. And when we asked him if Singanee had told him of
the struggle he said that that proud hunter would say no word about it
and that therefore his mighty deed was given to the poets