Thalaba the Destroyer

by Robert Southey

Thalaba the Destroyer.

by
Robert Southey.

Ποιηματων αϰρατης η ελευϑερια, ϰαι νομος εις, το δοξαν τω ϖοιητη.

Lucian, Quomodo Hist. scribenda.

THE SECOND VOLUME.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR T. N. LONGMAN AND O. REES, PATERNOSTER-ROW,
BY BIGGS AND COTTLE, BRISTOL.
1801.

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CONTENTS.

[The sixth Book]	1
[The seventh Book]	51
[The eighth Book]	89
[The ninth Book]	139
[The tenth Book]	203
[The eleventh Book]	261
[The twelfth Book]	299

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The Sixth Book.

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THALABA THE DESTROYER.

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THE SIXTH BOOK.

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So from the inmost cavern, Thalaba
Retrod the windings of the rock.
Still on the ground the giant limbs
Of Zohak were outstretched;
The spell of sleep had ceased
And his broad eyes were glaring on the youth:
Yet raised he not his arm to bar the way,
Fearful to rouse the snakes
Now lingering o’er their meal.

Oh then, emerging from that dreadful cave,
How grateful did the gale of night
Salute his freshened sense!
How full of lightsome joy,
Thankful to Heaven, he hastens by the verge
Of that bitumen lake,
Whose black and heavy fumes,
Surge heaving after surge,
Rolled like the billowy and tumultuous sea.

The song of many a bird at morn
Aroused him from his rest.
Lo! by his side a courser stood!
More animate of eye,
Of form more faultless never had he seen,
More light of limbs and beautiful in strength,
Among the race whose blood,
Pure and unmingled, from the royal steeds
Of [108]Solomon came down.

The chosen Arab’s eye
Glanced o’er his graceful shape,
His rich caparisons,
His crimson trappings gay.
But when he saw the mouth
Uncurbed, the unbridled neck,
Then flushed his cheek, and leapt his heart,
For sure he deemed that Heaven had sent
The Courser, whom no erring hand should guide.
And lo! the eager Steed
Throws his head and paws the ground,
Impatient of delay!
Then up leapt Thalaba
And away went the self-governed steed.

Far over the plain
Away went the bridleless steed;
With the dew of the morning his fetlocks were wet,
The foam frothed his limbs in the journey of noon,
Nor stayed he till over the westerly heaven
The shadows of evening had spread.
Then on a sheltered bank
The appointed Youth reposed,
And by him laid the docile courser down.
Again in the grey of the morning
Thalaba bounded up,
Over hill, over dale
Away goes the bridleless steed.
Again at eve he stops
Again the Youth descends.
His load discharged, his errand done,
Then bounded the courser away.

Heavy and dark the eve;
The Moon was hid on high,
A dim light only tinged the mist
That crost her in the path of Heaven.
All living sounds had ceased,
Only the flow of waters near was heard,
A low and lulling melody.
Fasting, yet not of want
Percipient, he on that mysterious steed
Had reached his resting place,
For expectation kept his nature up.
The flow of waters now
Awoke a feverish thirst:
Led by the sound, he moved
To seek the grateful wave.
A meteor in the hazy air
Played before his path;
Before him now it rolled
A globe of livid fire;
And now contracted to a steady light,
As when the solitary hermit prunes
His lamp’s long undulating flame:
And now its wavy point
Up-blazing rose, like a young cypress-tree
Swayed by the heavy wind;
Anon to Thalaba it moved,
And wrapped him in its pale innocuous fire:
Now in the darkness drowned
Left him with eyes bedimmed,
And now emerging[109] spread the scene to sight.

Led by the sound, and meteor-flame
Advanced the Arab youth.
Now to the nearest of the many rills
He stoops; ascending steam
Timely repels his hand,
For from its source it sprung, a boiling tide.
A second course with better hap he tries,
The wave intensly cold
Tempts to a copious draught.
There was a virtue in the wave,
His limbs that stiff with toil,
Dragged heavy, from the copious draught received
Lightness and supple strength.
O’erjoyed, and deeming the benignant Power
Who sent the reinless steed,
Had blessed the healing waters to his use
He laid him down to sleep;
Lulled by the soothing and incessant sound,
The flow of many waters, blending oft
With shriller tones and deep low murmurings
That from the fountain caves
In mingled melody
Like faery music, heard at midnight, came.

The sounds that last he heard at night
Awoke his sense at morn.
A scene of wonders lay before his eyes.
In mazy windings o’er the vale
Wandered a thousand streams;
They in their endless flow[110] had channelled deep
The rocky soil o’er which they ran,
Veining its thousand islet stones,
Like clouds that freckle o’er the summer sky,
The blue etherial ocean circling each
And insulating all.
A thousand shapes they wore, those islet stones,
And Nature with her various tints
Varied anew their thousand forms:
For some were green with moss,
Some rich with yellow lichen’s gold,
Or ruddier tinged, or grey, or silver-white,
Or sparkling sparry radiance to the sun.
Here gushed the fountains up,
Alternate light and blackness, like the play
Of sunbeams, on the warrior’s burnished arms.
Yonder the river rolled, whose bed,
Their labyrinthine lingerings o’er
Received the confluent rills.

This was a wild and wonderous scene,
Strange and beautiful, as where
By Oton-tala, like a sea[111] of stars,
The hundred sources of Hoangho burst.
High mountains closed the vale,
Bare rocky mountains, to all living things
Inhospitable, on whose sides no herb
Rooted, no insect fed, no bird awoke
Their echoes, save the Eagle, strong of wing,
A lonely plunderer, that afar
Sought in the vales his prey.

Thither towards those mountains, Thalaba
Advanced, for well he weened that there had Fate
Destined the adventures end.
Up a wide vale winding amid their depths,
A stony vale between receding heights
Of stone, he wound his way.
A cheerless place! the solitary Bee
Whose buzzing was the only sound of life
Flew there on restless wing,
Seeking in vain one blossom, where to fix.

Still Thalaba holds on,
The winding vale now narrows on his way,
And steeper of ascent
Rightward and leftward rise the rocks,
And now they meet across the vale.
Was it the toil of human hands
That hewed a passage in the rock,
Thro’ whose rude portal-way
The light of heaven was seen?
Rude and low the portal-way,
Beyond the same[112] ascending straits
Went winding up the wilds.

Still a bare, silent, solitary glen,
A fearful silence and a solitude
That made itself be felt.
And steeper now the ascent,
A rugged path, that tired
The straining muscles, toiling slowly up.
At length again a rock
Stretched o’er the narrow vale.
There also was a portal hewn,
But gates of massy iron barred the way,
Huge, solid, heavy-hinged.

There hung a horn beside the gate,
Ivory-tipt and brazen mouthed,
He took the ivory tip,
And thro’ the brazen mouth he breathed;
From rock to rock rebounding rung the blast,
Like a long thunder peal!
The gates of iron, by no human arm
Unfolded, turning on their hinges slow,
Disclosed the passage of the rock.
He entered, and the iron gates
Fell to, and closed him in.
It was a narrow winding way,
Dim lamps suspended from the vault
Lent to the gloom an agitated light.
Winding it pierced the rock,
A long descending path
By gates of iron closed;
There also hung the horn beside
Of ivory tip and brazen mouth,
Again he took the ivory tip
And gave the brazen mouth his voice again.
Not now in thunder spake the horn,
But poured a sweet and thrilling melody:
The gates flew open, and a flood of light
Rushed on his dazzled eyes.

Was it to earthly Eden lost so long,
The youth had found the wonderous way?
But earthly Eden boasts
No terraced palaces,
No rich pavilions bright with woven[113] gold.
Like these that in the vale
Rise amid odorous groves.
The astonished Thalaba
Doubting as tho’ an unsubstantial dream
Beguiled his passive sense,
A moment closed his eyes;
Still they were there ... the palaces and groves,
And rich pavilions glittering golden light.

And lo! a man, reverend in comely age
Advancing meets the youth.
“Favoured of Fortune,” he exclaimed,
“Go taste the joys of Paradise!
“The reinless steed that ranges o’er the world
“Brings hither those alone for lofty deeds
“Marked by their horoscope; permitted here
“A foretaste of the full beatitude,
“That in heroic acts they may go on
“More ardent, eager to return and reap
“Endless enjoyment here, their destined meed.
“Favoured of Fortune thou,
“Go taste the joys of Paradise!”

This said, he turned away, and left
The Youth in wonder mute;
For Thalaba stood mute
And passively received
The mingled joy that flowed on every sense.
Where’er his eye could reach
Fair structures, rain bow-hued, arose;
And rich pavilions thro’ the opening woods
Gleamed from their waving curtains sunny gold;
And winding thro’ the verdant vale
Flowed streams of liquid light;
And fluted cypresses reared up
Their living obelisks;
And broad-leaved[114] Zennars in long colonades
O’er-arched delightful walks,
Where round their trunks the thousand-tendril’d vine
Wound up and hung the bows with greener wreaths,
And clusters not their own.
Wearied with endless beauty did his eyes
Return for rest? beside him teems the earth
With tulips, like the ruddy[115] evening streaked,
And here the lily hangs her head of snow,
And here amid her sable[116] cup
Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star
The solitary twinkler of the night,
And here the rose expands
Her paradise[117] of leaves.

Then on his ear what sounds
Of harmony arose!
Far music and the distance-mellowed song
From bowers of merriment;
The waterfall remote;
The murmuring of the leafy groves;
The single nightingale
Perched in the Rosier by, so richly toned,
That never from that most melodious bird,
Singing a love-song to his brooding mate,
Did Thracian shepherd by the grave
Of Orpheus[118] hear a sweeter song;
Tho’ there the Spirit of the Sepulchre
All his own power infuse, to swell
The incense that he loves.

And oh! what odours the voluptuous vale
Scatters from jasmine bowers.
From yon rose wilderness,
From clustered henna, and from orange groves
That with such perfumes fill the breeze,
As Peris to their Sister bear,
When from the summit of some lofty tree
She hangs encaged, the captive of the Dives.
They from their pinions shake
The sweetness of celestial flowers,
And as her enemies impure
From that impervious poison far away
Fly groaning with the torment, she the while
Inhales her fragrant[119] food.
Such odours flowed upon the world
When at Mohammed’s nuptials, word
Went forth in Heaven to roll
The everlasting gates of Paradise
Back on their living hinges, that its gales
Might visit all below; the general bliss
Thrilled every bosom, and the family
Of man, for once[120] partook one common joy.

Full of the joy, yet still awake
To wonder, on went Thalaba;
On every side the song of mirth,
The music of festivity,
Invite the passing youth.
Wearied at length with hunger and with heat
He enters in a banquet room,
Where round a fountain brink,
On silken[121] carpets sate the festive train.
Instant thro’ all his frame
Delightful coolness spread;
The playing fount refreshed
The agitated air;
The very light came cooled thro’ silvering panes
Of pearly[122] shell, like the pale moon-beam tinged;
Or where the wine-vase[123] filled the aperture,
Rosy as rising morn, or softer gleam
Of saffron, like the sunny evening mist:
Thro’ every hue, and streaked by all
The flowing fountain played.
Around the water-edge
Vessels of wine, alternate placed,
Ruby and amber, tinged its little waves.
From golden goblets there[124]
The guests sate quaffing the delicious juice
Of Shiraz’ golden grape.

But Thalaba took not the draught
For rightly he knew had the Prophet forbidden
That beverage the mother[125] of sins.
Nor did the urgent guests
Proffer a second time the liquid fire
For in the youth’s strong eye they saw
No moveable resolve.
Yet not uncourteous, Thalaba
Drank the cool draught of innocence,
That fragrant from its dewy[126] vase
Came purer than it left its native bed.
And he partook the odorous fruits,
For all rich fruits were there.
Water-melons rough of rind,
Whose pulp the thirsty lip
Dissolved into a draught:
Pistachios from the heavy-clustered trees
Of Malavert, or Haleb’s fertile soil,
And Casbin’s[127] luscious grapes of amber hue,
That many a week endure
The summer sun intense,
Till by its powerful fire
All watery particles exhaled, alone
The strong essential sweetness ripens there.
Here cased in ice, the [128]apricot,
A topaz, crystal-set:
Here on a plate of snow
The sunny orange rests,
And still the aloes and the sandal-wood
From golden censers o’er the banquet room
Diffuse their dying sweets.

Anon a troop of females formed the dance
Their ancles bound with [129]bracelet-bells
That made the modulating harmony.
Transparent[130] garments to the greedy eye
Gave all their harlot limbs,
That writhed, in each immodest gesture skilled.

With earnest eyes the banqueters
Fed on the sight impure;
And Thalaba, he gazed,
But in his heart he bore a talisman
Whose blessed Alchemy
To virtuous thoughts refined
The loose suggestions of the scene impure.
Oneiza’s image swam before his sight,
His own Arabian Maid.
He rose, and from the banquet room he rushed,
And tears ran down his burning cheek,
And nature for a moment woke the thought
And murmured, that from all domestic joys
Estranged, he wandered o’er the world
A lonely being, far from all he loved.
Son of Hodeirah, not among thy crimes
That murmur shall be written!

From tents of revelry,
From festal bowers, to solitude he ran,
And now he reached where all the rills
Of that well-watered garden in one tide
Rolled their collected waves.
A straight and stately bridge
Stretched its long arches o’er the ample stream.
Strong in the evening and distinct its shade
Lay on the watry mirror, and his eye
Saw it united with its parent pile
One huge fantastic fabric. Drawing near,
Loud from the chambers[131] of the bridge below,
Sounds of carousal came and song,
And unveiled women bade the advancing youth
Come merry-make with them.
Unhearing or unheeding, Thalaba
Past o’er with hurried pace,
And plunged amid the forest solitude.
Deserts of Araby!
His soul returned to you.
He cast himself upon the earth
And closed his eyes, and called
The voluntary vision up.
A cry as of distress
Aroused him; loud it came, and near!
He started up, he strung his bow,
He plucked the arrow forth.
Again a shriek ... a woman’s shriek!
And lo! she rushes thro’ the trees,
Her veil all rent, her garments torn!
He follows close, the ravisher....
Even on the unechoing grass
She hears his tread, so close!
“Prophet save me! save me God!
“Help! help!” she cried to Thalaba,
Thalaba drew the bow.
The unerring arrow did its work of death.
He turned him to the woman, and beheld
His own Oneiza, his Arabian Maid.

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The Seventh Book.

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THALABA THE DESTROYER.

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THE SEVENTH BOOK.

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From fear, amazement, joy,
At length the Arabian Maid recovering speech,
Threw around Thalaba her arms and cried,
“My father! O my father!” Thalaba
In wonder lost, yet fearful to enquire,
Bent down his cheek on hers,
And their tears mingled as they fell.

ONEIZA.

