is breath,
An endless hunger burning in His eyes,
A famine unassuaged, whose food is Death.

He hides among the ghostly mists that float
Over the water, weird and white and chill,
And peasants, passing in their laden boat,
Shiver and feel a sense of coming ill.

A thousand burn and die; He takes no heed,
Their bones, unburied, strewn upon the plain,
Only increase the frenzy of His greed
To add more victims to th' already slain.

He loves the haggard frame, the shattered mind,
Gloats with delight upon the glazing eye,
Yet, in one thing, His cruelty is kind,
He sends them lovely dreams before they die;

Dreams that bestow on them their heart's desire,
Visions that find them mad, and leave them blest,
To sink, forgetful of the fever's fire,
Softly, as in a lover's arms, to rest.

Fancy

Far in the Further East the skilful craftsman
Fashioned this fancy for the West's delight.
This rose and azure Dragon, crouching softly
Upon the satin skin, close-grained and white.

And you lay silent, while his slender needles
Pricked the intricate pattern on your arm,
Combining deftly Cruelty and Beauty,
That subtle union, whose child is charm.

Charm irresistible: the lovely something
We follow in our dreams, but may not reach.
The unattainable Divine Enchantment,
Hinted in music, never heard in speech.

This from the blue design exhales towards me,
As incense rises from the Homes of Prayer,
While the unfettered eyes, allured and rested,
Urge the forbidden lips to stoop and share;

Share in the sweetness of the rose and azure
Traced in the Dragon's form upon the white
Curve of the arm. Ah, curb thyself, my fancy,
Where would'st thou drift in this enchanted flight?

Feroza

The evening sky was as green as Jade,
As Emerald turf by Lotus lake,
Behind the Kafila far she strayed,
(The Pearls are lost if the Necklace break!)

A lingering freshness touched the air
From palm-trees, clustered around a Spring,
The great, grim Desert lay vast and bare,
But Youth is ever a careless thing.

The Raiders threw her upon the sand,
Men of the Wilderness know no laws,
They tore the Amethysts off her hand,
And rent the folds of her veiling gauze.

They struck the lips that they might