Ballad of Achmed Pasha

He thought him wise, — Achmed Pasha,—
And he merrily laughed —"ha! ha! ha! ha!"

Achmed Pasha was a doughty man,
The ruler of every class and clan
Where sparkling Barada rippled and ran, —
Barada, called by the Greeks of old
Chrysorrhoas, the stream of gold.
And he swore one night on the steps that led
To the tomb of Saladin — valiant dead! —
"By the Prophet's beard," was the oath he made,
"Ere the closing day of the Ramadan
Shall the cursèd Christian dogs be flayed!"

Then through the streets from gate to gate
Crept, like a venomous snake, the word;
And when the ears of the rabble heard,
There was sound of the sharpening scimitar
Under the sun and under the star;
Arab, Turkoman, Druse and Kurd,
How they looked alert and laughed elate
A hungry laugh, — "ha! ha! ha! ha! —"
Oh, a wily man was Achmed Pasha!

The citron bloom, like the foam of the sea,
Tossed in the south wind snowily,
And he whispered, sunk in his deep divan,
"This very night shall the flaying be!"
While through a myriad tones and tints, —
Prismy glamours and rainbow glints, —
Without the fount in the courtyard ran.

From alley dim and from portal black,
From sinuous lane and from cul-de-sac, "
Unmasked Murder stole, and the night,
As far as Lebanon's purple height,
Heard the tumult that grew and grew
As the frenzied Moslems sacked and slew.
And when the sanguine torch of dawn
Out of the east o'er the desert shone,
Damascus streets showed a deeper dye
Than that which gleamed in the morning sky;
And down from his casement-sill — "ha/ha!
The dogs are flayed!" laughed Achmed Pasha.

Then over the crest of Lebanon,
And the sapphire waves of the inland main,
Did an awful rumor rise and run
Of thousands, aye, upon thousands slain
To the lilt of a laugh! Did he dream (ha! ha!)
Of what he had roused, Achmed Pasha?
Ye may cuff the cur, ye may scorn and spurn,
But there comes a day when the dog will turn!

So there gathered a fleet that into the east
Sailed and sailed till the Syrian line
Of serried mountain peaks increased,
The palm up-climbing to meet the pine.
Then rank upon rank of shimmering steel
Swept the passes of Lebanon,
And down on the city dazed with sun
And slaughter the vengeful legion bore,
Nor paused in their onward swing and wheel
Till they grounded arms at the palace door
Where the Pasha cowered and shivered. Aha,
What a sorry sight was Achmed Pasha!

They reared them a gallows stanch and high
Beneath the cope of the Syrian sky;
And they haled him forth from his soft divan,
This wise (or was he a foolish) man!
And that he might have some scope for glee
They gathered a little company
Of his boon companions, — two or three;
And then at a sign, — "ha! ha! ha! ha!"
They made an end of Achmed Pasha.

The tale has a moral I'd fain attest, —
A saying as fair as the goodliest, —
That the man who laughs the last laughs best.