At night they seized me, Thalaba! in my sleep,...
Thou wert not near,... and yet when in their grasp
I woke, my shriek of terror called on thee.
My father could not save me,... an old man!
And they were strong and many,... O my God,
The hearts they must have had to hear his prayers,
And yet to leave him childless!

THALABA.

We will seek him.
We will return to Araby.

ONEIZA.

Alas!
We should not find him, Thalaba! our tent
Is desolate, the wind hath heaped the sands
Within its door, the lizard’s[132] track is left
Fresh on the untrodden dust; prowling by night
The tyger, as he passes hears no breath
Of man, and turns to search its solitude.
Alas! he strays a wretched wanderer
Seeking his child! old man, he will not rest,...
He cannot rest, his sleep is misery,
His dreams are of my wretchedness, my wrongs....
O Thalaba! this is a wicked place!
Let us be gone!

THALABA.

But how to pass again
The iron doors that opening at a breath
Gave easy entrance? armies in their strength,
Would fail to move those hinges for return!

ONEIZA.

But we can climb the mountains that shut in
This dreadful garden.

THALABA.

Are Oneiza’s limbs
Equal to that long toil?

ONEIZA.

Oh I am strong
Dear Thalaba! for this ... fear gives me force,
And you are with me!
So she took his hand,
And gently drew him forward, and they went
Towards the mountain chain.
It was broad moonlight, and obscure or lost
The garden beauties lay,
But the great boundary rose, distinctly marked.
These were no little hills,
No sloping uplands lifting to the sun
Their vine-yards, with fresh verdure, and the shade
Of ancient woods, courting the loiterer
To win the easy ascent: stone mountains these
Desolate rock on rock,
The burthens of the earth,
Whose snowy summits met the morning beam
When night was in the vale, whose feet were fixed
In the world’s[133] foundations. Thalaba surveyed
The heights precipitous,
Impending crags, rocks unascendible,
And summits that had tired the eagle’s wing;
“There is no way!” he cried.
Paler Oneiza grew
And hung upon his arm a feebler weight.

But soon again to hope
Revives the Arabian maid,
As Thalaba imparts the sudden thought.
“I past a river,” cried the youth
“A full and copious stream.
“The flowing waters cannot be restrained
“And where they find or force their way,
“There we perchance may follow, thitherward
“The current rolled along.”
So saying yet again in hope
Quickening their eager steps
They turned them thitherward.

Silent and calm the river rolled along,
And at the verge arrived
Of that fair garden, o’er a rocky bed
Towards the mountain base,
Still full and silent, held its even way,
But the deep sound, the dash
Louder and louder in the distance rose,
As if it forced its stream
Struggling with crags along a narrow pass.
And lo! where raving o’er a hollow course
The ever-flowing tide
Foams in a thousand whirlpools! there adown
The perforated rock
Plunge the whole waters, so precipitous,
So fathomless a fall
That their earth-shaking roar came deadened up
Like subterranean thunders.
“Allah save us!”
Oneiza cried, “there is no path for man
“From this accursed place!”
And as she spake her joints
Were loosened, and her knees sunk under her.
“Cheer up, Oneiza!” Thalaba replied,
“Be of good heart. We cannot fly
“The dangers of the place,
“But we can conquer them!”

And the young Arab’s soul
Arose within him; “what is he,” he cried,
“Who has prepared this garden of delight,
“And wherefore are its snares?”

The Arabian Maid replied,
“The Women when I entered, welcomed me
“To Paradise, by Aloadin’s will
“Chosen like themselves, a Houri of the Earth.
“They told me, credulous of his blasphemies,
“That Aloadin placed them to reward
“His faithful servants with the joys of Heaven.
“O Thalaba, and all are ready here
“To wreak his wicked will, and work all crimes!
“How then shall we escape?”

“Woe to him!” cried the Appointed, a stern smile
Darkening with stronger shades his countenance,
“Woe to him! he hath laid his toils
“To take the Antelope,
“The Lion is come in!”
She shook her head, “a Sorcerer he
“And guarded by so many! Thalaba,...
“And thou but one!”
He raised his hand to Heaven,
“Is there not God, Oneiza?
“I have a Talisman, that, whoso bears,
“Him, nor the Earthly, nor the Infernal Powers
“Of Evil can cast down.
“Remember Destiny
“Hath marked me from mankind!
“Now rest in faith, and I will guard thy sleep!”

So on a violet bank
The Arabian Maid lay down,
Her soft cheek pillowed upon moss and flowers.
She lay in silent prayer,
Till prayer had tranquillized her fears,
And sleep fell on her. By her side
Silent sate Thalaba,
And gazed upon the Maid,
And as he gazed, drew in
New courage and intenser faith,
And waited calmly for the eventful day.

Loud sung the Lark, the awakened Maid
Beheld him twinkling in the morning light,
And wished for wings and liberty like his.
The flush of fear inflamed her cheek,
But Thalaba was calm of soul,
Collected for the work.
He pondered in his mind
How from Lobaba’s breast
His blunted arrow fell.
Aloadin too might wear
Spell perchance of equal power
To blunt the weapon’s edge!
Beside the river-brink,
Rose a young poplar, whose unsteady leaves
Varying their verdure to the gale,
With silver glitter caught
His meditating eye.
Then to Oneiza turned the youth
And gave his father’s bow,
And o’er her shoulders slung
The quiver arrow-stored.
“Me other weapon suits;” said he,
“Bear thou the Bow: dear Maid!
“The days return upon me, when these shafts,
“True to thy guidance, from the lofty palm
“Brought down the cluster, and thy gladdened eye
“Exulting turned to seek the voice of praise.
“Oh! yet again Oneiza, we shall share
“Our desert joys!”
So saying to the bank
He moved, and stooping low,
With double grasp, hand below hand, he clenched
And from its watry soil
Uptore the poplar trunk.
Then off he shook the clotted earth,
And broke away the head
And boughs and lesser roots,
And lifting it aloft
Wielded with able sway the massy club.
“Now for this child of Hell!” quoth Thalaba,
“Belike he shall exchange to day
“His dainty Paradise
“For other dwelling, and the fruit
“Of Zaccoum,[134] cursed tree.”

With that the youth and Arab maid
Towards the garden centre past.
It chanced that Aloadin had convoked
The garden-habitants,
And with the assembled throng
Oneiza mingled, and the appointed youth.
Unmarked they mingled, or if one
With busier finger to his neighbour notes
The quivered Maid, “haply,” he says,
“Some daughter of the[135] Homerites,
“Or one who yet remembers with delight
“Her native tents of Himiar!” “Nay!” rejoins
His comrade, “a love-pageant! for the man
“Mimics with that fierce eye and knotty club
“Some savage lion-tamer, she forsooth
“Must play the heroine of the years of old!”

Radiant with gems upon his throne of gold
Aloadin sate.
O’er the Sorcerer’s head
Hovered a Bird, and in the fragrant air
Waved his winnowing wings,
A living canopy.
Large as the plumeless Cassowar
Was that o’ershadowing Bird;
So huge his talons, in their grasp
The Eagle would have hung a helpless prey.
His beak was iron, and his plumes
Glittered like burnished gold,
And his eyes glowed, as tho’ an inward fire
Shone thro’ a diamond orb.

The blinded multitude
Adored the Sorcerer,
And bent the knee before him,
And shouted out his praise,
“Mighty art thou, the Bestower of joy,
“The Lord of Paradise!”
Aloadin waved his hand,
In idolizing reverence
Moveless they stood and mute.
“Children of Earth,” he cried,
“Whom I have guided here
“By easier passage than the gate of Death,
“The infidel Sultan to whose lands
“My mountains reach their roots,
“Blasphemes and threatens me.
“Strong are his armies, many are his guards,
“Yet may a dagger find him.
“Children of Earth, I tempt you not
“With the vain promise of a bliss unseen,
“With tales of a hereafter Heaven
“Whence never Traveller hath returned!
“Have ye not tasted of the cup of joy,
“That in these groves of happiness
“For ever over-mantling tempts
“The ever-thirsty lip?
“Who is there here that by a deed
“Of danger will deserve
“The eternal joys of actual Paradise?

“I!” Thalaba exclaimed,
And springing forward, on the Sorcerer’s head
He dashed the knotty club.

He fell not, tho’ the force
Shattered his skull; nor flowed the blood.
For by some hellish talisman
His life imprisoned still
Dwelt in the body. The astonished crowd
Stand motionless with fear, and wait
Immediate vengeance from the wrath of Heaven.
And lo! the Bird ... the monster Bird
Soars up ... then pounces down
To seize on Thalaba!
Now Oneiza, bend the bow,
Now draw the arrow home!
It fled, the arrow from Oneiza’s hand,
It pierced the monster Bird,
It broke the Talisman.
Then darkness covered all,...
Earth shook, Heaven thundered, and amid the yells
Of Spirits accursed, destroyed
The Paradise[136] of Sin.

At last the earth was still;
The yelling of the Demons ceased;
Opening the wreck and ruin to their sight
The darkness rolled away. Alone in life
Amid the desolation and the dead
Stood the Destroyer and the Arabian Maid.
They looked around, the rocks were rent,
The path was open, late by magic closed.
Awe-struck and silent down the stony glen
They wound their thoughtful way.

Amid the vale below
Tents rose, and streamers played
And javelins sparkled in the sun,
And multitudes encamped
Swarmed, far as eye could follow, o’er the plain.
There in his war pavilion sate
In council with his Chiefs
The Sultan of the Land.
Before his presence there a Captain led
Oneiza and the appointed Youth.

“Obedient to our Lord’s command,” said he,
“We past towards the mountains, and began
“The ascending strait; when suddenly Earth shook,
“And darkness like the midnight fell around,
“And fire and thunder came from Heaven
“As tho’ the Retribution day were come.
“After the terror ceased, and when with hearts
“Somewhat assured, again we ventured on,
“This youth and woman met us on the way.
“They told us that from Aloadin’s haunt
“They came on whom the judgement-stroke has fallen;
“He and his sinful Paradise at once
“Destroyed by them, the agents they of Heaven.
“Therefore I brought them hither, to repeat
“The tale before thy presence; that as search
“Shall prove it false or faithful, to their merit
“Thou mayest reward them.”
“Be it done to us,”
Thalaba answered, “as the truth shall prove!”

The Sultan while he spake
“Fixed on him the proud eye of sovereignty;
“If thou hast played with us,
“By Allah and by Ali, Death shall seal
“The lying lips for ever! if the thing
“Be as thou sayest it, Arab, thou shalt stand
“Next to ourself!”...
And hark! the cry
The lengthening cry, the increasing shout
Of joyful multitudes!

Breathless and panting to the tent
The bearer of good tidings comes,
“O Sultan, live for ever! be thy foes
“Like Aloadin all!
“The wrath of God hath smitten him.”

Joy at the welcome tale
Shone in the Sultan’s cheek
“Array the Arab in the robe
“Of honour,” he exclaimed,
“And place a chain of gold around his neck,
“And bind around his brow the diadem,
“And mount him on my steed of state,
“And lead him thro’ the camp,
“And let the Heralds go before and cry
“Thus shall the Sultan reward
“The man[137] who serves him well!”

Then in the purple robe
They vested Thalaba.
And hung around his neck the golden chain,
And bound his forehead with the diadem,
And on the royal steed
They led him thro’ the camp,
And Heralds went before and cried
“Thus shall the Sultan reward
“The man who serves him well!”

When from the pomp of triumph
And presence of the King
Thalaba sought the tent allotted him,
Thoughtful the Arabian Maid beheld
His animated eye,
His cheek inflamed with pride.
“Oneiza!” cried the youth,
“The King hath done according to his word,
“And made me in the land
“Next to himself be named!...
“But why that serious melancholy smile?
“Oneiza when I heard the voice that gave me
“Honour, and wealth, and fame, the instant thought
“Arose to fill my joy, that thou wouldest hear
“The tidings, and be happy.”

ONEIZA.

Thalaba
Thou wouldest not have me mirthful! am I not
An orphan,... among strangers?

THALABA.

But with me.

ONEIZA.

My Father,...

THALABA.

Nay be comforted! last night
To what wert thou exposed! in what a peril
The morning found us! safety, honour, wealth
These now are ours. This instant who thou wert
The Sultan asked. I told him from our childhood
We had been plighted;... was I wrong Oneiza?
And when he said with bounties he would heap
Our nuptials,... wilt thou blame me if I blest
His will, that bade me fix the marriage day!
In tears Oneiza?...

ONEIZA.

Remember Destiny
Hath marked thee from mankind!

THALABA.

Perhaps when Aloadin was destroyed
The mission ceased, else would wise Providence
With its rewards and blessings strew my path
Thus for accomplished service?

ONEIZA.

Thalaba!

THALABA.

Or if haply not, yet whither should I go?
Is it not prudent to abide in peace
Till I am summoned?

ONEIZA.

Take me to the Deserts!

THALABA.

But Moath is not there; and wouldest thou dwell
In a Stranger’s tent? thy father then might seek
In long and fruitless wandering for his child.

ONEIZA.

Take me then to Mecca!
There let me dwell a servant of the Temple.
Bind thou thyself my veil,... to human eye
It never shall be lifted. There, whilst thou
Shalt go upon thine enterprize, my prayers,
Dear Thalaba! shall rise to succour thee,
And I shall live,... if not in happiness;
Surely in hope.

THALABA.

Oh think of better things!
The will of Heaven is plain: by wonderous ways
It led us here, and soon the common voice
Shall tell what we have done, and how we dwell
Under the shadow of the Sultan’s wing,
So shall thy father hear the fame, and find us
What he hath wished us ever.... Still in tears!
Still that unwilling eye! nay ... nay.... Oneiza....
Has then another since I left the tent....

ONEIZA.

Thalaba! Thalaba!

With song, with music, and with dance
The bridal pomp proceeds.
Following on the veiled Bride
Fifty female slaves attend
In costly robes that gleam
With interwoven gold,
And sparkle far with gems.
An hundred slaves behind them bear
Vessels of silver and vessels of gold
And many a gorgeous garment gay
The presents that the Sultan gave.
On either hand the pages go
With torches flaring thro’ the gloom,
And trump and timbrel merriment
Accompanies their way;
And multitudes with loud acclaim
Shout blessings on the Bride.
And now they reach the palace pile,
The palace home of Thalaba,
And now the marriage feast is spread
And from the finished banquet now
The wedding guests are gone.

Who comes from the bridal chamber?
It is Azrael, the Angel of Death.

---

The Eighth Book.

---

THALABA THE DESTROYER.

---

THE EIGHTH BOOK.

---

WOMAN.

Go not among the Tombs, Old Man!
There is a madman there.

OLD MAN.

Will he harm me if I go?

WOMAN.

