The writings of Thomas Bailey Aldrich Author:Thomas Bailey Aldrich Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CLOTH OF GOLD PROEM You ask us if by rule or no Our many-colored songs are wrought: Upon the cunning loom of thought We weave our fancies, so and so. T... more »he busy shuttle comes and goes Across the rhymes, and deftly weaves A tissue out of autumn leaves, With here a thistle, there a rose. With art and patience thus is made The poet's perfect Cloth of Gold : When woven so, nor moth nor mould Nor time can make its colors fade. AN ARAB WELCOME Because thou com'st, a weary guest, Unto my tent, I bid thee rest. This cruse of oil, this skin of wine, These tamarinds and dates are thine; And while thou eatest, Medjid, there, Shall bathe the heated nostrils of thy mare. Illah il' Allah ! Even so An Arab chieftain treats a foe, Holds him as one without a fault Who breaks his bread and tastes his salt; And, in fair battle, strikes him dead With the same pleasure that he gives him bread. A TURKISH LEGEND A Certain Pasha, dead these thousand years, Once from his harem fled in sudden tears, And had this sentence on the city's gate Deeply engraven, Only God is great. So those four words above the city's noise Hung like the accents of an angel's voice, m And evermore, from the high barbacan, Saluted each returning caravan. Lost is that city's glory. Every gust Lifts, with dead leaves, the unknown Pasha's dust. And all is ruin — save one wrinkled gate Whereon is written, Only God is great. THE CRESCENT AND THE CROSS Kind was my friend who, in the Eastern land, Remembered me with such a gracious hand, And sent this Moorish Crescent which has been Worn on the haughty bosom of a queen. No more it sinks and rises in unrest To the soft music of her heathen breast; No barbarous chief shall bow before it more, No turbaned slave shall envy and adore...« less