When I reached the ruins of Palmyra, I was weary from the journey. I lay down on the grass growing among pillars that time had uprooted and thrown to the ground. They appeared to be the dead of some awful war. I fell to pondering the great things which though in ruins and utterly destroyed are yet esteemed above that which still stands and lives.

When night came and the quarreling creatures consented to share one robe of silence, I became conscious of something flowing in the æther surrounding me. Its scent was like incense and its effect was like wine. I drank it uncontrollably. I felt unseen hands interfering with my reason, weighing down my eyelids, unlocking the chains that bound my soul. Then the earth shook, the sky trembled, and I jumped, compelled by a magical power. I found myself in a garden of beauty inconceivable to any man, surrounded by a choir of maidens clothed only in beauty. They walked about me, their feet not touching the grass, singing a hymn of praise spun from dreams of love. They played lutes made of ivory, with golden strings. I came to an open spot, in the midst of which rose a throne. It was encrusted with gems from which poured out light in all the colors of the rainbow. The maidens stopped to its right and its left and raised their voices higher than before. They looked in a direction from which came the scent of frankincense and myrrh. A queen appeared from among the flowering trees, walked slowly toward the throne, and mounted it. At that moment a flock of doves came down, as white as snow, and alighted in a crescent around her feet.

The doves and the maidens began to sing psalms to the greatness of the queen. Pillars of incense rose to glorify her. I stood watching what no man’s eye had seen and hearing what no ear of flesh had heard.