Not he, poor miserable man!
But ’tis a wretched sight to see
His utter wretchedness.
For all day long he lies on a grave,
And never is he seen to weep,
And never is he heard to groan.
Nor ever at the hour of prayer
Bends his knee, nor moves his lips.
I have taken him food for charity
And never a word he spake,
But yet so ghastly he looked
That I have awakened at night
With the dream of his ghastly eyes.
Now go not among the Tombs, Old Man!

OLD MAN.

Wherefore has the wrath of God
So sorely stricken him?

WOMAN.

He came a Stranger to the land,
And did good service to the Sultan,
And well his service was rewarded.
The Sultan named him next himself,
And gave a palace for his dwelling,
And dowered his bride with rich domains.
But on his wedding night
There came the Angel of Death.
Since that hour a man distracted
Among the sepulchres he wanders.
The Sultan when he heard the tale
Said that for some untold crime
Judgement thus had stricken him,
And asking Heaven forgiveness
That he had shewn him favour,
Abandoned him to want.

OLD MAN.

A Stranger did you say?

WOMAN.

An Arab born, like you.
But go not among the Tombs,
For the sight of his wretchedness
Might make a hard heart ache!

OLD MAN.

Nay, nay, I never yet have shunned
A countryman in distress:
And the sound of his dear native tongue
May be like the voice of a friend.

Then to the Sepulchre
The Woman pointed out,
Old Moath bent his way.
By the tomb lay Thalaba,
In the light of the setting eve.
The sun, and the wind, and the rain
Had rusted his raven locks,
His checks were fallen in,
His face bones prominent,
By the tomb he lay along
And his lean fingers played,
Unwitting, with the grass that grew beside.

The Old man knew him not,
And drawing near him cried
“Countryman, peace be with thee!”
The sound of his dear native tongue
Awakened Thalaba.
He raised his countenance
And saw the good Old Man,
And he arose, and fell upon his neck,
And groaned in bitterness.
Then Moath knew the youth,
And feared that he was childless, and he turned
His eyes, and pointed to the tomb.
“Old Man!” cried Thalaba,
“Thy search is ended there!”

The father’s cheek grew white
And his lip quivered with the misery;
Howbeit, collecting with a painful voice
He answered, “God is good! his will be done!”

The woe in which he spake,
The resignation that inspired his speech,
They softened Thalaba.
“Thou hast a solace in thy grief,” he cried,
“A comforter within!
“Moath! thou seest me here,
“Delivered to the Evil Powers,
“A God-abandoned wretch.”

The Old Man looked at him incredulous.
“Nightly,” the youth pursued,
“Thy daughter comes to drive me to despair.
“Moath thou thinkest me mad,...
“But when the Cryer[138] from the Minaret
“Proclaims the midnight hour,
“Hast thou a heart to see her?”

In the[139] Meidan now
The clang of clarions and of drums
Accompanied the Sun’s descent.
“Dost thou not pray? my son!”
Said Moath, as he saw
The white flag waving on the neighbouring Mosque;
Then Thalaba’s eye grew wild,
“Pray!” echoed he, “I must not pray!”
And the hollow groan he gave
Went to the Old Man’s heart,
And bowing down his face to earth,
In fervent agony he called on God.

A night of darkness and of storms!
Into the Chamber[140] of the Tomb
Thalaba led the Old Man,
To roof him from the rain.
A night of storms! the wind
Swept thro’ the moonless sky
And moaned among the pillared sepulchres.
And in the pauses of its sweep
They heard the heavy rain
Beat on the monument above.
In silence on Oneiza’s grave
The Father and the Husband sate.

The Cryer from the Minaret
Proclaimed the midnight hour;
“Now! now!” cried Thalaba,
And o’er the chamber of the tomb
There spread a lurid gleam
Like the reflection of a sulphur fire,
And in that hideous light
Oneiza stood before them, it was She,
Her very lineaments, and such as death
Had changed them, livid cheeks, and lips of blue.
But in her eyes there dwelt
Brightness more terrible
Than all the loathsomeness of death.
“Still art thou living, wretch?”
In hollow tones she cried to Thalaba,
“And must I nightly leave my grave
“To tell thee, still in vain,
“God has abandoned thee?”

“This is not she!” the Old Man exclaimed,
“A Fiend! a manifest Fiend!”
And to the youth he held his lance,
“Strike and deliver thyself!”
“Strike her!” cried Thalaba,
And palsied of all powers
Gazed fixedly upon the dreadful form.
“Yea! strike her!” cried a voice whose tones
Flowed with such sudden healing thro’ his soul,
As when the desert shower
From death delivered him.
But unobedient to that well-known voice
His eye was seeking it,
When Moath firm of heart,
Performed the bidding; thro’ the vampire[141] corpse
He thrust his lance; it fell,
And howling with the wound
Its demon tenant fled.
A sapphire light fell on them,
And garmented with glory, in their sight
Oneiza’s Spirit stood.

“O Thalaba!” she cried,
“Abandon not thyself!
“Wouldst thou for ever lose me?... go, fulfill
“Thy quest, that in the Bowers of Paradise
“In vain I may not wait thee, O my Husband!”
To Moath then the Spirit
Turned the dark lustre of her Angel eyes,
“Short is thy destined path,
“O my dear father! to the abode of bliss.
“Return to Araby,
“There with the thought of death.
“Comfort thy lonely age,
“And Azrael the Deliverer, soon
“Shall visit thee in peace.”

They stood with earnest eyes
And arms out-reaching, when again
The darkness closed around them.
The soul of Thalaba revived;
He from the floor the quiver took
And as he bent the bow, exclaimed,
“Was it the over-ruling Providence
“That in the hour of frenzy led my hands
“Instinctively to this?
“To-morrow, and the sun shall brace anew
“The slackened cord that now sounds loose and damp,
“To-morrow, and its livelier tone will sing
“In tort vibration to the arrow’s flight.
“I ... but I also, with recovered health
“Of heart, shall do my duty.
“My Father! here I leave thee then!” he cried,
“And not to meet again
“Till at the gate of Paradise
“The eternal union of our joys commence.
“We parted last in darkness!”... and the youth
Thought with what other hopes,
But now his heart was calm,
For on his soul a heavenly hope had dawned.
The Old Man answered nothing, but he held
His garment and to the door
Of the Tomb Chamber followed him.
The rain had ceased, the sky was wild
Its black clouds broken by the storm.
And lo! it chanced that in the chasm
Of Heaven between, a star,
Leaving along its path continuous light,
Shot eastward. “See my guide!” quoth Thalaba,
And turning, he received
Old Moath’s last embrace,
And his last blessing.
It was eve,
When an old Dervise, sitting in the sun
At his cell door, invited for the night
The traveller; in the sun
He spread the plain repast
Rice and fresh grapes, and at their feet there flowed
The brook of which they drank.

So as they sate at meal,
With song, with music, and with dance,
A wedding train went by;
The veiled bride, the female slaves,
The torches of festivity,
And trump and timbrel merriment
Accompanied their way.
The good old Dervise gave
A blessing as they past.
But Thalaba looked on,
And breathed a low, deep groan, and hid his face.
The Dervise had known sorrow; and he felt
Compassion; and his words
Of pity and of piety
Opened the young man’s heart
And he told all his tale.

“Repine not, O my Son!” the Old Man replied,
“That Heaven has chastened thee.
“Behold this vine,[142] I found it a wild tree
“Whose wanton strength had swoln into
“Irregular twigs, and bold excrescencies,
“And spent itself in leaves and little rings,
“In the vain flourish of its outwardness
“Wasting the sap and strength
“That should have given forth fruit.
“But when I pruned the Tree,
“Then it grew temperate in its vain expence
“Of useless leaves, and knotted, as thou seest,
“Into these full, clear, clusters, to repay
“The hand whose foresight wounded it.
“Repine not, O my Son!
“In wisdom and in mercy Heaven inflicts,
“Like a wise Leech, its painful remedies.”

Then pausing, “whither goest thou now?” he asked.
“I know not,” answered Thalaba,
“Straight on, with Destiny my guide.”
Quoth the Old Man, “I will not blame thy trust,
“And yet methinks thy feet
“Should tread with certainty.
“In Kaf the Simorg hath his dwelling place,
“The all-knowing Bird of Ages, who hath seen
“The World, with all her children, thrice destroyed.
“Long is the thither path,
“And difficult the way, of danger full;
“But his unerring voice
“Could point to certain end thy weary search.”

Easy assent the youth
Gave to the words of wisdom; and behold
At dawn, the adventurer on his way to Kaf.
And he has travelled many a day
And many a river swum over,
And many a mountain ridge has crost
And many a measureless plain,
And now amid the wilds advanced,
Long is it since his eyes
Have seen the trace of man.

Cold! cold! ’tis a chilly clime
That the toil of the youth has reached,
And he is aweary now,
And faint for the lack of food.
Cold! cold! there is no Sun in heaven
But a heavy and uniform cloud
And the snows begin to fall.
Dost thou wish for thy deserts, O Son of Hodeirah?
Dost thou long for the gales of Arabia?
Cold! cold! his blood flows languid,
His hands are red, his lips are blue,
His feet are sore with the frost.
Cheer thee! cheer thee! Thalaba!
A little yet bear up!

All waste! no sign of life
But the track of the wolf and the bear!
No sound but the wild, wild wind
And the snow crunching under his feet!
Night is come; no moon, no stars,
Only the light of the snow!
But behold a fire in the cave of the hill
A heart-reviving fire;
And thither with strength renewed
Thalaba presses on.

He found a Woman in the cave,
A solitary Woman,
Who by the fire was spinning
And singing as she spun.
The pine boughs they blazed chearfully
And her face was bright with the flame.
Her face was as a Damsel’s face
And yet her hair was grey.
She bade him welcome with a smile
And still continued spinning
And singing as she spun.
The thread the Woman drew
Was finer than the silkworm’s,
Was finer than the gossamer.
The song she sung was low and sweet
And Thalaba knew not the words.

He laid his bow before the hearth,
For the string was frozen stiff.
He took the quiver from his neck,
For the arrow plumes were iced.
Then as the chearful fire
Revived his languid limbs,
The adventurer asked for food.
The Woman answered him,
And still her speech was song,
“The She Bear she dwells near to me,
“And she hath cubs, one, two and three.
“She hunts the deer and brings him here,
“And then with her I make good cheer,
“And she to the chase is gone
“And she will be here anon.”

She ceased from her work as she spake,
And when she had answered him,
Again her fingers twirled the thread
And again the Woman began
In low, sweet, tones to sing
The unintelligible song.

The thread she spun it gleamed like gold
In the light of the odorous fire,
And yet so wonderous thin,
That save when the light shone on it
It could not be seen by the eye.
The youth sate watching it,
And she beheld his wonder.
And then again she spake to him
And still her speech was song,
“Now twine it round thy hands I say,
“Now twine it round thy hands I pray,
“My thread is small, my thread is fine,
“But he must be
“A stronger than thee,
“Who can break this thread of mine!”

And up she raised her bright blue eyes
And sweetly she smiled on him,
And he conceived no ill.
And round and round his right hand,
And round and round his left,
He wound the thread so fine.
And then again the Woman spake,
And still her speech was song,
“Now thy strength, O Stranger, strain,
“Now then break the slender chain.”

Thalaba strove, but the thread
Was woven by magic hands,
And in his cheek the flush of shame
Arose, commixt with fear.
She beheld and laughed at him,
And then again she sung,
“My thread is small, my thread is fine,
“But he must be
“A stronger than thee
“Who can break this thread of mine.”

And up she raised her bright blue eyes
And fiercely she smiled on him,
“I thank thee, I thank thee, Hodeirah’s Son!
“I thank thee for doing what can’t be undone,
“For binding thyself in the chain I have spun!”
Then from his head she wrenched
A lock of his raven hair,
And cast it in the fire
And cried aloud as it burnt,
“Sister! Sister! hear my voice!
“Sister! Sister! come and rejoice,
“The web is spun,
“The prize is won,
“The work is done,
“For I have made captive Hoderiah’s Son.”

Borne in her magic car
The Sister Sorceress came,
Khawla, the fiercest of the Sorcerer brood.
She gazed upon the youth,
She bade him break the slender thread,
She laughed aloud for scorn,
She clapt her hands for joy.

The She Bear from the chase came in,
She bore the prey in her bloody mouth,
She laid it at Maimuna’s feet,
And she looked up with wistful eyes
As if to ask her share.
“There! there!” quoth Maimuna
And pointing to the prisoner youth
She spurned him with her foot,
And bade her make her meal.
But soon their mockery failed them
And anger and shame arose,
For the She Bear fawned on Thalaba
And quietly licked his hand.

The grey haired Sorceress stamped the ground
And called a Spirit up,
“Shall we bear the Enemy
“To the dungeon dens below?”

SPIRIT.

Woe! woe! to our Empire woe!
If ever he tread the caverns below.

MAIMUNA.

Shall we leave him fettered here
With hunger and cold to die?

SPIRIT.

Away from thy lonely dwelling fly!
Here I see a danger nigh
That he should live and thou shouldst die.

MAIMUNA.

Whither must we bear the foe?

SPIRIT.

To Mohareb’s island go,
There shalt thou secure the foe,
There prevent thy future woe.

Then in the Car they threw
The fettered Thalaba,
And took their seats, and set
Their feet upon his neck,
Maimuna held the reins
And Khawla shook the scourge
And away![143] away! away!
They were no steeds of mortal race
That drew the magic car
With the swiftness of feet and of wings.
The snow-dust rises behind them,
The ice-rocks splinters fly,
And hark! in the valley below
The sound of their chariot wheels
And they are far over the mountains.
Away! away! away!
The Demons of the air
Shout their joy as the Sisters pass,
The Ghosts of the Wicked that wander by night
Flit over the magic car.
Away! away! away!
Over the hills and the plains
Over the rivers and rocks,
Over the sands of the shore;
The waves of ocean heave
Under the magic steeds,
With unwet hoofs they trample the deep
And now they reach the Island coast,
And away to the city the Monarch’s abode.
Open fly the city gates,
Open fly the iron doors
The doors of the palace court.
Then stopt the charmed car.
The Monarch heard the chariot wheels
And forth he came to greet
The Mistress whom he served.
He knew the captive youth,
And Thalaba beheld
Mohareb in[144] the robes of royalty,
Whom erst his arm had thrust
Down the bitumen pit.

---

The Ninth Book.

---

THALABA THE DESTROYER.

---

THE NINTH BOOK.

---

“Go up, my Sister Maimuna,
“Go up, and read the stars!”

Lo! on the terrace of the topmost tower
She stands; her darkening eyes,
Her fine face raised to heaven,
Her white hair flowing like the silver streams
That streak the northern night.

They hear her coming tread,
They lift their asking eyes,
Her face is serious, her unwilling lips
Slow to the tale of ill.
“What hast thou read? what hast thou read?”
Quoth Khawla in alarm.
“Danger ... death ... judgement!” Maimuna replied.

“Is that the language of the lights of Heaven?”
Exclaimed the sterner Witch.
“Creatures of Allah, they perform his will.
“And with their lying menaces would daunt
“Our credulous folly.... Maimuna,
“I never liked this uncongenial lore!
“Better befits to make the sacrifice
“Of Divination; so shall I
“Be mine own Oracle.
“Command the victims thou, O King!
“Male and female they must be,
“Thou knowest the needful rites.
“Meanwhile I purify the place.”

The Sultan went; the Sorceress rose,
And North and South and East and West
She faced the points of Heaven,
And ever where she turned
She laid her hand upon the wall,
And up she looked and smote the air,
And down she stooped and smote the floor,
“To Eblis and his servants
“I consecrate the place,
“Let none intrude but they!
“Whatever hath the breath of life,
“Whatever hath the sap of life,
“Let it be blasted and die!”

Now all is prepared;
Mohareb returns,
The Circle is drawn,
The Victims have bled,
The Youth and the Maid.
She in the circle holds in either hand
Clenched by the hair, a head,
The heads of the Youth and the Maid.
“Go out ye lights!” quoth Khawla,
And in darkness began the spell.

With spreading arms she whirls around
Rapidly, rapidly
Ever around and around;
And loudly she calls the while
“Eblis! Eblis!”
Loudly, incessantly,
Still she calls “Eblis! Eblis!”
Giddily, giddily, still she whirls,
Loudly, incessantly, still she calls;
The motion is ever the same,
Ever around and around;
The calling is still the same
Still it is “Eblis! Eblis!”
And her voice is a shapeless yell,
And dizzily rolls her brain,
And now she is full of the Fiend.
She stops, she rocks, she reels!
Look! look! she appears in the darkness!
Her flamy hairs curl up
All living, like the Meteor’s locks of light!
Her eyes are like the sickly Moon!

It is her lips that move,
Her tongue that shapes the sound,
But whose is the Voice that proceeds?
“Ye may hope and ye may fear,
“The danger of his stars is near.
“Sultan! if he perish, woe!
“Fate has written one death-blow
“For Mohareb and the Foe?
“Triumph! triumph! only she
“That knit his bonds can set him free.”

She spake the Oracle,
And senselessly she fell.
They knelt in care beside her,
Her Sister and the King.
They sprinkled her palms with water,
They wetted her nostrils with blood.
She wakes as from a dream,
She asks the uttered Voice,
But when she heard, an anger and a grief
Darkened her wrinkling brow.
“Then let him live in long captivity!”
She answered: but Mohareb’s quickened eye
Perused her sullen countenance
That lied not with the lips.
A miserable man!
What boots it, that, in central caves
The Powers of Evil at his Baptism pledged
The Sacrament of Hell?
His death secures them now.
What boots it that they gave
Abdaldar’s guardian ring,
When thro’ another’s life
The blow may reach his own?

He sought the dungeon cell
Where Thalaba was laid.
’Twas the grey morning twilight, and the voice
Of Thalaba in prayer,
With words of hallowed import, smote
The King’s alarmed sense.
The grating of the heavy hinge
Roused not the Arabian youth;
Nor lifted he his earthward face
At sound of coming feet.
Nor did Mohareb with unholy voice
Disturb the duty: silent, spirit-awed,
Envious, heart-humbled, he beheld
The dungeon-peace of piety
Till Thalaba, the perfect rite performed,
Raised his calm eye; then spake the Island-Chief.
“Arab! my guidance thro’ the dangerous Cave,
“Thy service overpaid,
“An unintended friend in enmity.
“The hand that caught thy ring
“Received and bore me to the scene I sought.
“Now know me grateful. I return
“That amulet, thy only safety here.”

Artful he spake, with show of gratitude
Veiling the selfish deed.
Locked in the magic chain
The powerless hand of Thalaba
Received again the Spell.
Remembering then with what an ominous faith
First he drew on the gem,
The Youth repeats his words of augury;
“In God’s name and the Prophet’s! be its power
“Good, let it serve the holy! if for evil
“God and my faith shall hallow it.
“Blindly the wicked work
“The righteous will of Heaven!”

So Thalaba received again
The written ring of gold.

Thoughtful awhile Mohareb stood
And eyed the captive youth.
Then, building skilfully the sophist speech,
Thus he began. “Brave art thou, Thalaba!
“And wherefore are we foes!... for I would buy
“Thy friendship at a princely price, and make thee
“To thine own welfare wise.
“Hear me! in Nature are two hostile Gods,
“Makers and Masters of existing things,
“Equal in power:... nay hear me patiently!...
“Equal ... for look around thee! the same Earth
“Bears fruit and poison; where the Camel finds
“His fragrant[145] food, the horned Viper there
“Sucks in the juice of death; the Elements
“Now serve the use of man, and now assert
“Dominion o’er his weakness; dost thou hear
“The sound of merriment and nuptial song?
“From the next house proceeds the mourner’s cry
“Lamenting o’er the dead. Sayest thou that Sin
“Entered the world of Allah? that the Fiend
“Permitted for a season, prowls for prey?
“When to thy tent the venomous serpent creeps
“Dost thou not crush the reptile? even so,
“Besure, had Allah crushed his Enemy,
“But that the power was wanting. From the first,
“Eternal as themselves their warfare is,
“To the end it must endure. Evil and Good....
“What are they Thalaba but words? in the strife
“Of Angels, as of men, the weak are guilty;
“Power must decide. The Spirits of the Dead
“Quitting their mortal mansion, enter not,
“As falsely ye are preached, their final seat
“Of bliss, or bale; nor in the sepulchre
“Sleep they the long long sleep: each joins the host
“Of his great Leader, aiding in the war
“Whose fate involves his own.
“Woe to the vanquished then!
“Woe to the sons of man who followed him!
“They with their Leader, thro’ eternity,
“Must howl in central fires.
“Thou Thalaba hast chosen ill thy part,
“If choice it may be called, where will was not,
“Nor searching doubt, nor judgement wise to weigh.
“Hard is the service of the Power beneath
“Whose banners thou wert born; his discipline
“Severe, yea cruel; and his wages, rich
“Only in promise; who has seen the pay?
“For us ... the pleasures of the world are ours,
“Riches and rule, the kingdoms of the Earth.
“We met in Babylon adventurers both,
“Each zealous for the hostile Power he served:
“We meet again; thou feelest what thou art,
“Thou seest what I am, the Sultan here,
“The Lord of Life and Death.
“Abandon him who has abandoned thee,
“And be as I am, great among mankind!”

The Captive did not, hasty to confute
Break of that subtle speech,
But when the expectant silence of the King
Looked for his answer, then spake Thalaba.
“And this then is thy faith! this monstrous creed!
“This lie against the Sun and Moon and Stars
“And Earth and Heaven! blind man who canst not see
“How all things work the best! who wilt not know
“That in the Manhood of the World, whate’er
“Of folly marked its Infancy, of vice
“Sullied its Youth, ripe Wisdom shall cast off,
“Stablished in good, and knowing evil safe.
“Sultan Mohareb, yes, ye have me here
“In chains; but not forsaken, tho’ opprest:
“Cast down, but not destroyed. Shall danger daunt,
“Shall death dismay his soul, whose life is given
“For God and for his brethren of mankind?
“Alike rewarded, in that noble cause,
“The Conquerors and the Martyrs palm above
“Beam with one glory. Hope ye that my blood
“Can quench the dreaded flame? and know ye not
“That leagued against you are the Just and Wise,
“And all Good Actions of all ages past,
“Yea your own Crimes, and Truth, and God in Heaven!”

“Slave!” quoth Mohareb, and his lips
Quivered with eager wrath.
“I have thee! thou shalt feel my power,
“And in thy dungeon loathsomeness
“Rot piece-meal, limb from limb!”
And out the Tyrant rushes,
And all impatient of the thoughts
That cankered in his heart,
Seeks in the giddiness of boisterous sport
Short respite from the avenging power within.

What Woman is she
So wrinkled and old,
That goes to the wood?
She leans on her staff
With a tottering step,
She tells her bead-strings slow
Thro’ fingers dulled by age.
The wanton boys bemock her.
The babe in arms that meets her
Turns round with quick affright
And clings to his nurse’s neck.

Hark! hark! the hunter’s cry
Mohareb gone to the chase!
The dogs with eager yell
Are struggling to be free;
The hawks in frequent stoop
Token their haste for flight;
And couchant on the saddle-bow,
With tranquil eyes and talons sheathed
The ounce expects his liberty.

Propt on the staff that shakes
Beneath her trembling weight,
The Old Woman sees them pass.
Halloa! halloa!
The game is up!
The dogs are loosed
The deer bounds over the plain,
The lagging dogs behind
Follow from afar!
But lo! the Falcon o’er his head.
Hovers with hostile[146] wings,
And buffets him with blinding strokes!
Dizzy with the deafening strokes
In blind and interrupted course,
Poor beast be struggles on;
And now the dogs are nigh!
How his heart pants! you see
The panting of his heart;
And tears like human tears
Roll down, along the big veins, fever-swoln;
And now the death-sweat[147] darkens his dun hide!
His fear, his groans, his agony, his death,
Are the sport and the joy and the triumph!

Halloa! another prey,
The nimble Antelope!
The Ounce[148] is freed; one spring
And his talons are sheathed in her shoulders,
And his teeth are red in her gore.
There came a sound from the wood,
Like the howl of the winter wind at night
Around a lonely dwelling,
The Ounce whose gums were warm in his prey
He hears the summoning sound.
In vain his master’s voice
No longer dreaded now,
Calls and recalls with threatful tone.
Away to the forest he goes,
For that Old Woman had laid
Her shrivelled finger on her shrivelled lips,
And whistled with a long, long breath,
And that long breath was the sound
Like the howl of the winter wind at night
Around a lonely dwelling.

Mohareb knew her not,
As to the chase he went,
The glance of his proud eye
Passing in scorn o’er age and wretchedness.
She stands in the depth of the wood,
And panting to her feet
Fawning and fearful creeps the charmed ounce.
Well mayst thou fear, and vainly dost thou fawn!
Her form is changed, her visage new,
Her power, her heart the same!
It is Khawla that stands in the wood.

She knew the place where the mandrake grew,
And round the neck of the ounce,
And round the mandrake’s head
She tightens the ends of her cord.
Her ears are closed with wax,
And her prest finger fastens them,
Deaf as the Adder, when with grounded head
And circled form, her avenues of sound
Barred safely, one slant eye
Watches the charmer’s lips
Waste on the wind his[149] baffled witchery.
The spotted ounce so beautiful
Springs forceful from the scourge:
The dying plant all agony,
Feeling its life-strings crack,
Uttered the unimaginable groan
That none can hear and live.

Then from her victim servant Khawla loosed
The precious poison, next with naked hand
She plucked the boughs of the manchineel.
Then of the wormy wax she took,
That from the perforated[150] tree forced out,
Bewrayed its insect-parent’s work within.

In a cavern of the wood she sits
And moulds the wax to human form,
And as her fingers kneaded it,
By magic accents, to the mystic shape
Imparted with the life of Thalaba,
In all its passive powers
Mysterious sympathy.
With the Mandrake and the Manchineel
She builds her pile accurst.
She lays her finger to the pile,
And blue and green, the flesh
Glows with emitted fire,
A fire[151] to kindle that strange fuel meet.
Before the fire she placed the imaged wax,
“There[152] waste away!” the Enchantress cried,
“And with thee waste Hodeirah’s Son!”

Fool! fool! go thaw the everlasting ice,
Whose polar mountains bound the human reign.
Blindly the wicked work
The righteous will of Heaven!
The doomed Destroyer wears Abdaldar’s ring!
Against the danger of his horoscope
Yourselves have shielded him!
And on the sympathizing wax
The unadmitted flames play powerlessly,
As the cold moon-beam on a plain of snow.

“Curse thee! curse thee!” cried the fiendly woman,
“Hast thou yet a spell of safety?”
And in the raging flames
She cast the imaged wax.
It lay amid the flames,
Like Polycarp of old,
When by the glories of the burning stake
O’er vaulted, his grey hairs
Curled, life-like, to the fire
That haloed round his saintly brow.

“Wherefore is this!” cried Khawla, and she stamped
Thrice on the cavern floor,
“Maimuna! Maimuna!”
Thrice on the floor she stamped,
Then to the rocky gateway glanced
Her eager eyes, and Maimuna was there.
“Nay Sister, nay!” quoth she, “Mohareb’s life
“Is linked with Thalaba’s!
“Nay Sister, nay! the plighted oath!
“The common Sacrament!”

“Idiot!” said Khawla, “one must die, or all!
“Faith kept with him were treason to the rest.
“Why lies the wax, like marble, in the fire?
“What powerful amulet
“Protects Hodeirah’s son?”

Cold, marble-cold, the wax
Lay on the raging pile,
Cold in that white intensity of fire.
The Bat that with her hooked and leathery wings
Clung to the cave-roof, loosed her hold,
Death-sickening with the heat;
The Toad who to the darkest nook had crawled
Panted fast with fever pain;
The Viper from her nest came forth
Leading her quickened brood,
Who sportive with the warm delight, rolled out
Their thin curls, tender as the tendril rings,
Ere the green beauty of their brittle youth
Grows brown, and toughens in the summer sun.
Cold, marble-cold, the wax
Lay on the raging pile,
The silver quivering of the element
O’er its pale surface shedding a dim gloss.

Amid the red and fiery smoke,
Watching the strange portent,
The blue-eyed Sorceress and her Sister stood,
Seeming a ruined Angel by the side
Of Spirit born in Hell.
At length raised Maimuna her thoughtful eyes,
“Whence Sister was the wax
“The work of the worm, or the bee?
“Nay then I marvel not!
“It were as wise to bring from Ararat
“The fore-world’s[153] wood to build the magic pile,
“And feed it from the balm bower, thro’ whose veins
“The Martyr’s blood sends such a virtue out,
“That the fond Mother from beneath its shade
“Wreathes the Cerastes[154] round her playful child.
“This the eternal, universal strife!
“There is a grave-wax,[155]... I have seen the Gouls
“Fight for the dainty at their banquetting.”...

“Excellent witch!” quoth Khawla; and she went
To the cave arch of entrance, and scowled up,
Mocking the blessed Sun,
“Shine thou in Heaven, but I will shadow Earth!
“Thou wilt not shorten day,
“But I will hasten darkness!” Then the Witch
Began a magic song,
One long low tone thro’ teeth half-closed,
Thro’ lips slow-moving muttered slow,
One long-continued breath,
Till to her eyes a darker yellowness
Was driven, and fuller swoln the prominent veins
On her loose throat grew black.
Then looking upward thrice she breathed
Into the face of Heaven,
The baneful breath infected Heaven;
A mildewing mist it spread
Darker and darker; so the evening sun
Poured his unentering glory on the mist,
And it was night below.

