UPON a time, unbidden, came a man When the king saw this daring man, he cried, Moreover, I am skilled in archery: A famous bowman, who of men alone Can drive his arrows through the hardest stone. I know to read the riddle of the stars. First in the service of Emeer Khojend, Who, friend to none, has none to be his friend,- Try me." As thrice the monarch claps his hands, In to the king, and fearful of his doom. Sternly his lord: "You guard me, slave, so well Now when a moon of nights had ta'en its flight, Entered, in the year 1870, by G. P. PUTNAM & SON, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the U. S. for the Southern District of N. Y. The king awoke, alarmed, with fluttering breath, Like one who struggles in the toils of death, And wandered to his lattice, which stood wide, Whence, down below him in the court, he spied A shadowy figure with a threatening spear. "What man art thou?-if man-and wherefore here?" "Your sentinel, and servant, O my lord!" "Hearken!" They did. And now a voice was heard, But whether from the desert far away, Or from the neighbor-garden, who could say? Nor knew that the king kept him still in sight,-- "I go! What man will force me to return ? " Shone in the quenchless eyes, dimmed the bright hair- "Most beautiful! who art thou?" "Know, O man, I am his life, who rules in Teberistan- The spirit of your lord, whose end is nigh, Except some friend-what friend?-for him will die." "Can I?" But she: ""Tis written you must live." 66 What, then,-my life rejected,-can I give?" "You have a son," she whispered in his ear, |