South a palace be made, where in the Northern
courts should summer be, while in the South was winter; so should he
move from court to court according to his mood, and dally with the
summer in the morning and spend the noon with snow. So the Sultan's
poets were sent for and bade to tell of that city, foreseeing its
splendour far away to the South and in the future of time; and some
were found fortunate. And of those that were found fortunate and were
crowned with flowers none earned more easily the Sultan's smile (on
which long days depended) than he that foreseeing the city spake of it
thus:

"In seven years and seven days, O Prop of Heaven, shall thy builders
build it, thy palace that is neither North nor South, where neither
summer nor winter is sole lord of the hours. White I see it, very
vast, as a city, very fair, as a woman, Earth's wonder, with many
windows, with thy princesses peering out at twilight; yea, I behold
the bliss of the gold balconies, and hear a rustling down long
galleries and the doves' coo upon its sculptured eaves. O Prop of
Heaven, would that so fair a city were built by thine ancient sires,
the children of the sun, that so might all men see it even today, and
not the poets only, whose vision sees it so far away to the South and
in the future of time.

"O King of the Years, it shall stand midmost on that line that
divideth equally the North from the South and that parteth the seasons
asunder as with a screen. On the Northern side when summer is in the
North thy silken guards shall pace by dazzling walls while thy
spearsmen clad in furs go round the South. But at the hour of noon in
the midmost day of the year thy chamberlain shall go down from his
high place and into the midmost court, and men with trumpets shall go
down behind him, and he shall utter a great cry at noon, and the men
with trumpets shall cause their trumpets to blare, and the spearsmen
clad in furs shall march to the North and thy silken guard shall take
their place in the South, and summer shall leave the North and go to
the South, and all the swallows shall rise and follow after. And alone
in thine inner courts shall no change be, for they shall lie narrowly
along that line that parteth the seasons in sunder and divideth the
North from the South, and thy long gardens shall lie under them.

"And in thy gardens shall spring always be, for spring lies ever at
the marge of summer; and autumn also shall always tint thy gardens,