THE PRINCESS OF YAN

Nu-Nu-Nu!⁠[2] (And the daisies are piled like a flood!) We never shall see the Chalcydian Sea Nor the place where the Yakadil stood, Nor suspended by silk, and far whiter than milk Aladdin’s famed egg of the Roc, But I know, where the breeze sighs beneath the pine trees, Where the Maids of the Yan Princess walk, With their wide, floating hair, and mysterious air, And finger on lips as they talk, With their azure, pale, trailing silk robes, and their veiling As they wonder, and whisper, and talk.

Zo-Zo-Zo! (And the glow of the sun on the gorse!) They stole her away at the close of the day With gongs and enchantments, of course, While a dragon of old rolled his amber and gold, Burnt orange, and umbers that gleam In the marvellous scrolls that the Chinese unrolls On lacquer and teak—in the gleam Twixt the dusk and the dark all the people cried, “Hark! They have shut her away in a dream. Where waters are falling, and white storks are calling, In a brittle, blue, beautiful dream!” Na-Na-Na! (And the poppies are bright in the corn) When the desert is red, and the sun goes to bed In the piles of the purple clouds torn By the wings of the Djin, ’tis a crime and a sin To loiter, in camel or man, Lest the soul’s vital spark be extinguished ere dark— By Allah! you ride as you can. But the end of your toil through the gray, slipping soil Is more near than the Princess of Yan. The mirages glimmer no dearer, no dimmer Than the faraway beauties of Yan!

Tsi-Tsi-Tsi! (And the elm trees are drowsy with shade!) Neither peacock-eye whorls, nor platters of pearls Nor a palace of treasures in jade, Nor a jewelled palanquin borne by Negroes in green, Nor olives of far Samarcand Can buy you a ship that will dock in the slip Where the green running seas meet the land, And the red granite frowns, that her tall tower crowns Nor the glimpse of one nail of her hand, Through the silver-soft curtain, the rosy, uncertain O, the flitting half moon of her hand! Bang-Bang-Bang! (And the heroes are coming to war!) In terrible throngs, with cymbals and gongs The heroes and conquerors are All arming their hordes with lances and swords With scimitar, yataghan, drum. In the dust and the heat, see the elephants’ feet, And the camels, bedizened and dumb! Even Sindbad himself, with a beard like a shelf, Even Kameralzamen has come, His horse’s hoofs tingle, his silver bells jingle, Even Kameralzamen has come!

Crash-Bang-Crash! (And the Princess aloof like the moon!) They have fought the good fight in abysmal night With comet, cyclone, and simoon. The eclipse was unchained, and the shooting stars rained In tempest and vapour and wrack, But they warred for their prize with implacable skies And the heroes were all beaten back. Like the nebulæ thin, by the wings of a Djin Were blown out, and extinguished in black, Like the last thunder moaning, with wailing and groaning In a deep and imponderable black. Tso-Tso-Tso! (And it’s time we were home for our tea!) And why should we weep for a Princess they keep In a pearl on a rock in the sea? Lo! the butterflies’ wings with unutterable things Are dusted: with portents they run, Golden, freckled with zones, and the red, tawny ones And the blue, and the black, and the dun Say, “With barter and pain, you shall never attain, Turn away and the Princess is won, Where you loiter and play, where you half turn away At a touch the Yan Princess is won.”