“Bring now the wax,” quoth Khawla, “for thou knowest
“The mine that yields it!” forth went Maimuna,
In mist and darkness went the Sorceress forth.
And she has reached the place of Tombs,
And in their sepulchres the dead
Feel[156] feet unholy trampling over them.

Thou startest Maimuna,
Because the breeze is in thy lilted locks!
Is Khawla’s spell so weak?
Sudden came the breeze and strong;
The mist that in the labouring lungs was felt
So heavy late, flies now before the gale,
Thin as an Infant’s breath
Seen in the sunshine of an autumn frost.
Sudden it came and soon its work was done,
And suddenly it ceased;
Cloudless and calm it left the firmament,
And beautiful in the blue sky
Arose the summer Moon.

She heard the quickened action of her blood,
She felt the fever in her cheeks.
Daunted, yet desperate, in a tomb
Entering, with impious hand she traced
Circles, and squares, and trines,
And magic characters,
Till riven by her charms the grave
Yawned and disclosed its dead,
Maimuna’s eyes were opened, and she saw
The secrets of the grave.

There sate a Spirit in the vault,
In shape, in hue, in lineaments like life,
And by him couched, as if intranced,
The hundred-headed Worm that never dies.

“Nay Sorceress! not to-night!” the Spirit cried,
“The flesh in which I sinned may rest to-night
“From suffering; all things, even I to-night,
“Even the Damned repose!”

The flesh of Maimuna
Crept on her bones with terror, and her knees
Trembled with their trembling weight.
“Only this sabbath! and at dawn the Worm
“Will wake, and this poor flesh must grow to meet
“The gnawing of his hundred[157] poison-mouths!
“God! God! Is there no mercy after death?”

Soul-struck she rushed away,
She fled the place of Tombs,
She cast herself upon the earth,
All agony and tumult and despair.
And in that wild and desperate agony
Sure Maimuna had died the utter death,
If aught of evil had been possible
On this mysterious night;
For this was that most holy[158] night
When all created things know and adore
The Power that made them; insects, beasts, and birds,
The water-dwellers, herbs and trees and stones,
Yea Earth and Ocean and the infinite Heaven
With all its worlds. Man only does not know
The universal sabbath, does not join
With Nature in her homage. Yet the prayer
Flows from the righteous with intenser love,
A holier calm succeeds, and sweeter dreams
Visit the slumbers of the penitent.

Therefore on Maimuna the elements,
Shed healing; every breath she breathed was balm.
Was not a flower but sent in incense up
Its richest odours, and the song of birds
Now, like the music of the Seraphim,
Entered her soul, and now
Made silence aweful by their sudden pause.
It seemed as if the quiet moon
Poured quietness, its lovely light
Was like the smile of reconciling Heaven.

Is it the dew of night
That down her glowing cheek
Shines in the moon-beam? oh! she weeps ... she weeps
And the Good Angel that abandoned her
At her hell-baptism, by her tears drawn down
Resumes his charge, then Maimuna
Recalled to mind the double oracle;
Quick as the lightening flash
Its import glanced upon her, and the hope
Of pardon and salvation rose,
As now she understood
The lying prophecy of truth.
She pauses not, she ponders not,
The driven air before her fanned the face
Of Thalaba, and he awoke and saw
The Sorceress of the silver locks.

One more permitted spell!
She takes the magic chain.
With the wide eye of wonder, Thalaba
Watches her snowy fingers round and round
Wind the loosening chain.
Again he hears the low sweet voice,
The low sweet voice so musical,
That sure it was not strange,
If in those unintelligible tones
Was more than human potency,
That with such deep and undefined delight,
Filled the surrendered soul.
The work is done, the song is ceased;
He wakes as from a dream of Paradise
And feels his fetters gone, and with the burst
Of wondering adoration praises God.

Her charm has loosed the chain it bound,
But massy walls and iron gates
Confine Hodeirah’s son.
Heard ye not, Genii of the Air, her spell,
That o’er her face there flits
The sudden flush of fear?
Again her louder lips repeat the charm,
Her eye is anxious, her cheek pale,
Her pulse plays fast and feeble.
Nay Maimuna! thy power has ceased,
And the wind scatters now
The voice that ruled it late.

“Pray for me, Thalaba,” she cried,
“For death and judgement are at hand!”
All night in agony,
She feared the instant blow of Hell’s revenge.
At dawn the sound of gathering multitudes
Led to the prison bars her dreading eye.
What spectacle invites
The growing multitude,
That torrent-like they roll along?
Boys and grey-headed age; the Mother comes
Leading her child, who at arm’s length
Outstripping her, looks back
And bids her hasten more.

Why does the City pour her thousands forth?
What glorious pageantry
Makes her streets desolate, and silences
Her empty dwellings? comes the bridal pomp,
And have the purveyors of imperial lust
Torn from their parents arms again
The virgin beauties of the land?
Will elephants in gilded cages bear
The imprisoned victims? or may yet their eyes
With a last look of liberty, behold
Banners and guards and silk-arched palanquins.
The long procession, and the gorgeous pomp
Of their own sacrifice?
On the house tops and in the windows ranged
Face above face, they wait
The coming spectacle;
The trees are clustered, and below the dust
Thro’ the thronged populace
Can find no way to rise.

He comes! the Sultan! hark the swelling horn,
The trumpet’s spreading blair,
The timbrel tinkling as its silver bells
Twinkle aloft, and the shrill cymbal’s sound,
Whose broad brass flashes in the morning sun
Accordant light and music! closing all
The heavy Gong is heard,
That falls like thunder on the dizzy ear.

On either hand the thick-wedged crowd
Fall from the royal path.
Recumbent in the palanquin he casts
On the wide tumult of the waving throng
A proud and idle eye.
Now in his tent alighted, he receives
Homage and worship. The slave multitude
With shouts of blasphemy adore
Him, father of his people! him their Lord!
Great King, all-wise, all-mighty, and all-good!
Whose smile was happiness, whose frown was death,
Their present Deity!

With silken cords his slaves
Wave the silk[159] fan, that waving o’er his head
Freshens the languid air.
Others the while shower o’er his robes
The rose’s treasured sweets,
Rich odours burn before him, ambergrese,
Sandal and aloe wood,
And thus inhaling the voluptuous air
He sits to watch the agony,
To hear the groan of death.

At once all sounds are hushed,
All eyes take one direction, for he comes,
The object he of this day’s festival,
Of all this expectation and this joy,
The Christian captive. Hark! so silently
They stand, the clanking of his chain is heard.
And he has reached the place of suffering now.
And as the death’s-men round his ancles bind
The cords and to the gibbet swing him up,
The Priests begin their song, the song of praise,
The hymn of glory to their Devil-God.

Then Maimuna grew pale, as thro the bars
She saw the Martyr pendant by the feet,
His gold locks hanging downwards, and she cried,
“This is my Sister’s deed!
“O Thalaba, for us,
“Not for his faith the red-haired Christian dies.
“She wants the foam[160] that in his agony,
“Last from his lips shall fall,
“The deadliest poison that the Devils know.
“Son of Hodeirah, thou and I
“Shall prove its deadly force!”

And lo! the Executioners begin
And beat his belly with alternate blows.
And these are human that look on;...
The very women that would shrink
And shudder if they saw a worm
Crushed by the careless tread,
They clap their hands for joy
And lift their children up
To see the Christian die.

Convulsing Nature with her tortures drunk
Ceases to suffer now.
His eye-lids tremble, his lips quake,
But like the quivering of a severed limb
Move no responsive pang.
Now catch the exquisite poison! for it froths
His dying lips,... and Khawla holds the bowl.

Enough the Island crimes had cried to Heaven,
The measure of their guilt was full,
The hour of wrath was come.
The poison burst the bowl,
It fell upon the earth.
The Sorceress shrieked and caught Mohareb’s robe
And called the whirlwind and away!
For lo! from that accursed venom springs,
The Upas Tree of Death.

---

The Tenth Book.

---

THALABA THE DESTROYER.

---

THE TENTH BOOK.

---

Alone, beside a rivulet it stands
The Upas[161] Tree of Death.
Thro’ barren banks the barren waters flow,
The fish that meets them in the unmingling sea
Floats poisoned on the waves.
Tree grows not near, nor bush, nor flower, nor herb,
The Earth has lost its parent powers of life
And the fresh dew of Heaven that there descends,
Steams in rank poison up.

Before the appointed Youth and Maimuna
Saw the first struggle of the dying throng,
Crash sunk their prison wall!
The whirlwind wrapt them round;
Borne in the Chariot of the Winds
Ere there was time to fear, their way was past,
And lo! again they stand
In the cave-dwelling of the blue-eyed Witch.

Then came the weakness of her natural age
At once on Maimuna;
The burthen of her years
Fell on her, and she knew
That her repentance in the sight of God
Had now found favour, and her hour was come.
Her death was like the righteous; “Turn my face
“To Mecca!” in her languid eyes.
The joy of certain hope
Lit a last lustre, and in death
The smile was on her cheek.

No faithful[162] crowded round her bier,
No tongue reported her good deeds,
For her no mourners wailed and wept,
No Iman o’er her perfumed corpse,
For her soul’s health intoned the prayer;
No column[163] raised by the way side
Implored the passing traveller
To say a requiem for the dead.
Thalaba laid her in the snow,
And took his weapons from the hearth,
And then once more the youth began
His weary way of solitude.

The breath of the East is in his face
And it drives the sleet and the snow.
The air is keen, the wind is keen,
His limbs are aching with the cold,
His eyes are aching[164] with the snow,
His very heart is cold,
His spirit chilled within him. He looks on
If ought of life be near,
But all is sky and the white wilderness,
And here and there a solitary pine,
Its branches broken by the weight of snow.
His pains abate, his senses dull
With suffering, cease to suffer.
Languidly, languidly,
Thalaba drags along,
A heavy weight is on his lids,
His limbs move slow with heaviness,
And he full fain would sleep.
Not yet, not yet, O Thalaba!
Thy hour of rest is come;
Not yet may the Destroyer sleep
The comfortable sleep,
His journey is not over yet,
His course not yet fulfilled;...
Run thou thy race, O Thalaba!
The prize is at the goal.

It was a Cedar-tree
That woke him from the deadly drowsiness;
Its broad, round-spreading[165] branches when they felt
The snow, rose upward in a point to heaven,
And standing in their strength erect,
Defied the baffled storm.
He knew the lesson Nature gave,
And he shook off his heaviness,
And hope revived within him.

Now sunk the evening sun,
A broad, red, beamless orb,
Adown the glowing sky;
Thro’ the red light the snow-flakes fell, like fire.
Louder grows the biting wind,
And it drifts the dust of the snow.
The snow is clotted in his hair,
The breath of Thalaba
Is iced upon his lips.
He looks around, the darkness,
The dizzy floating of the snow,
Close in his narrow view.

At length thro’ the thick atmosphere a light
Not distant far appears.
He doubting other wiles of enmity,
With mingled joy and quicker step,
Bends his way thitherward.

It was a little, lowly dwelling place,
Amid a garden, whose delightful air
Felt mild and fragrant, as the evening wind
Passing in summer o’er the coffee-groves[166]
Of Yemen and its blessed bowers of balm.
A Fount of Fire that in the centre played,
Rolled all around its wonderous rivulets
And fed the garden with the heat of life.
Every where magic! the Arabian’s heart
Yearned after human intercourse.
A light!... the door unclosed!...
All silent ... he goes in.

There lay a Damsel sleeping on a couch,
His step awoke her, and she gazed at him
With pleased and wondering look,
Fearlessly, like a yearling child
Too ignorant to fear.
With words of courtesy
The young intruder spake.
At the sound of his voice a joy
Kindled her bright black eyes;
She rose and took his hand,
But at the touch the smile forsook her cheek,
“Oh! it is cold!” she cried,
“I thought I should have felt it warm like mine,
“But thou art like the rest!”

Thalaba stood mute awhile
And wondering at her words:
“Cold? Lady!” then he said; “I have travelled long
“In this cold wilderness,
“Till life is almost spent!”

LAILA.

Art thou a Man then?

THALABA.

I did not think
Sorrow and toil could so have altered me,
That I seem otherwise.

LAILA.

And thou canst be warm
Sometimes? life-warm as I am?

THALABA.

Surely Lady
As others are, I am, to heat and cold
Subject like all, you see a Traveller,
Bound upon hard adventure, who requests
Only to rest him here to-night, to-morrow
He will pursue his way.

LAILA.

Oh ... not to-morrow!
Not like a dream of joy, depart so soon!
And whither wouldst thou go? for all around
Is everlasting winter, ice and snow,
Deserts unpassable of endless frost.

THALABA.

He who has led me here will still sustain me
Thro’ cold and hunger.

“Hunger?” Laila cried;
She clapt her lilly hands,
And whether from above or from below
It came, sight could not see,
So suddenly the floor was spread with food.

LAILA.

Why dost thou watch with hesitating eyes
The banquet? ’tis for thee! I bade it come.

THALABA.

Whence came it?

LAILA.

Matters it from whence it came
My father sent it: when I call, he hears.
Nay ... thou hast fabled with me! and art like
The forms that wait upon my solitude,
Human to eye alone;... thy hunger would not
Question so idly else.

THALABA.

I will not eat!
It came by magic! fool to think that aught
But fraud and danger could await me here!
Let loose my cloak!...

LAILA.

Begone then, insolent!
Why dost thou stand and gaze upon my face?
Aye! watch the features well that threaten thee
With fraud and danger! in the wilderness
They shall avenge me,... in the hour of want
Rise on thy view, and make thee feel
How innocent I am:
And this remembered cowardice and insult
With a more painful shame will burn thy cheek
Than now beats mine in anger!

THALABA.

Mark me Lady!
Many and restless are my enemies;
My daily paths have been beset with snares
Till I have learnt suspicion, bitter sufferings
Teaching the needful vice, if I have wronged you,
And yours should be the face of innocence,
I pray you pardon me! in the name of God,
And of his Prophet, I partake your food.

LAILA.

Lo now! thou wert afraid of sorcery,
And yet hast said a charm!

THALABA.

A charm?

LAILA.

And wherefore?
Is it not not delicate food? what mean thy words?
I have heard many spells and many names
That rule the Genii and the Elements,
But never these.

THALABA.

How! never heard the names
Of God and of the Prophet?

LAILA.

Never ... nay now
Again that troubled eye? thou art a strange man
And wonderous fearful ... but I must not twice
Be charged with fraud! if thou suspectest still,
Depart and leave me!

