ll the king, because I feared
To lessen by one heat the throbbing of his heart.
Beside his couch I knelt, and bowed my head--
I, his first-born, whom all the people loved.
His hot, weak hand he laid upon my hair,
And blessed me with his blessing, then said on:
"Thou hast beheld in Spring the dark green blade
That stabs up through the unresisting earth;
At last the Summer crowns it with a flower.
So thou, when I am passed away, and gone to dust,
Shalt wear a crown, but grander than the shrubs--
The symbol of a kingdom, on thy brow.
But take thee now this lesson to thy heart,
And from the grass learn wisdom; wear thy crown
As meekly, and as void of all display,
As doth the shrub half hidden under leaves."
So he bent down with pain, and kissed my cheek,
As though, having issued a great law, he
Had set his seal upon it--the king's seal.

I cared not for the crown, save as a means
To give my soul a higher and a nobler life.
This my old tutor taught me--a strange man he,
With careless garb, and heavy hairy brows
Bridged over eyes that shone like furnace fire.
My will was lost in his. I grew like him.
I only cared to study and to dream.
And he it was who, standing in the night
Between two pillars on the palace porch,
Saw my two brothers pass, and overheard
The hateful whisper of their black design.

II.

THE NIGHT OF THE ESCAPE.

The night before the murder was to be,
I drew my long, keen dagger from its sheath,
And stole on down the marble stair-way, past
The throne-room, to the curtained arch wherein
My brothers lay asleep. No dream beset
The guilty Dead-Sea of their rest. They lay
Engulfed in pillows, like two ships mid waves.
I saw their faces, and the one was fair.
Long dark brown hair fell from his noble brow,
And on the silken billow of the couch lay curled
Like spray. The other face was cold and dark
I felt no pity in my angry breast
For this, the older brother of the twain.
Yet he it was who always praised me most.
Praise is a dust of diamond that, if thrown
Well in the eyes of even noble men,
Will blind them to a host of flagrant faults.
The moon was full, and 'twixt two silvered clouds
Looked forth, like any princess from between
The tasseled curtains of her downy bed.
The vagrant wind came through the opened blind,
And whispered of the desert; with its hand
Fanning the flame that in the silver urn
Mimicked a star. Beneath the rays I wrote: