Page:Von Heidenstam - Sweden's laureate, selected poems of Verner von Heidenstam (1919).djvu/46

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Three Questions
Far short the stone strikes, leadenly descending:
His name will ne'er be great in Sudan Land!
He tears the loosened turban from his head.
He throws another blackened stone, but that is
Too far, it falls amid the trees' gray lattice;
That means his early death, a sign of dread!

Frantic, amazed, hands clasped in desperate yearning,
As if in prayer, toward Isis' form he's turning.
He knows that now his deepest wishes lie
In that third stone, as on a falling die.
For if the stone into the pool he cast,
Though young, a beggar of the streets, he perish,
His desert-fiery love the hope may cherish
Ere then to reach the longed-for goal at last.

He throws the stone, mindless of everything.
Two sweat-drops bathe his forehead, cold with terror.
Then suddenly there splashes in the mirror
A silver-bordered, ever-widening ring.

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