THALABA.

And you do not know
The God that made you?

LAILA.

Made me, man! my Father
Made me. He made this dwelling, and the grove,
And yonder fountain-fire, and every morn
He visits me, and takes the snow, and moulds
Women and men, like thee; and breathes into them
Motion, and life, and sense,... but to the touch
They are chilling cold, and ever when night closes
They melt away again, and leave me here
Alone and sad. Oh then how I rejoice
When it is day and my dear Father comes,
And chears me with kind words and kinder looks!
My dear, dear, Father! were it not for him,
I am so weary of this loneliness,
That I should wish I also were of snow
That I might melt away, and cease to be.

THALABA.

And have you always had your dwelling here
Amid this solitude of snow?

LAILA.

I think so.
I can remember with unsteady feet
Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure
In flowers and toys and sweetmeats, things that long
Have lost their power to please; that when I see them
Raise only now a melancholy wish
I were the little trifler once again
That could be pleased so lightly!

THALABA.

Then you know not
Your Father’s art?

LAILA.

No. I besought him once
To give me power like his, that where he went
I might go with him: but he shook his head,
And said it was a power too dearly bought,
And kist me with the tenderness of tears.

THALABA.

And wherefore has he hidden you thus far
From all the ways of humankind?

LAILA.

’Twas fear,
Fatherly fear and love. He read[167] the stars
And saw a danger in my destiny,
And therefore placed me here amid the snows,
And laid a spell that never human eye,
If foot of man by chance should reach the depth
Of this wide waste, shall see one trace of grove,
Garden, or dwelling-place, or yonder fire,
That thaws and mitigates the frozen sky.
And more than this, even if the enemy
Should come, I have a guardian here.

THALABA.

A guardian?

LAILA.

’Twas well that when my sight unclosed upon thee
There was no dark suspicion in thy face.
Else I had called his succour! wilt thou see him?
But if a Woman can have terrified thee,
How wilt thou bare his unrelaxing brow
And lifted lightnings?

THALABA.

Lead me to him, Lady!

She took him by the hand
And thro’ the porch they past.
Over the garden and the grove
The fountain streams of fire
Poured a broad light like noon.
A broad unnatural light
That made the Rose’s blush of beauty pale,
And dimmed the rich Geranium’s scarlet blaze.
The various verdure of the grove
Now wore one undistinguishable grey,
Checqured with blacker shade.
Suddenly Laila stopt,
“I do not think thou art the enemy,”
She said, “but He will know!
“If thou hast meditated wrong
“Stranger, depart in time....
“I would not lead thee to thy death!”

The glance of Laila’s eye
Turned anxiously toward the Arabian youth.
“So let him pierce my heart,” cried Thalaba,
“If it hide thought to harm you!”

LAILA.

’Tis a figure,
Almost I fear to look at!... yet come on.
’Twill ease me of a heaviness that seems
To sink my heart; and thou mayest dwell here then.
In safety;... for thou shalt not go to-morrow,
Nor on the after, nor the after day,
Nor ever! it was only solitude
That made my misery here,...
And now that I can see a human face,
And hear a human voice....
Oh no! thou wilt not leave me!

THALABA.

Alas I must not rest!
The star that ruled at my nativity
Shone with a strange and blasting influence.
O gentle Lady! I should draw upon you
A killing curse.

LAILA.

But I will ask my Father
To save you from all danger, and you know not
The wonders he can work, and when I ask
It is not in his power to say me nay.
Perhaps thou knowest the happiness it is
To have a tender father?

THALABA.

He was one
Whom like a loathsome leper I have tainted
With my contagious destiny. At evening
He kist me as he wont, and laid his hands
Upon my head, and blest me ere I slept.
His dying groan awoke me, for the Murderer
Had stolen upon our sleep! for me was meant
The midnight blow of death; my father died,
The brother play-mates of my infancy,
The baby at the breast, they perished all,
All in that dreadful hour: but I was saved
To remember and revenge.

She answered not, for now
Emerging from the o’er-arched avenue
The finger of her upraised hand
Marked where the Guardian of the garden stood.
It was a brazen[168] Image, every limb
And swelling vein and muscle, true to life:
The left knee bending on,
The other straight, firm planted, and his hand
Lifted on high to hurl
The Lightning that it grasped.

When Thalaba approached,
The charmed Image knew Hodeirah’s son,
And hurled the lightning at the dreaded foe.
The Ring! the saviour Ring!
Full in his face the lightning-bolt was driven,
The scattered fire recoiled.
Like the flowing of a summer gale he felt
Its ineffectual force,
His countenance was not changed,
Nor a hair of his head was singed.

He started and his glance
Turned angrily upon the Maid,
The sight disarmed suspicion ... breathless, pale,
Against a tree she stood.
Her wan lips quivering, and her eye
Upraised, in silent supplicating fear.

She started with a scream of joy
Seeing her Father there,
And ran and threw her arms around his neck,
“Save me!” she cried, “the Enemy is come!
“Save me! save me! Okba!”

“Okba!” repeats the youth,
For never since that hour
When in the Tent the Spirit told his name,
Had Thalaba let slip
The memory of his Father’s murderer;
“Okba!”... and in his hand
He graspt an arrow-shaft.
And he rushed on to strike him.

“Son of Hodeirah!” the Old Man replied,
“My hour is not yet come.”
And putting forth his hand
Gently he repelled the Youth.
“My hour is not yet come!
“But thou mayest shed this innocent Maiden’s blood,
“That vengeance God allows thee.”

Around her Father’s neck
Still Laila’s hands were clasped.
Her face was turned to Thalaba,
A broad light floated o’er its marble paleness,
As the wind waved the fountain fire.
Her large, dilated eye in horror raised
Watched his every movement.
“Not upon her,” said he,
“Not upon her Hodeirah’s blood cries out
“For vengeance!” and again his lifted arm
Threatened the Sorcerer,
Again withheld it felt
The barrier that no human strength could burst.

“Thou dost not aim the blow more eagerly,”
Okba replied, “than I would rush to meet it!
“But that were poor revenge.
“O Thalaba, thy God
“Wreaks on the innocent head
“His vengeance;... I must suffer in my child!
“Why dost thou pause to strike thy victim? Allah
“Permits, commands the deed.”

“Liar!” quoth Thalaba.
And Laila’s wondering eye
Looked up, all anguish to her Father’s face,
“By Allah and the Prophet,” he replied,
“I speak the words of truth.
“Misery, misery,
“That I must beg mine enemy to speed
“The inevitable vengeance now so near!
“I read it in her horoscope,
“Her birth-star warned me of Hodeirah’s race.
“I laid a spell, and called a Spirit up.
“He answered one must die
“Laila or Thalaba....
“Accursed Spirit! even in truth
“Giving a lying hope!
“Last, I ascended the seventh Heaven
“And on the everlasting[169] Table there
“In characters of light,
“I read her written doom.
“The years that it has gnawn me! and the load
“Of sin that it has laid upon my soul!
“Curse on this hand that in the only hour
“The favouring stars allowed
“Reeked with other blood than thine.
“Still dost thou stand and gaze incredulous?
“Young man, be merciful, and keep her not
“Longer in agony!”

Thalaba’s unbelieving frown
Scowled on the Sorcerer,
When in the air the rush of wings was heard
And Azrael stood among them.
In equal terror at the sight
The Enchanter, the Destroyer stood,
And Laila, the victim maid.

“Son of Hodeirah!” said the Angel of Death,
“The accursed fables not.
“When from the Eternal Hand I took
“The yearly[170] scroll of fate,
“Her name was written there.
“This is the hour, and from thy hands
“Commissioned to receive the Maid I come.”

“Hear me O Angel!” Thalaba replied,
“To avenge my Father’s death,
“To work the will of Heaven,
“To root from earth the accursed sorcerer race,
“I have dared danger undismayed,
“I have lost all my soul held dear,
“I am cut off from all the ties of life,
“Unmurmuring; for whate’er awaits me still,
“Pursuing to the end the enterprize,
“Peril or pain, I bear a ready heart.
“But strike this Maid! this innocent!
“Angel, I dare not do it.”

“Remember,” answered Azrael, “all thou sayest
“Is written down for judgement! every word
“In the balance of[171] thy trial must be weighed!”

“So be it!” said the Youth.
“He who can read the secrets of the heart
“Will judge with righteousness!
“This is no doubtful path,
“The voice of God within me cannot lie....
“I will not harm the innocent.”

He said, and from above,
As tho’ it were the Voice of Night,
The startling answer came.
“Son of Hodeirah, think again!
“One must depart from hence,
“Laila, or Thalaba;
“She dies for thee, or thou for her,
“It must be life for life!
“Son of Hodeirah, weigh it well,
“While yet the choice is thine!”

He hesitated not,
But looking upward spread his hands to Heaven,
“Oneiza, in thy bower of Paradise
“Receive me, still unstained!”

“What!” exclaimed Okba, “darest thou disobey,
“Abandoning all claim
“To Allah’s longer aid?”

The eager exultation of his speech
Earthward recalled the thoughts of Thalaba.
“And dost thou triumph, Murderer? dost thou deem
“Because I perish, that the unsleeping lids
“Of Justice shall be closed upon thy crime?
“Poor, miserable man! that thou canst live
“With such beast-blindness in the present joy
“When o’er thy head the sword of God
“Hangs for the certain stroke!”

“Servant of Allah, thou hast disobeyed,
“God hath abandoned thee,
“This hour is mine!” cried Okba,
And shook his Daughter off,
And drew the dagger from his vest.
And aimed the deadly blow.

All was accomplished. Laila rushed between
To save the saviour Youth.
She met the blow and sunk into his arms,
And Azrael from the hands[172] of Thalaba
Received her parting soul.

---

The Eleventh Book.

---

THALABA THE DESTROYER.

---

THE ELEVENTH BOOK.

---

O fool to think thy human hand
Could check the chariot-wheels of Destiny
To dream of weakness in the all-knowing Mind
That his decrees should change!
To hope that the united Powers
Of Earth, and Air, and Hell,
Might blot one letter from the Book of Fate,
Might break one link of the eternal chain!
Thou miserable, wicked, poor old man,
Fall now upon the body of thy child,
Beat now thy breast, and pluck the bleeding hairs
From thy grey beard, and lay
Thine ineffectual hand to close her wound.
And call on Hell to aid,
And call on Heaven to send
Its merciful thunderbolt!

The young Arabian silently
Beheld his frantic grief.
The presence of the hated youth
To raging anguish stung
The wretched Sorcerer.
“Aye! look and triumph!” he exclaimed,
“This is the justice of thy God!
“A righteous God is he, to let
“His vengeance fall upon the innocent head!
“Curse thee, curse thee, Thalaba!”

All feelings of revenge
Had left Hodeirah’s son.
Pitying and silently he heard
The victim of his own iniquities,
Not with the busy hand
Of Consolation, fretting the sore wound
He could not hope to heal.

So as the Servant of the Prophet stood,
With sudden motion the night air
Gently fanned his cheek.
’Twas a Green Bird whose wings
Had waved the quiet air.
On the hand of Thalaba
The Green Bird perched, and turned
A mild eye up, as if to win
The Adventurer’s confidence.
Then springing on flew forward,
And now again returns
To court him to the way;
And now his hand perceives
Her rosy feet press firmer, as she leaps
Upon the wing again.

Obedient to the call,
By the pale moonlight Thalaba pursued
O’er trackless snows his way;
Unknowing he what blessed messenger
Had come to guide his steps,
That Laila’s Spirit went before his path.
Brought up in darkness and the child of sin,
Yet as the meed of spotless innocence,
Just Heaven permitted her by one good deed
To work her own redemption, after death;
So till the judgement day
She might abide in bliss,
Green[173] warbler of the Bowers of Paradise.

The morning sun came forth,
Wakening no eye to life
In this wide solitude;
His radiance with a saffron hue, like heat,
Suffused the desert snow.
The Green Bird guided Thalaba,
Now oaring with slow wing her upward way,
Descending now in slant descent
On out-spread pinions motionless,
Floating now with rise and fall alternate,
As if the billows of the air
Heaved her with their sink and swell.

And when, beneath the noon,
The icey glitter of the snow
Dazzled his aching sight,
Then on his arm alighted the Green Bird
And spread before his eyes
Her plumage of refreshing hue.
Evening came on; the glowing clouds
Tinged with a purple ray the mountain ridge
That lay before the Traveller.
Ah! whither art thou gone,
Guide and companion of the youth, whose eye
Has lost thee in the depth of Heaven?
Why hast thou left alone
The weary wanderer in the wilderness?
And now the western clouds grow pale
And Night descends upon his solitude.

The Arabian youth knelt down,
And bowed his forehead to the ground
And made his evening prayer.
When he arose the stars were bright in heaven,
The sky was blue, and the cold Moon
Shone over the cold snow.
A speck in the air!
Is it his guide that approaches?
For it moves with the motion of life!
Lo! she returns and scatters from her pinions
Odours diviner than the gales of morning
Waft from Sabea.

Hovering before the youth she hung,
Till from her rosy feet that at his touch
Uncurled their grasp, he took
The fruitful bough they bore.
He took and tasted, a new life
Flowed thro’ his renovated frame;
His limbs that late were sore and stiff
Felt all the freshness of repose,
His dizzy brain was calmed.
The heavy aching of his lids
At once was taken off,
For Laila from the Bowers of Paradise
Had borne the healing[174] fruit.

So up the mountain steep
With untired foot he past,
The Green Bird guiding him
Mid crags, and ice, and rocks,
A difficult way, winding the long ascent.
How then the heart of Thalaba rejoiced
When bosomed in the mountain depths,
A sheltered Valley opened on his view!
It was the Simorg’s vale,
The dwelling of the ancient Bird.

On a green and mossy bank.
Beside a rivulet
The Bird of Ages stood.
No sound intruded on his solitude,
Only the rivulet was heard
Whose everlasting flow
From the birth-day of the world had made
The same unvaried murmuring.
Here dwelt the all-knowing Bird
In deep tranquillity,
His eyelids ever closed
In full enjoyment of profound repose.

Reverently the youth approached
That old and only[175] Bird,
And crossed his arms upon his breast,
And bowed his head and spake.
“Earliest of existing things,
“Earliest thou, and wisest thou,
“Guide me, guide me, on my way!
“I am bound to seek the caverns
“Underneath the roots of Ocean
“Where the Sorcerer brood are nurst.
“Thou the eldest, thou the wisest,
“Guide me, guide me, on my way!”

The ancient Simorg on the youth
Unclosed his thoughtful eyes,
And answered to his prayer.
“Northward by the stream proceed,
“In the fountain of the rock
“Wash away thy worldly stains,
“Kneel thou there, and seek the Lord
“And fortify thy soul with prayer.
“Thus prepared ascend the Sledge,
“Be bold, be wary, seek and find!
“God hath appointed all.”
The ancient Simorg then let fall his lids
Returning to repose.

