His
virtues, the cynosure of all eyes, withered like tender flowers meant to
blossom in the shade, but unnaturally exposed to noon-day. His adoring
people bewailed what they thought must be a foreshadowing of mortal
illness, and the wise counsellors of his childhood vainly strove to
fathom his mood. But those who know us best are ever the Unseen, and
about the young monarch hovered the benignant influences that had
watched his infancy, and now rightly interpreted the sorrow of his
heart. In sooth, that this sorrow was matter of rejoicing in the Air, I
gather from the joyous mien of that river-sprite which one day surprised
him as he languidly mused in a balcony that overhung the water, and
spoke to him in accents strange to his ear and yet at once comprehended.
"'Come, O king, my voice obey;
Come where hidden things are seen;
Come with me from garish day,
Withering, blasting, grievous, vain,
To retreat of mystery,
Haunt of holy mystery.'
"These words, as I have related, were spoken in an unknown tongue, and
yet my story gives the mystic speech in pleasant and familiar rhythm. I
do not know how this may be," and Nawab Khan gravely shook his head,
"but perchance in recounting his experience, the king, unable to exactly
reproduce in his own tongue the message brought to him by the sprite,
for the thoughts of the Immortals cannot be expressed in human speech,
conveyed a semblance of it in such words as he could command, and sought
to veil their incompetency by an agreeable measure.
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