Contents -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900.

By Thomas BaileyAldrich

685 When the Sultan Goes to Ispahan

WHEN the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan,

Even before he gets so far

As the place where the clustered palm-trees are,

At the last of the thirty palace-gates,

The flower of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom,

Orders a feast in his favorite room—

Glittering squares of colored ice,

Sweetened with syrop, tinctured with spice,

Creams, and cordials, and sugared dates,

Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,

Limes, and citrons, and apricots,

And wines that are known to Eastern princes;

And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots

Of spicëd meats and costliest fish

And all that the curious palate could wish,

Pass in and out of the cedarn doors;

Scattered over mosaic floors

Are anemones, myrtles, and violets,

And a musical fountain throws its jets

Of a hundred colors into the air.

The dusk Sultana loosens her hair,

And stains with the henna-plant the tips

Of her pointed nails, and bites her lips

Till they bloom again; but, alas, that rose

Not for the Sultan buds and blows,

Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman

When he goes to the city Ispahan.

Then at a wave of her sunny hand

The dancing-girls of Samarcand

Glide in like shapes from fairy-land,

Making a sudden mist in air

Of fleecy veils and floating hair

And white arms lifted. Orient blood

Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes.

And there, in this Eastern Paradise,

Filled with the breath of sandal-wood,

And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh,

Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan,

Sipping the wines of Astrakhan;

And her Arab lover sits with her.

That ’s when the Sultan Shah-Zaman

Goes to the city Ispahan.

Now, when I see an extra light,

Flaming, flickering on the night

From my neighbor’s casement opposite,

I know as well as I know to pray,

I know as well as a tongue can say,

That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman

Has gone to the city Ispahan.