Northward along the rivulet
The adventurer went his way,
Tracing its waters upward to their source.
Green Bird of Paradise
Thou hast not left the youth;...
With slow associate flight
She companies his way,
And now they reach the fountain of the rock.

There in the cold clear well
Thalaba washed away his earthly stains,
And bowed his face before the Lord,
And fortified his soul with prayer.
The while upon the rock
Stood the celestial Bird,
And pondering all the perils he must pass,
With a mild melancholy eye
Beheld the youth beloved.

And lo! beneath yon lonely pine, the sledge....
And there they stand the harnessed Dogs,
Their wide eyes watching for the youth,
Their ears erected turned towards his way.
They were lean as lean might be,
Their furrowed ribs rose prominent,
And they were black from head to foot,
Save a white line on every breast
Curved like the crescent moon.
And he is seated in the sledge,
His arms are folded on his breast,
The bird is on his knees;
There is fear in the eyes of the Dogs,
There is fear in their pitiful moan,
And now they turn their heads,
And seeing him there, Away!

The Youth with the start of their speed
Falls back to the bar of the sledge,
His hair floats straight in the stream of the wind
Like the weeds in the running brook.
They wind with speed the upward way,
An icey path thro’ rocks of ice,
His eye is at the summit now,
And thus far all is dangerless,
And now upon the height
The black Dogs pause and pant,
They turn their eyes to Thalaba
As if to plead for pity,
They moan and moan with fear.

Once more away! and now
The long descent is seen,
A long, long, narrow path.
Ice-rocks aright and hills of snow,
Aleft the giddy precipice.
Be firm, be firm, O Thalaba!
One motion now, one bend,
And on the crags below
Thy shattered flesh will harden in the frost.
Why howl the Dogs so mournfully?
And wherefore does the blood flow fast
All purple o’er their sable hair?
His arms are folded on his breast,
Nor scourge nor goad has he,
No hand appears to strike,
No sounding lash is heard:
But piteously they moan and moan
And track their way with blood.

And lo! on yonder height
A giant Fiend aloft
Waits to thrust down the tottering Avalanche!
If Thalaba looks back he dies,
The motion of fear is death.
On ... on ... with swift and steady pace
Adown that dreadful way!
The youth is firm, the Dogs are fleet,
The Sledge goes rapidly,
The thunder of the avalanche
Re-echoes far behind.
On ... on ... with swift and steady pace
Adown that dreadful way!
The Dogs are fleet, the way is steep
The Sledge goes rapidly,
They reach the plain below.

A wide, wide plain, all desolate,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor herb!
On go the Dogs with rapid step,
The Sledge slides after rapidly,
And now the Sun went down.
They stopt and looked at Thalaba,
The Youth performed his prayer;
They knelt beside him as he prayed
They turned their heads to Mecca
And tears ran down their cheeks.
Then down they laid them in the snow
As close as they could lie,
They laid them down and slept.
And backward in the sledge
The Adventurer laid him down,
There peacefully slept Thalaba,
And the Green Bird of Paradise
Lay in his bosom warm.

The Dogs awoke him at the dawn,
They knelt and wept again;
Then rapidly they journeyed on,
And still the plain was desolate,
Nor tree, nor bush, nor herb!
And ever at the hour of prayer
They stopt, and knelt, and wept;
And still that green and graceful Bird
Was as a friend to him by day,
And ever when at night he slept
Lay in his bosom warm.
In that most utter solitude
It cheered his heart to hear
Her soft and soothing voice;
Her voice was soft and sweet,
It swelled not with the blackbird’s thrill,
Nor warbled rich like the dear bird, that holds
The solitary man
A loiterer in his thoughtful walk at eve;
But if no overflowing joy
Spake in its tones of tenderness
They soothed the softened soul.
Her bill was not the beak of blood;
There was a human meaning in her eye,
Its mild affection fixed on Thalaba
Woke wonder while he gazed
And made her dearer for the mystery.

Oh joy! the signs of life appear,
The first and single Fir
That on the limits of the living world
Strikes in the ice its roots.
Another, and another now;
And now the Larch that flings its arms
Down arching like the falling wave;
And now the Aspin’s scattered leaves
Grey glitter on the moveless twig;
The Poplar’s varying verdure now,
And now the Birch so beautiful,
Light as a Lady’s plumes.
Oh joy! the signs of life! the Deer
Hath left his slot beside the way;
The little Ermine now is seen
White wanderer of the snow;
And now from yonder pines they hear
The clatter of the Grouse’s wings:
And now the snowy Owl pursues
The Traveller’s sledge in hope of food;
And hark! the rosy-breasted bird
The Throstle of sweet song!
Joy! joy! the winter-wilds are left!
Green bushes now and greener grass,
Red thickets here all berry-bright,
And here the lovely flowers!

When the last morning of their way arrived,
After the early prayer,
The Green Bird fixed on Thalaba
A sad and supplicating eye,
And with a human voice she spake,
“Servant of God, I leave thee now.
“If rightly I have guided thee,
“Give me the boon I beg!”

“O gentle Bird,” quoth Thalaba,
“Guide and companion of my dangerous way,
“Friend and sole solace of my solitude,
“How can I pay thee benefits like these!
“Ask what thou wilt that I can give,
“O gentle Bird, the poor return
“Will leave me debtor still!”

“Son of Hodeirah!” she replied,
“When thou shalt see an Old Man crushed beneath
“The burthen of his earthly punishment,
“Forgive him, Thalaba!
“Yea, send a prayer to God on his behalf!”

A flush o’erspread the young Destroyer’s cheek,
He turned his eye towards the Bird
As if in half repentance; for he thought
Of Okba; and his Father’s dying groan
Came on his memory. The celestial Bird
Saw and renewed her speech.
“O Thalaba, if she who in thine arms
“Received the dagger-blow and died for thee,
“Deserve one kind remembrance ... save, O save
“The Father that she loved from endless death!”

“Laila! and is it thou?” the youth replied:
“What is there that I durst refuse to thee?
“This is no time to harbour in my heart
“One evil thought ... here I put off revenge,
“The last rebellious feeling ... be it so!
“God grant to me the pardon that I need
“As I do pardon him!
“But who am I that I should save
“The sinful soul alive?”

“Enough!” said Laila. “When the hour shall come
“Remember me! my task is done.
“We meet again in Paradise!”
She said and shook her wings, and up she soared
With arrow-swiftness thro’ the heights of Heaven.

His aching eye pursued her path,
When starting onward went the Dogs,
More rapidly they hurried on
In hope of near repose.
It was the early morning yet
When by the well-head of a brook
They stopt, their journey done.
The spring was clear, the water deep,
A venturous man were he and rash
That should have probed its depths,
For all its loosened bed below
Heaved strangely up and down,
And to and fro, from side to side
It heaved, and waved, and tossed,
And yet the depths were clear,
And yet no ripple wrinkled o’er
The face of that fair Well.

And on that Well so strange and fair
A little boat there lay,
Without on oar, without a sail,
One only seat it had, one seat
As if for only Thalaba.
And at the helm a Damsel stood
A Damsel bright and bold of eye,
Yet did a maiden modesty
Adorn her fearless brow.
She seemed sorrowful, but sure
More beautiful for sorrow.
To her the Dogs looked wistful up,
And then their tongues were loosed,
“Have we done well, O Mistress dear!
“And shall our sufferings end?”

The gentle Damsel made reply,
“Poor Servants of the God I serve,
“When all this witchery is destroyed
“Your woes will end with mine.
“A hope, alas! how long unknown!
“This new adventurer gives:
“Now God forbid that he, like you,
“Should perish for his fears!
“Poor Servants of the God I serve
“Wait ye the event in peace.”
A deep and total slumber as she spake
Seized them. Sleep on, poor sufferers! be at rest!
Ye wake no more to anguish. Ye have borne
The Chosen, the Destroyer! soon his hand
Shall strike the efficient blow,
Soon shaking off your penal forms shall ye
With songs of joy amid the Eden groves
Hymn the Deliverer’s praise!

Then did the Damsel say to Thalaba,
“The morn is young, the Sun is fair
“And pleasantly thro’ pleasant banks
“The quiet brook flows on....
“Wilt thou embark with me?
“Thou knowest not the water’s way,
“Think Stranger well! and night must come,...
“Wilt thou embark with me?
“Thro’ fearful perils thou must pass,...
“Stranger, the oppressed ask thine aid!
“Thou wilt embark with me!”

She smiled in tears upon the youth,...
What heart were his who could gainsay
That melancholy smile?
“Sail on, sail on,” quoth Thalaba,
“Sail on, in Allah’s name!”

He sate him on the single seat,
The little boat moved on.
Thro’ pleasant banks the quiet brook
Went winding pleasantly;
By fragrant fir groves now it past,
And now thro’ alder-shores,
Thro’ green and fertile meadows now
It silently ran by.
The flag-flower blossomed on its side,
The willow tresses waved,
The flowing current furrowed round
The water-lilly’s floating leaf,
The fly of green and gauzy wing
Fell sporting down its course.
And grateful to the voyager
The freshness of the running stream,
The murmur round the prow.
The little boat falls rapidly
Adown the rapid brook.

But many a silent spring meantime,
And many a rivulet
Had swoln the growing brook,
And when the southern Sun began
To wind the downward way of heaven,
It ran a river deep and wide
Thro’ banks that widened still.
Then once again the Damsel spake,
“The stream is strong, the river broad,
“Wilt thou go on with me?
“The day is fair but night must come....
“Wilt thou go on with me?
“Far far away the mourner’s eye
“Is watching; for our little boat....
“Thou wilt go on with me!”
“Sail on, sail on,” quoth Thalaba,
“Sail on, in Allah’s name!”
The little boat falls rapidly
Adown the river-stream.

A broader and a broader stream.
That rocked the little boat!
The Cormorant stands upon its shoals,
His black and dripping wings
Half opened to the wind.
The Sun goes down, the crescent Moon
Is brightening in the firmament;
And what is yonder roar
That sinking now and swelling now,
But roaring, roaring still,
Still louder, louder, grows?
The little boat falls rapidly
Adown the rapid tide,
The Moon is bright above,
And the wide Ocean opens on their way!

Then did the Damsel speak again
“Wilt thou go on with me?
“The Moon is bright, the sea is calm
“And I know well the ocean-paths;...
“Wilt thou go on with me?
“Deliverer! yes! thou dost not fear!
“Thou wilt go on with me!”
“Sail on, sail on!” quoth Thalaba
“Sail on, in Allah’s name!”

The Moon is bright, the sea is calm,
The little boat rides rapidly
Across the ocean waves;
The line of moonlight on the deep
Still follows as they voyage on;
The winds are motionless;
The gentle waters gently part
In murmurs round the prow.
He looks above, he looks around,
The boundless heaven, the boundless sea,
The crescent moon, the little boat,
Nought else above, below.

The Moon is sunk, a dusky grey
Spreads o’er the Eastern sky,
The Stars grow pale and paler;
Oh beautiful! the godlike Sun
Is rising o’er the sea!
Without an oar, without a sail
The little boat rides rapidly;...
Is that a cloud that skirts the sea?
There is no cloud in heaven!
And nearer now, and darker now....
It is ... it is ... the Land!
For yonder are the rocks that rise
Dark in the reddening morn,
For loud around their hollow base
The surges rage and roar.

The little boat rides rapidly,
And now with shorter toss it heaves
Upon the heavier swell;
And now so near they see
The shelves and shadows of the cliff,
And the low-lurking rocks
O’er whose black summits hidden-half
The shivering billows burst.
And nearer now they feel the breaker’s spray.
Then spake the Damsel, “yonder is our path
“Beneath the cavern arch.
“Now is the ebb, and till the ocean-flow
“We cannot over-ride the rocks.
“Go thou and on the shore
“Perform thy last ablutions, and with prayer
“Strengthen thy heart.... I too have need to pray.”

She held the helm with steady hand
Amid the stronger waves,
Thro’ surge and surf she drove,
The adventurer leapt to land.

---

The Twelfth Book.

---

THALABA THE DESTROYER.

---

THE TWELFTH BOOK.

---

Then Thalaba drew off Abdaldar’s ring,
And cast it in the sea, and cried aloud,
“Thou art my shield, my trust, my hope, O God!
“Behold and guard me now,
“Thou who alone canst save.
“If from my childhood up, I have looked on
“With exultation to my destiny,
“If, in the hour of anguish, I have felt
“The justice of the hand that chastened me,
“If, of all selfish passions purified,
“I go to work thy will, and from the world
“Root up the ill-doing race,
“Lord! let not thou the weakness of my arm
“Make vain the enterprize!”

The Sun was rising all magnificent,
Ocean and Heaven rejoicing in his beams.
And now had Thalaba
Performed his last ablutions, and he stood
And gazed upon the little boat
Riding the billows near,
Where, like a sea-bird breasting the broad waves,
It rose and fell upon the surge;
Till from the glitterance of the sunny main
He turned his aching eyes,
And then upon the beach he laid him down
And watched the rising tide.
He did not pray, he was not calm for prayer;
His spirit troubled with tumultuous hope
Toiled with futurity.
His brain, with busier workings, felt
The roar and raving of the restless sea,
The boundless waves that rose and rolled and rocked;
The everlasting sound
Opprest him, and the heaving infinite,
He closed his lids for rest.

Meantime with fuller reach and stronger swell
Wave after wave advanced;
Each following billow lifted the last foam
That trembled on the sand with rainbow hues;
The living flower, that, rooted to the rock,
Late from the thinner element
Shrunk down within its purple stem to sleep,
Now feels the water, and again
Awakening blossoms out
All its green anther-necks.

Was there a Spirit in the gale
That fluttered o’er his cheek?
For it came on him like the gentle sun
That plays and dallies o’er the night-closed flower,
And woos it to unfold anew to joy;
For it came on him as the dews of eve
Descend with healing and with life
Upon the summer mead;
Or liker the first sound of seraph song
And Angel hail, to him
Whose latest sense had shuddered at the groan
Of anguish, kneeling by his death bed-side.

He starts and gazes round to seek
The certain presence. “Thalaba!” exclaimed
The Voice of the Unseen;...
“Father of my Oneiza!” he replied,
“And have thy years been numbered? art thou too
“Among the Angels?” “Thalaba!”
A second and a dearer voice repeats,
“Go in the favour of the Lord
“My Thalaba go on!
“My husband. I have drest our bower of bliss.
“Go and perform the work,
“Let me not longer suffer hope in heaven!”

