A Moorish Tale.

Scheherazade immediately began the following story.
1.

Ali Ben Ali (did you never read

His wond’rous acts that chronicles relate —

How there was one in pity might exceed

The Sack of Troy?) Magnificent he sate

Upon the throne of greatness — great indeed!

For those that he had under him were great —

The horse he rode on, shod with silver nails,

Was a Bashaw — Bashaws have horses’ tails.
2.

Ali was cruel — a most cruel one!

’Tis rumored he had strangled his own mother —

Howbeit such deeds of darkness he had done,

’Tis thought he would have slain his elder brother

And sister too — but happily that none

Did live within harm’s length of one another,

Else he had sent the Sun in all its blaze

To endless night, and shorten’d the Moon’s days.
3.

Despotic power, that mars a weak man’s wit,

And makes a bad man — absolutely bad,

Made Ali wicked — to a fault:—’tis fit

Monarchs should have some check-strings; but he had

No curb upon his will — no, not a bit—

Wherefore he did not reign well — and full glad

His slaves had been to hang him — but they falter’d

And let him live unhang’d — and still unalter’d,
4.

Until he got a sage-bush of a beard,

Wherein an Attic owl might roost — a trail

Of bristly hair — that, honor’d and unshear’d,

Grew downward like old women and cow’s tail;

Being a sign of age — some gray appear’d,

Mingling with duskier brown its warnings pale;

But yet, not so poetic as when Time

Comes like Jack Frost, and whitens it in rime.
5.

Ben Ali took the hint, and much did vex

His royal bosom that he had no son,

No living child of the more noble sex,

To stand in his Morocco shoes — not one

To make a negro-pollard — or tread necks

When he was gone — doom’d, when his days were done,

To leave the very city of his fame

Without an Ali to keep up his name.
6.

Therefore he chose a lady for his love,

Singling from out the herd one stag-eyed dear;

So call’d, because her lustrous eyes, above

All eyes, were dark, and timorous, and clear;

Then, through his Muftis piously he strove,

And drumm’d with proxy-prayers Mohammed’s ear:

Knowing a boy for certain must come of it,

Or else he was not praying to his Profit.
7.

Beer will grow mothery, and ladies fair

Will grow like beer; so did that stag-eyed dame:

Ben Ali, hoping for a son and heir,

Boy’d up his hopes, and even chose a name

Of mighty hero that his child should bear;

He made so certain ere his chicken came:—

But oh! all worldly wit is little worth,

Nor knoweth what to-morrow will bring forth!
8.

To-morrow came, and with to-morrow’s sun

A little daughter to this world of sins —

Miss-fortunes never come alone — so one

Brought on another, like a pair of twins:

Twins! female twins! — it was enough to stun

Their little wits and scare them from their skins

To hear their father stamp, and curse, and swear,

Pulling his beard because he had no heir.
9.

Then strove their stag-eyed mother to calm down

This his paternal rage, and thus addrest;

“Oh! Most Serene! why dost thou stamp and frown,

And box the compass of the royal chest?”

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