ept behind, and slily watching
Slips the Pumpkin off the Sleeper's
Ancle, ties it round his own,
And so down to sleep beside him.
By and by the Kurd awaking
Looks directly for his Signal--
Sees it on another's Ancle--
Cries aloud, "Oh Good-for-Nothing
Rascal to perplex me so!
That by you I am bewilder'd,
Whether I be I or no!
If I--the Pumpkin why on You?
If You--then Where am I, and Who?"

Oh God! this poor bewilder'd Kurd am I,
Than any Kurd more helpless!--Oh, do thou
Strike down a Ray of Light into my Darkness!
Turn by thy Grace these Dregs into pure Wine,
To recreate the Spirits of the Good!
Or if not that, yet, as the little Cup
Whose Name I go by, not unworthy found
To pass thy salutary Vintage round!

II.

And yet how long, Jami, in this Old House
Stringing thy Pearls upon a Harp of Song?
Year after Year striking up some new Song,
The Breath of some Old Story? Life is gone,
And yet the Song is not the Last; my Soul
Is spent--and still a Story to be told!
And I, whose Back is crooked as the Harp
I still keep tuning through the Night till Day!
That Harp untun'd by Time--the Harper's hand
Shaking with Age--how shall the Harper's hand
Repair its cunning, and the sweet old Harp
Be modulated as of old? Methinks
'Tis time to break and cast it in the Fire;
Yea, sweet the Harp that can be sweet no more,
To cast it in the Fire--the vain old Harp
That can no more sound Sweetness to the Ear,
But burn'd may breathe sweet Attar to the Soul,
And comfort so the Faith and Intellect,
Now that the Body looks to Dissolution.
My Teeth fall out--my two Eyes see no more
Till by Feringhi Glasses turn'd to Four;
Pain sits with me sitting behind my knees,
From which I hardly rise unhelpt of hand;
I bow down to my Root, and like a Child
Yearn, as is likely, to my Mother Earth,
With whom I soon shall cease to moan and weep,
And on my Mother's Bosom fall asleep.

The House in Ruin, and its Music heard
No more within, nor at the Door of Speech,
Better in Silence and Oblivion
To fold me Head and Foot, remembering
What that Beloved to the Master whisper'd:--
"No longer think of Rhyme, but think of Me!"--
Of Whom?--of Him whose Palace The Soul is,
And T