Cover

AKRA THE SLAVE

BY
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON

LONDON
ELKIN MATHEWS, VIGO STREET
MCMX

Six years ago, I wrote this story down,

While yet the light of Eastern skies

Was in my eyes,

And still my heart, aglow with memories

Of sun-enraptured seas,

And that old sea-girt town.

Where, down dark alleys of enchanted night,

We stole, until we came

To where the great dome glimmered white.

And every minaret,

A shaft of pearly flame,

Beneath the cloudy moon...

Six years ago!

Ah! soon--too soon,

Our tale, too, will be told:

And yet, and yet,

From this old Eastern tale we know,

Love's story never can grow old,

Till Love, himself, forget.

AKRA THE SLAVE

He thought to see me tremble

And totter as an oar-snapt reed,

When he spake death to me--

My courage, toppled in the dust,

Even as the head of cactus

The camel-keeper slashes

That his beasts may browse, unscathed,

The succulent, wounded green.

He thought to have me, broken,

And grovelling at his feet;

Mouthing and mumbling to his sandal-ties,

In stammering dread of death--

Aye! even as a king,

Who, having from death's hand,

Received his crown and kingdom,

For ever treads in terror of the hour

When death shall jog his elbow,

Twitch the purple from his shoulders,

And claim again the borrowed crown.

But, little need have I to fear

The crouching, lean camp-follower,

Unto whose ever-gaping maw,

Day after day, I flung

The spoils of bow and arrow,

Ere I was taken captive--

I, who have often, at my mother's breast,

Awakened in the night-time,

To see death leering on me from the cave-mouth,

A gaunt and slinking shape

That snuffed the dying embers,

Blotting out the friendly stars--

I, who, a scarce-weaned boy,

Have toddled, gay and fearless,

Down the narrow jungle-track,

Through bodeful forest-darkness, panther-eyed;

And have felt cold snakes uncoiling

And gliding 'neath my naked sole,

From clammy slumber startled;

While, with sharp snap and crackle,

Beast-trodden branches strained behind me,

My father's hand scarce snatching me

Before the spring of crouching death!

But, naught of this the King could know,

He only knew that, on that far-off morning,

When first I came before him, captive,

Among my captive brothers,

And, as he lightly held, in idle fingers,

Above my unbowed head,

In equal poise

Death's freedom

Or the servitude of life,

I clutched at life:

And cared but little that his lips

Should curl, to see me, broken,

A slave among his slaves.

Yet, never slave of his was I;

Nor did I take my new life from his nod--

I ... I who could have torn

The proud life out of him,

Before his guards could stay me...

Had she not sat beside him, on her throne.

And he, who knew not then,

Nor ever, till to-day,

Has known me aught but slave,

Remembering that time,

Spake doom of death to me,

Idly, as to a slave:

And I await the end of night,

And dawn of death,

Even as a slave awaits...

Nay! as the unvanquished veteran

Awaits the hour of victory.

In silence, wheels the night,

Star-marshalled, over dreaming Babylon;

And none in all the sleeping city stirs,

Save the cloaked sentries on the outer walls

Who tread out patience 'twixt the gates of brass,

Numb with scarce-baffled slumber,

Or, maybe, some unsleeping priest of Bel,

A lonely warder of eternity,

Who watches on the temple's seventh stage,

With the unslumbering gods.

Yet, may not she, the Queen,

Whose beauty, slaying my body,

Brings my soul to immortal birth,

Although she does not know

Of my last vigil on the peak of life--

Yet, may not she awaken, troubled

By strange, bewildering dreams,

With heart a little fearful of the dawn

Of day, yet unrevealed?

There is no sound at all,

Save only the cool plashing

Of fountains in the courtyard

Without my lonely cell:

For fate has granted to me

This last, least consolation of sweet sound

Though in the plains I perish,

I shall hear the noise of waters,

The noise of running waters,

As I die.

My earliest lullaby shall sing

My heart again to slumber.

And, even now, I hear

Stream-voices, long-forgotten, calling me

Back to the hills of home;

And, dreaming, I remember

The little yellow brooks

That ever, day and night,

Gush down the mountains singing,

Singing by the caves:

And hearkening unto them,

Once more a tiny baby,

A wee brown fist I dabble

In the foaming cool,

Frothing round my wrist,

Spurting up my arm,

Spraying my warm face;

And then again I chuckle,

As I see an empty gourd,

Fallen in the swirling waters,

Bobbing on the tawny eddies,

Swiftly out of sight.

