Till curious Mildred, struggling well,
Surrendered to the mighty charm.

The steps were scaled for boon or bale,
The book was lifted from its place,
And, bowing to the fragrant grail,
She drank with pleased and eager face
This draught from off an Eastern tale:

Selim, the haughty Jehangir, the Conqueror of the Earth,
With royal pomps and pageantries and rites of festal mirth
Was set to celebrate the day--the white day--of his birth.

His red pavilions, stretching wide, crowned all with globes of gold,
And tipped with pinnacles of fire and streamers manifold,
Flamed with such splendor that the sun at noon looked pale and cold!

And right and left, along, the plain, far as the eye could gaze,
His nobles and retainers who were tented in the blaze,
Kept revel high in honor of that day of all the days.

The earth was spread, the walls were hung, with silken fabrics fine,
And arabesque and lotus-flower bore each the broidered sign
Of jewels plucked from land and sea, and red gold from the mine.

Upon his throne he sat alone, half buried in the gems
That strewed his tapestries like stars, and tipped their tawny hems,
And glittered with the glory of a hundred diadems.

He saw from his pavilion door the nodding heron plumes
His nobles wore upon their brows, while, from the rosy glooms
Which hid his harem, came low songs, on wings of rare perfumes!

The elephants, a thousand strong, had passed his dreaming eye,
Caparisoned with golden plates on head and breast and thigh,
And a hundred flashing troops of horse unmarked had thundered by.

He sat upon old Akbar's throne, the heir of power and fame,
But all his glory was as dust, and dust his wondrous name--
Swept into air, and scattered far, by one consuming flame!

For on that day of all the days, and in that festal hour,
He sickened with his glory and grew weary of his power,
And pined to bind upon his breast his harem's choicest flower,

"Oh Nourmahal! oh Nourmahal! why sit I here," he cried,--
"The victim of these gaudy shows, and of my haughty pride,
When thou art dearer to my soul than all the world beside!

"Thy eyes are brighter than the gems piled round gilded seat;
Thy cheeks are softer than the silks that shimmer at my feet,
And purer heart than thine in woman's breast hath never beat!

"My first love--and my only love--Oh babe of Candahar!
Torn from my boyish arms at fir