Poems (Forrest)/Tigris way

by Mabel Forrest

TIGRIS WAY

As we came down the Tigris way we saw the blue-tiled tombs,
We saw the caliph's high white walls, his ladies' latticed rooms;
The sentinel negro, with a knife set in the loin-cloth's fold,
And little boats of reed and skin, the corn, heaped dry and gold.

We heard the desert winds, like flutes among the plumy trees,
And ever came an anklet's click to lure us down the breeze.
We heard the hum of the bazaar, where thirsty creepers twine;
We snatched a feast of purple figs, pomegranates red and fine.

As we came down the Tigris way the moon was clear and high,
It made a heaven of the earth, a desert of the sky,
For it had plucked the golden stars and robbed them of their light,
And filtered it to make the sands of silver minted bright.

As we came down the Tigris way I rode back stealthily,
The moon, like some unpolished pearl sunk in a livid sea,
Was smothered in a shell of cloud; the groves were black beneath—
Only the sound of pulsing feet as regular as breath.

At times they seemed like negros' feet that padded on the sand;
Sometimes there came a flick of light, as from a jewelled hand,
Or else the blue fire of a knife. Yet where the palm fronds sigh
And whisper "Treachery" to the wind that trails its perfumes by,

I knew, by heavy harem walls that will no secrets tell,
Within the silence of your heart that knife was hidden well.
Drip! Was that water on a stone? Does water fall like blood?
Some crane perhaps, that came to drink along the sallow flood,

Shook silver scatter from its wing and let the cool drops fall
For earth to drink, like other drops that fell behind a wall.
As I came down the Tigris way a comrade rode with me,
A blue-eyed Celt whose home was made beside a northern sea;

And in the yellow of the noon, and in the white moon's shine,
His shadow on the desert sands played hob-and-nob with mine.
As I rode down the Tigris way-a hunted thing and banned-
My comrade rode with me, but left no shadow on the sand!