The trumpets sounded, the loud drums beat,
And songs of triumph rang through the street.
“La Illa Il Allah!” with joyous shout
The camel drivers were calling out.
But through the East gate at the farther end
Of Thus, at that moment chanced to wend
The funeral train so full of gloom,
That the dead Ferdusi bore to his tomb.
VOYAGE BY NIGHT.
The half-moon peer’d from the darksome clouds
With coyness, while rock’d the sea;
And when in the bark our places we took,
Our number then was three.
There plash’d in the water the strokes of the oar
With sad monotony;
White foaming billows came with a roar,
And sprinkled all of us three.
She stood in the bark, as pale, as slim,
As void of motion too,
As though she a marble statue were,
Diana’s image true.
The moon disappear’d. The nightwind piped
With chilly blast on high;
When over our heads there suddenly rose
A wild and piercing cry.
’Twas the white and ghostlike seamew’s voice,
And at that terrible cry,
Which fearfully rang like a warning call,
All three felt like to die.