Motion Picture Classic (May 1921 - Dec 1927)

CLASSIC Footsteps! He feds her heart fluttering against his. “My father !” Lifting her lightly in his arms Omar swings her to the top of the high wall that runs about the garden close, hears her alight upon the pavement outside, and turns to meet Imam’s anger. “You would defile my garden with the kisses of some wanton from the bazaars! Shame! No longer will I keep you for a pupil. Return to your father’s house and learn to sew tents. It is of no avail trying to teach an earthworm to fly.” Should he speak of Shireen? He, a penniless poet with a head full of dreams? Nay, he must protect her whom he loved from himself. Omar turns without speaking, bows his head and is gone from the garden. Yon rising moon how often will you wax and wane and look for these two — and for one in vain? Yet he had seen Shireen again, upon a night of stars that hung heavy over the desert like ripe fruit that one might stand a-tiptoe and pluck. A note brought by the boy Mahruss has bade Omar come to the Well of Asim “if he still remembers— ’’ The night is nearly gone w hen she comes. They cling and kiss. ‘‘Beloved.’’ “Lord of my Soul !” These tears upon his lips, salt and bitter, what do they mean? “Oh. my heart is breaking, is breaking! My father hath promised me to the Shah of Shahs who has sent his servants to take me tomorrow to his palace.” Omar cannot believe that this is the ending of their dream. He paces the shrill sand crying out defiance to Fate, now a man maddened by Jealousy; n o w a b o v flinging himself sobbing at her small white feet. “Thou, the Flower of the World, to wither in a harem ! Let us take each other’s hands, rnv dear one, and leap together into the Well.” "He is old.” Shireen shivers; “the skin hangs upon him like a shriveled fig. His hands — ah — his hands ” The stars are very far away now, looking down like small, cold, pitiless eyes as they cling desolately. A wind from the desert brings the breath of far waste places, emptiness. They seem to be alone together on a dead planet, but they are not dead. Life sweeps over them like a tidal wave putting out the stars. Forever is but a moment of Eternity, and Time, the Physician, heals all wounds. It is another summer in Nishapur. The sun streams like water from the roofs of minaret and tower; yard is murmurous with the sounds of kissing and low laughter. At the door of the Tentmaker’s sits an olcl man, drawing his and the small jewelled lizard scuttles rustling over the garden walk. At night strings quiver, and every high-walled courtneedle in anil out of the harsh cloth, glancing at the veiled figures that pass with a dull, incurious gaze. They are not women to him nowr, but only troublesome creatures who get b etween him and the light, and fill the drowsy silence with silly clattering. “Omar!” he shrills querulously, “Allah send a pest upon him. Where is the lad?” From within a deep voice is chanting. “Ah, that the Spring should vanish with the Rose.” “Forever w r i t i n g . ’ ' whines the tentmaker, “forever thinking! Now. in the name of the Prophet, what d i d thinking ever do for a man ? Can thoughts fill one’s belly when it is empty ? Can you drink thoughts when you are dry? Nay, I notice that when Omar is thirsty he resorts not to the philosophers but to the tavern where the fruits of my toil go bubbling down his throat. Omar.” From the (Fiftysix) “Would but the Desert of the Fountain yield One glimpse — if dimly, yet indeed, revealed, To which the fainting Traveler might spring, As springs the trampled herbage of the field!’