And yet most clearly to remembrance comes

That far-off night, in early Spring,

When, loud with melted snow from Northern peaks,

The torrent roared and fretted;

While, couched within the cavern,

The clamour kept me wakeful;

And, even when I slept,

Tumbled, tumultuous, through my dreams,

And seemed to surge about me,

As the brawl of armèd men.

And once I sprang from slumber,

Hot and startled,

Dreaming that I felt

A warm breath on my cheek,

As if a jackal nuzzled me;

Or some dread, slinking foe

Made certain of my sleeping

Before he plunged the steel.

But nothing stirred within the glimmering cavern,

Where, all around me, lay my sleeping kindred;

And, when I stole without, with noiseless footsteps,

To rouse the smouldering watchfire into flame,

And cast fresh, crackling brushwood on the blaze,

I caught no glint of arms betwixt the branches,

Nor any sound or rumour, save

The choral noise of cold hill-waters,

Cold hill-waters singing,

Singing to the stars.

And so I turned me from the brooding night;

And, couched again upon the leopard-skins,

I slept, till dawn, in dream-untroubled sleep.

I woke to see the cold sky kindling red,

Beyond the mounded ash of the spent fire;

And lay, a moment, watching

The pearly light, caught, trembling,

In dewy-beaded spiders' webs

About the cave-mouth woven.

Then I arose;

And left my kindred, slumbering--

My mother, by my father,

And, at her breast, her youngest babe,

With dimpled fingers clutching at her bosom;

And, all around them, lying

Their sons and daughters, beautiful in sleep,

With parted lips,

And easy limbs outstretched

Along the tumbled bedskins:

And while they slumbered yet in shades of night,

I sprang out naked

Into eager dawn.

The sun had not yet scaled the eastern ridge:

And still the vales were hidden from my eyes

By snowy wreaths of swathing mist:

But, high upon a scar

That jutted sheer and stark,

In cold grey light,

There stood an antelope,

With lifted muzzle snuffing the fresh day;

When scenting me afar,

He plunged into the mist

With one quick, startled bound:

And, from the smoking vapour,

Arose a gentle pattering,

As, down the rocky trail,

The unseen herd went trotting

Upon their leader's heels.

And from the clear horizon

The exultant sun sprang god-like:

And on a little mound I stood,

With eager arms outstretched,

That, over my cold body,

The first warm golden beams

Of his life-giving light might fall.

And thus, awhile, I stood.

In radiant adoration tranced,

Until I caught the call of waters;

And, running downwards to the stream,

That plunged into a darkling pool,

Where, in the rock was scooped a wide, deep basin;

Upon the glassy brink,

A moment, I hung, shivering,

And gazing down through deeps of lucent shadow;

And then I leapt headlong,

And felt the cloven waters

Closing, icy-cold, above me,

And, again, with sobbing breath,

Battled to the light and air:

And I ran into the sunshine,

Shaking from my tingling limbs

Showers of scintillating drops

Over radiant, dewy beds

Of the snowy cyclamen,

And dark-red anemone,

Till my tawny body glowed

With warm, ruddy, pulsing life.

And then again I sought the stream,

And plunged; and now, more boldly,

I crossed the pool, with easy stroke;

And climbed the further crag;

And, turning, plunged again.

And so, I dived and swam,

Till pangs of hunger pricked

My idle fancy homeward:

And eagerly I climbed the hill;

When, not a sling's throw from the cavern,

Stooping to pluck a red anemone,

To prank the wet, black tangle of my hair,

I heard a shout;

And looking up,

I saw strange men

With lifted spears

Bear down on me:

And as I turned,

A javelin sang

Above my shrinking shoulder,

And bit the ground before me.

But, swift as light I sped,

Until I reached the pool,

And leapt therein:

And he who pressed most hotly on my heels,

Fell stumbling after.

Still I never slackened,

Although I heard a floundering splash,

And then the laughter of his comrades:

And, as I swam for life,

Betwixt my thrusting heels,

Another spear that clove the crystal waters

Glanced underneath my body,

And in the stream-bed quivered bolt upright,

Caught in a cleft of rock.

With frantic arm I struck

Straight as a snake across the pool,

And climbed the further bank;

And plunging through deep brake,

Ran wildly onward,

Startling as I went

A browsing herd of antelope,

That, bounding, fled before me down the valley

And after them I raced,

As though the hunter,

Not the hunted,

Until the chase sang in my blood,

And braced my straining thews.

I knew not if men followed,

Yet, on I sped, impetuously,

As speeds the fleet-foot onaga,

That breasts the windy morning,

With lifted head, and nostrils wide,

Exultant in his youth.

So, on and ever on,

Scarce knowing why I ran--

Enough for me to feel

Earth beaten back behind my heels,