| Edmund Clarence Stedman, ed. (1833–1908). An American Anthology, 1787–1900. 1900. |
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| 1451. Ahmed |
| | | By James Berry Bensel |
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| WITH wrath-flushed cheeks, and eyelids red | |
| Where anger’s fiercest sign was spread, | |
| And hands whose clenched nails left their print | |
| In the brown palm’s deep, sun-warmed tint, | |
| The chieftains sate in circle wide, | 5 |
| And in the centre, on his side, | |
| Thrown like a dog, a thieving brute, | |
| Lay Ahmed, frowning, bound and mute. | |
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| “The man who takes an offered bribe | |
| From chieftain of an alien tribe | 10 |
| Shall die.” So ran the Arab law, | |
| Read by a scribe; and Ahmed saw | |
| In every eye that scanned his face | |
| Burn the hot fury of his race. | |
| His fate was told. All men must die | 15 |
| Some time: what cared he how or why? | |
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| They loosed his tight-swathed arms and feet, | |
| Unwound the cashmere turban, sweet | |
| With spice and attar, stripped the vest | |
| Of gold and crimson from his breast, | 20 |
| And laid his broad, brown bosom bare | |
| To scimeter and desert air. | |
| He stood as moulded statues stand, | |
| With sightless eye and nerveless hand: | |
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| As moulded statues stand, but through | 25 |
| The dark skin, at each breath he drew, | |
| The wild heart’s wilder beating showed. | |
| Then on the sand he kneeled, and bowed | |
| His head to meet the ready stroke; | |
| The headsman threw aside his cloak, | 30 |
| The curved steel circled in the sun— | |
| Ahmed was dead, and justice done. | |
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