court with wooden balconies,
  And wool hung out to dry in gaudy skeins,
  A fountain, and some pigeons murmuringly
  Picking up yellow grains.

  Pass through a little tumble-down green door
  Into the dark and crowded shop; the Turk
  Crouching above the brasier, smiles and nods;
  'Tis all his daily work.

  Here marble heads and alabaster jars,
  Fragments of porphyry and Persian tiles,
  Lie heaped in ruin, and at our dismay
  The old Turk shrugs and smiles,

  And sips his coffee, reaching out a hand
  To throw upon the brasier at his feet
  A handful of dried herbs, whose sudden smoke
  Rises up incense-sweet.

YANGHIN VAR*

  AS the baying of wolves from afar,
  Borne on the wind from the Golden Horn
  A cry in the distance, long-drawn,
  "Yanghin var! yanghin var!"

  Suddenly waking the silent night,
  Suddenly breaking the sleeping calm,
  The long, far, wailing alarm,
  And the watch-tower startles a warning light.

  As a torch passed from hand to hand,
  As a beacon springing from hill to hill,
  The cry draws nearer though distant still,
  And the watch throws it on from stand to stand,

  And the voices rise as a tempest far,
  As the swell of waves on a rocky shore,
  Each rumbles louder than before,
  "Yanghin var! yanghin var!"

  And as the angel's unpausing feet,
  The angel bearing the wrath of the Lord,
  The angel bearing the flaming sword,
  The voice passes onward below in the street.

  Faintly it travels again from afar,
  And as an echo of terror past
  The wind from the Bosphorus bears the last
  Yanghin var. …

* Fire!

MORNING IN CONSTANTINOPLE

  SHE has an early morning of her own,
  A blending of the mist and sea and sun
  Into an undistinguishable one,
  And Saint Sophia, from her lordly throne

  Rises above the opalescent cloud,
  A shadowy dome and soaring minaret
  Visable though the base be hidden yet
  Beneath the veiling wreaths of milky shroud,

  As some dark Turkish beauty haughtily
  Glances above the yashmak's snowy fold.
  —Beyond Stamboul's long stretch, a bar of gold
  Falls from the sun across the distant sea.

RETOUR EN SONGE

  AFTER a dream-dim voyage
  We came with sails all set
  Towards the city of the sea,
  And it was wonderful to me
  To find her reigning yet.

  Oh beauty that my eyes and heart
  Had feasted on before!
  The evening mosques were brushed with gold,
  The water lapped a lazy fold
  Upon that lovely shore;

  The gardens of her terraced hills
  Rose up above the port,
  And little houses half concealed
  The presence of a light revealed,
  And here my journey's end was sealed,
  And I reached the home I sought.

  Those windows I had opened wide
  To welcome in the sun!
  Those stairs that only happy feet
  Had measured with their running beat!
  That well-remembered winding street!
  Twelve months that were as one!

  Should others with their sordid cares
  And troubles enter here?
  Love hung about the rooms like smoke,
  And peace descended as a cloak,
  Should I allow the vulgar folk
  To desecrate that year?

  —I laid the fuse with steady hand;
  We sailed into the night,
  From deck I watched the flames arise
  Remorseless as my tearless eyes
  That, with the waves and reddened skies,
  Flung back the angry light.

CONSTANTINOPLE, MARCH MCMXV

  I
  QUEEN of a double empire still she stands,
  And watches with superb indifferent eyes
  The eager wooing of Imperial hands
  Towards so fair and coveted a prize.

  Royal and imperial suitors has she known
  Pass one by one across her dreaming years,
  And some a while have climbed the golden throne,
  And some have passed away in blood and tears;

  For many emperors have sought her grace
  Since the first Constantine in sweeping cloak
  Her seven hills with broad unhurrying pace
  Measured, and rested not till Heaven spoke.

  A haughty fatalist Byzantium waits
  What chance the storing centuries bring forth:
  Another lover almost at the gates,
  Heralded by the cannon of the North,

  A Northern King to wed the Eastern Queen,
  An iron clasp to set the shining gem,
  Thrice-changed Constantinople to be seen
  The Jewel of a Russian diadem!

  II
  O Saint Sophia, where the footstep falls
  Softly beneath the roofs of burnished gold,
  Shields of the Caliphs hang upon thy walls,
  Brand of bereaved dishonour ages old.

  His charger raised on Christian corpses high,
  —O ravished bride of Christianity!—
  Here struck Mahomet's hand as he rode by,
  And seared the lustre of the porphyry,

  And, interrupted in the sacred feast,
  Hearing the advent of the conqueror surge,
  Into the wall miraculous the priest
  Entered, and waits the summons to emerge.

  So on that high and ceremonial day
  When Russian Czar and prince, and Christian lord
  Throng Saint Sophia in their packed array
  To see the church's heritage restored,

  When from mosaics re-established saints
  Look down once more upon a Christian crowd,
  And Echo startles into life, and faints
  With rapture at Gregorian chanting loud,

  And Mass magnificently moving on
  Towards its climax, brings the moment near
  After the lapse of many centuries gone
  For Christ in priestly hands to reappear,

  When the exultant organ's chord has ceased
  And every head is bowed expectantly,
  —Then at the altar the Byzantine priest
  Shall hold aloft the Host triumphantly!

RESOLUTION

  I SEE the work of others, and my heart
  Sinks as my own achievement I compare.
  —I will not be irresolute, nor despair,
  But battle strongly for my struggling art

  Convinced against conviction that my part
  Equally with my masters I can bear;
  Although their monuments are very fair,
  Enriched with statues, and I stand apart

  And gaze upon my little heap of stones
  Which I was given to build with, very few
  As yet laid into place, but I will lay

  —Blind to these marble monuments and thrones,
  Building as though I confidently knew
  My ultimate end,—a stone in place each day.

END