POETRY.
BAB ES ZUWEYLA.41
SOLIDLY handed and firmly founded By the Copper-Smiths' Street is a gateway wide, Where, tossing aloft their jets of marble, The minarets guard it on either side.
Antisol's NOTE.—E1 Bah es Zuweyla is a gate of Cairo where criminals and State prisoners were killed their bodies being left to the pariah dogs. it is still supposed by most Cairenes to be haunted, and they avoid it after dark.
Far overhead in the uttermost ether The great stars burn in a velvet sky. Below, the bazaars lie hushed and silent And the flickering torches flare and die.
Still is the street. Remote and lonely The gate holds guard o'er the sleeping town. But the scavenger-dogs at its doors are busy. For their feast was laid e'er the night shut down. Yellow and white and grey and dappled. Scorched and scalded and cropped of ear, Like ghouls obscene they scurry and gather Or Afreeta that throng round a Kafir's bier.
Rising aloud through their yelping clamour What is the call we can hear them cry ?
"Ye are the Masters, 0 men, who despise us; But nevertheless—Ye die! Ye die!
Ye smite, ye starve us, ye slay and torture, Ye spit if we ruffle your garments' hem, But when Death lays hands on your Lords and rulers We make our meal on the bones of them!
Hither to us come the fair and noble, Emirs who galloped in steel and gold, The Mameluke slave and the Frankish traitor, Hot-headed ruffier and statesman cold.
The hands ye kissed and the hearts ye cherished, And the feet that spurned you, helpless lie.
The Image of God is o'erthrown and broken In the Jaws of the Dog—Ye die! Ye die!"
KNIGHT ADIOS.
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