He turned an eager glance towards the sea,
“Come!” quoth the Damsel, and she drove
Her little boat to land.
Impatient thro’ the rising wave
He rushed to meet its way,
His eye was bright, his cheek was flushed with joy.
“Hast thou had comfort in thy prayers?” she cried,
“Yea,” answered Thalaba,
“A heavenly visitation.” “God be praised!”
She uttered, “then I do not hope in vain!”
And her voice trembled, and her lips
Quivered, and tears ran down.
“Stranger,” quoth she, “in years long past
“Was one who vowed himself
“The Champion of the Lord like thee
“Against the race of Hell.
“Young was he, as thyself,
“Gentle, and yet so brave!
“A lion-hearted man.
“Shame on me, Stranger! in the arms of love
“I held him from his calling, till the hour
“Was past, and then the Angel who should else
“Have crowned him with his glory-wreath,
“Smote him in anger ... years and years are gone....
“And in his place of penance he awaits
“Thee the Deliverer, surely thou art he!
“It was my righteous punishment
“In the same youth unchanged and changeless love,
“And fresh affliction and keen penitence
“To abide the written hour when I should waft
“The doomed Destroyer and Deliverer here.
“Remember thou that thy success involves
“No single fate, no common misery.”

As thus she spake, the entrance of the cave
Darkened the boat below.
Around them from their nests,
The screaming sea-birds fled.
Wondering at that strange shape
Yet unalarmed at sight of living man,
Unknowing of his sway and power misused;
The clamours of their young
Echoed in shriller yells
That rung in wild discordance round the rock.
And farther as they now advanced
The dim reflection of the darkened day
Grew fainter, and the dash
Of the out-breakers deadened; farther yet
And yet more faint the gleam,
And there the waters at their utmost bound
Silently rippled on the rising rock.
They landed and advanced, and deeper in
Two adamantine doors
Closed up the cavern pass.

Reclining on the rock beside
Sate a grey-headed man
Watching an hour-glass by.
To him the Damsel spake,
“Is it the hour appointed?” the old man
Nor answered her awhile,
Nor lifted he his downward eye,
For now the glass ran low,
And like the days of age
With speed perceivable,
The latter sands descend:
And now the last are gone.
Then he looked up, and raised his arm, and smote
The adamantine gates.

The gates of adamant
Unfolding at the stroke
Opened and gave the entrance. Then She turned
To Thalaba and said
“Go in the name of God!
“I cannot enter,... I must wait the end
“In hope and agony.
“God and Mohammed prosper thee,
“For thy sake and for ours!”

He tarried not,... he past
The threshold, over which was no return.
All earthly thoughts, all human hopes
And passions now put off,
He cast no backward glance
Towards the gleam of day.
There was a light within,
A yellow light, as when the autumnal Sun
Through travelling rain and mist
Shines on the evening hills.
Whether from central fires effused,
Or if the sunbeams day by day,
From earliest generations, there absorbed,
Were gathering for the wrath-flame. Shade was
In those portentous vaults;
Crag overhanging, nor the column-rock
Cast its dark outline there.
For with the hot and heavy atmosphere
The light incorporate, permeating all,
Spread over all its equal yellowness.
There was no motion in the lifeless air,
He felt no stirring as he past
Adown the long descent,
He heard not his own footsteps on the rock
That thro’ the thick stagnation sent no sound.
How sweet it were, he thought,
To feel the flowing wind!
With what a thirst of joy
He should breathe in the open gales of heaven!

Downward and downward still, and still the way,
The long, long, way is safe.
Is there no secret wile
No lurking enemy?
His watchful eye is on the wall of rock,...
And warily he marks the roof
And warily surveyed
The path that lay before.
Downward and downward still, and still the way,
The long, long, way is safe;
Rock only, the same light,
The same dead atmosphere,
And solitude, and silence like the grave.

At length the long descent
Ends on a precipice;
No feeble ray entered its dreadful gulphs,
For in the pit profound
Black Darkness, utter Night,
Repelled the hostile gleam,
And o’er the surface the light atmosphere
Floated and mingled not.
Above the depth four overawning wings,
Unplumed and huge and strong,
Bore up a little car;
Four living pinions, headless, bodyless,
Sprung from one stem that branched below
In four down-arching limbs,
And clenched the car-rings endlong and aside
With claws of griffin grasp.

But not on these, the depths so terrible,
The wonderous wings, fixed Thalaba his eye,
For there upon the brink,
With fiery fetters fastened to the rock,
A man, a living man, tormented lay,
The young Othatha; in the arms of love,
He who had lingered out the auspicious hour
Forgetful of his call.
In shuddering pity Thalaba exclaimed
“Servant of God, can I not succour thee?”
He groaned and answered, “Son of Man,
“I sinned and am tormented; I endure
“In patience and in hope.
“The hour that shall destroy the Race of Hell,
“That hour shall set me free.”

“Is it not come?” quoth Thalaba,
“Yea! by this omen.” And with fearless hand
He grasped the burning fetters, “in the name
“Of God!” and from the rock
Rooted the rivets, and adown the gulph
Hurled them. The rush of flames roared up,
For they had kindled in their fall
The deadly vapours of the pit profound,
And Thalaba bent on and looked below.
But vainly he explored
The deep abyss of flame
That sunk beyond the plunge of mortal eye,
Now all ablaze as if infernal fires
Illumed the world beneath.
Soon was the poison-fuel spent,
The flame grew pale and dim,
And dimmer now it fades and now is quenched,
And all again is dark,
Save where the yellow air
Enters a little in and mingles slow.

Meantime the freed Othatha clasped his knees
And cried, “Deliverer!” struggling then
With joyful hope, “and where is she,” he cried,
“Whose promised coming for so many a year....”
“Go!” answered Thalaba,
“She waits thee at the gates.”
“And in thy triumph,” he replied,
“There thou wilt join us?” the Deliverer’s eye
Glanced on the abyss, way else was none....
The depth was unascendable.
“Await not me,” he cried,
“My path hath been appointed, go ... embark!
“Return to life,... live happy!”

OTHATHA.

But thy name,...
That thro’ the nations we may blazon it,
That we may bless thee.

THALABA.

Bless the Merciful!

Then Thalaba pronounced the name of God
And leapt into the car.
Down, down, it sunk,... down down....
He neither breathes nor sees;
His eyes are closed for giddiness
His breath is sinking with the fall.
The air that yields beneath the car
Inflates the wings above.
Down ... down ... a mighty depth!...
And was the Simorgh with the Powers of ill
Associate to destroy?
And was that lovely mariner
A fiend as false as fair?
For still he sinks down ... down....
But ever the uprushing wind
Inflates the wings above,
And still the struggling wings
Repel the rushing wind.
Down ... down ... and now it strikes.

He stands and totters giddily,
All objects round, awhile,
Float dizzy on his sight.
Collected soon he gazes for the way.
There was a distant light that led his search;
The torch a broader blaze,
The unpruned taper flames a longer flame,
But this was fierce as is the noon-tide sun,
So in the glory of its rays intense
It quivered with green glow.
Beyond was all unseen,
No eye could penetrate
That unendurable excess of light.
It veiled no friendly form, thought Thalaba,
And wisely did he deem,
For at the threshold of the rocky door,
Hugest and fiercest of his kind accurst,
Fit warden of the sorcery gate
A rebel Afreet lay.
He scented the approach of human food
And hungry hope kindled his eye of flame.
Raising his hand to save the dazzled sense
Onward held Thalaba,
And lifted still at times a rapid glance.
Till, the due distance gained,
With head abased, he laid
The arrow in its rest.
With steady effort and knit forehead then,
Full on the painful light
He fixed his aching eye, and loosed the bow.

An anguish yell ensued,
And sure no human voice had scope or power
For that prodigious shriek
Whose pealing echoes thundered up the rock.
Dim grew the dying light,
But Thalaba leapt onward to the doors
Now visible beyond,
And while the Afreet warden of the way
Was writhing with his death-pangs, over him
Sprung and smote the stony doors,
And bade them in the name of God give way.

The dying Fiend beneath him at that name
Tossed in worse agony,
And the rocks shuddered, and the rocky doors
Rent at the voice asunder. Lo ... within....
The Teraph and the fire,
And Khawla, and in mail complete
Mohareb for the strife.
But Thalaba with numbing force
Smites his raised arm, and rushes by,
For now he sees the fire amid whose flames
On the white ashes of Hodeirah lies
Hodeirah’s holy Sword.

He rushes to the fire,
Then Khawla met the youth
And leapt upon him, and with clinging arms
Clasps him, and calls Mohareb now to aim
The effectual vengeance. O fool! fool! he sees
His Father’s Sword, and who shall bar his way?
Who stand against the fury of that arm
That spurns her to the earth?
She rises half, she twists around his knees,
A moment ... and he vainly strives
To shake her from her hold,
Impatient then into her cursed breast
He stamps his crushing heel,
And from her body, heaving now in death
Springs forward to the Sword.

The co-existent flame
Knew the Destroyer; it encircled him,
Rolled up his robe and gathered round his head,
Condensing to intenser splendour there,
His crown of glory and his light of life
Hovered the irradiate wreath.
The moment Thalaba had laid his hand
Upon his Father’s Sword,
The Living Image in the inner cave
Smote the Round Altar. The Domdaniel rocked
Thro’ all its thundering vaults;
Over the surface of the reeling Earth
The alarum shock was felt:
The Sorcerer brood, all, all, where’er dispersed,
Perforce obeyed the summons; all, they came
Compelled by Hell and Heaven,
By Hell compelled to keep
Their baptism-covenant,
And with the union of their strength
Oppose the common danger; forced by Heaven
To share the common doom.

Vain are all spells! the Destroyer
Treads the Domdaniel floor.
They crowd with human arms and human force
To crush the single foe;
Vain is all human force!
He wields his Father’s Sword,
The vengeance of awakened Deity!
But chief on Thalaba Mohareb prest,
The language of the inspired Witch
Announced one fatal blow for both,
And desperate of self-safety, yet he hoped
To serve the cause of Eblis, and uphold
His empire true in death.

Who shall withstand his way?
Scattered before the sword of Thalaba
The sorcerer throng recede
And leave him space for combat. Wretched man
What shall the helmet or the shield avail
Against Almighty anger! wretched man,
Too late Mohareb finds that he has chosen
The evil part! he rears his shield
To meet the Arabian’s sword,...
Under the edge of that fire-hardened steel
The shield falls severed; his cold arm
Rings with the jarring blow,...
He lifts his scymetar,
A second stroke, and lo! the broken hilt
Hangs from his palsied hand!
And now he bleeds! and now he flies!
And fain would hide himself amid the throng,
But they feel the sword of Hodeirah,
But they also fly from the ruin!
And hasten to the inner cave,
And fall all fearfully
Around the Giant Idol’s feet,
Seeking salvation from the Power they served.

It was a Living Image, by the art
Of magic hands of flesh and bones composed,
And human blood thro’ veins and arteries
That flowed with vital action. In the shape
Of Eblis it was made,
Its stature such and such its strength
As when among the Sons of God
Pre-eminent, he raised his radiant head,
Prince of the Morning. On his brow
A coronet of meteor flames,
Flowing in points of light.
Self-poised in air before him,
Hung the Round Altar, rolling like the World
On its diurnal axis, like the World
Checquered with sea and shore,
The work of Demon art.
For where the sceptre in the Idol’s hand
Touched the Round Altar, in its answering realm
Earth felt the stroke, and Ocean rose in storms,
And ruining Cities shaken from their seat
Crushed all their habitants.
His other arm was raised, and its spread palm
Up-bore the ocean-weight
Whose naked waters arched the sanctuary,
Sole prop and pillar he.

Fallen on the ground around his feet
The Sorcerers lay. Mohareb’s quivering arms
Clung to the Idol’s knees;
The Idol’s face was pale
And calm in terror he beheld
The approach of the Destroyer.

Sure of his stroke, and therefore in pursuit
Following, nor blind, nor hasty on his foe,
Moved the Destroyer. Okba met his way,
Of all that brotherhood
He only fearless, miserable man,
The one that had no hope.
“On me, on me,” the childless Sorcerer cried,
“Let fall the weapon! I am he who stole
“Upon the midnight of thy Father’s tent,
“This is the hand that pierced Hodeirah’s heart,
“That felt thy brethren’s and thy sister’s blood
“Gush round the dagger-hilt. Let fall on me
“The fated sword! the vengeance hour is come!
“Destroyer, do thy work!”

Nor wile, nor weapon, had the desperate wretch,
He spread his bosom to the stroke.
“Old man, I strike thee not!” said Thalaba,
“The evil thou hast done to me and mine
“Brought its own bitter punishment.
“For thy dear Daughter’s sake I pardon thee,
“As I do hope Heaven’s pardon. For her sake
“Repent while time is yet! thou hast my prayers
“To aid thee; thou poor sinner, cast thyself
“Upon the goodness of offended God!
“I speak in Laila’s name, and what if now
“Thou canst not think to join in Paradise
“Her spotless Spirit,... hath not Allah made
“Al-Araf[176] in his wisdom? where the sight
“Of Heaven shall kindle in the penitent
“The strong and purifying fire of hope,
“Till at the day of judgement he shall see
“The Mercy-Gates unfold.”

The astonished man stood gazing as he spake,
At length his heart was softened, and the tears
Gushed, and he sobbed aloud.
Then suddenly was heard
The all-beholding Prophet’s aweful voice,
“Thou hast done well, my Servant!
“Ask and receive thy reward!”

A deep and aweful joy
Seemed to distend the heart of Thalaba;
With arms in reverence crost upon his breast,
Upseeking eyes suffused with transport-tears
He answered to the Voice, “Prophet of God,
“Holy, and good, and bountiful!
“One only earthly wish have I, to work
“Thy will, and thy protection grants me that.
“Look on this Sorcerer! heavy are his crimes,
“But infinite is mercy! if thy servant
“Have now found favour in the sight of God,
“Let him be touched with penitence, and save
“His soul from utter death.”

“The groans of penitence,” replied the Voice
“Never arise unheard!
“But for thyself prefer the prayer,
“The Treasure-house of Heaven
“Is open to thy will.”

“Prophet of God!” then answered Thalaba,
“I am alone on earth.
“Thou knowest the secret wishes of my heart!
“Do with me as thou wilt! thy will is best.”

There issued forth no Voice to answer him,
But lo! Hodeirah’s Spirit comes to see
His vengeance, and beside him, a pure form
Of roseate light, the Angel mother hangs.
“My Child, my dear, my glorious, blessed Child,
“My promise is performed ... fufil thy work!”

Thalaba knew that his death-hour was come,
And on he leapt, and springing up,
Into the Idol’s heart
Hilt-deep he drove the Sword.
The Ocean-Vault fell in, and all were crushed.
In the same moment at the gate
Of Paradise, Oneiza’s Houri-form
Welcomed her Husband to eternal bliss.

END.

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