Or when the winter torrent rolls
Down the deep-channelled rain-course, foamingly,
Dark with its mountain spoils,
With bare feet pressing the wet sand
There wanders Thalaba,
The rushing flow, the flowing roar,
Filling his yielded faculties;
A vague, a dizzy, a tumultuous joy.
... Or lingers it a vernal brook[46]
Gleaming o’er yellow sands?
Beneath the lofty bank reclined,
With idle eye he views its little waves,
Quietly listening to the quiet flow;
While in the breathings of the stirring gale
The tall canes bend above,
Floating like streamers on the wind
Their lank uplifted leaves.
Nor rich,[47] nor poor, was Moath; God had given
Enough, and blest him with a mind content.
No hoarded[48] gold disquieted his dreams;
But ever round his station he beheld
Camels that knew his voice,
And home-birds, grouping at Oneiza’s call,
And goats that, morn and eve,
Came with full udders to the Damsel’s hand.
Dear child! the Tent beneath whose shade they dwelt
That was her work; and she had twined
His girdle’s many-hues;
And he had seen his robe
Grow in Oneiza’s loom.[49]
How often with a memory-mingled joy
That made her Mother live before his sight,
He watched her nimble finders thread the woof!
Or at the hand-mill[50] when she knelt and toiled,
Tost the thin cake on spreading palm,
Or fixed it on the glowing oven’s side
With bare[51] wet arm, in safe dexterity.
’Tis the cool evening hour:
The Tamarind from the dew
Sheaths[52] its young fruit, yet green.
Before their Tent the mat is spread,
The old man’s aweful voice
Intones[53] the holy Book.
What if beneath no lamp-illumined dome,
Its marble walls[54] bedecked with flourished truth,
Azure and gold adornment? sinks the Word
With deeper influence from the Imam’s voice,
Where in the day of congregation, crowds
Perform the duty task?
Their Father is their Priest,
The Stars of Heaven their point[55] of prayer,
And the blue Firmament
The glorious Temple, where they feel
The present Deity.
Yet thro’ the purple glow of eve
Shines dimly the white moon.
The slackened bow, the quiver, the long lance,
Rest on the pillar[56] of the Tent.
Knitting light palm-leaves[57] for her brother’s brow
The dark-eyed damsel sits;
The Old Man tranquilly
Up his curled pipe inhales
The tranquillizing herb.
So listen they the reed[58] of Thalaba,
While his skilled fingers modulate
The low, sweet, soothing, melancholy tones,
Or if he strung the pearls[59] of Poetry
Singing with agitated face
And eloquent arms, and sobs that reach the heart,
A tale[60] of love and woe;
Then, if the brightening Moon that lit his face
In darkness favoured her’s,
Oh! even with such a look, as, fables say,
The mother Ostrich[61] fixes on her egg,
Till that intense affection
Kindle its light of life,
Even in such deep and breathless tenderness
Oneiza’s soul is centered on the youth,
So motionless with such an ardent gaze,
Save when from her full eyes
Quickly she wipes away the gushing tears
That dim his image there.
She called him brother: was it sister-love
That made the silver rings
Round her smooth ankles[62] and her twany arms,
Shine daily brightened? for a brother’s eye
Were her long fingers[63] tinged,
As when she trimmed the lamp,
And thro’ the veins and delicate skin
The light shone rosy? that the darkened lids[64]
Gave yet a softer lustre to her eye?
That with such pride she tricked
Her glossy tresses, and on holy day
Wreathed the red flower-crown[65] round their jetty waves?
How happily the years
Of Thalaba went by!
Yet was the heart of Thalaba
Impatient of repose;
Restless he pondered still
The task for him decreed,
The mighty and mysterious work announced.
Day by day with youthful ardour
He the call of Heaven awaits,
And oft in visions o’er the Murderer’s head
He lifts the avenging arm,
And oft in dreams he sees
The Sword that is circled with fire.
One morn as was their wont, in sportive mood
The youth and damsel bent Hodeirah’s bow,
For with no feeble hand nor erring aim
Oneiza could let loose the obedient shaft.
With head back-bending, Thalaba
Shot up the aimless arrow high in air,
Whose line in vain the aching sight pursued
Lost in the depth of heaven.
“When will the hour arrive,” exclaimed the youth,
“That I shall aim these fated shafts
“To vengeance long delayed?
“Have I not strength, my father, for the deed?
“Or can the will of Providence
“Be mutable like man?
“Shall I never be called to the task?”
“Impatient boy!” quoth Moath, with a smile:
“Impatient Thalaba!” Oneiza cried,
And she too smiled, but in her smile
A mild reproachful melancholy mixed.
Then Moath pointed where a cloud
Of Locusts, from the desolated fields
Of Syria, winged their way.
“Lo! how created things
“Obey the written doom!”
Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of a broad river, headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.
Onward they came, the winds impelled them on,
Their work was done, their path of[66] ruin past,
Their graves were ready in the wilderness.
“Behold the mighty army!” Moath cried,
“Blindly they move, impelled
“By the blind Element.
“And yonder Birds our welcome visitants,
“Lo! where they soar above the embodied host,
“Pursue their way, and hang upon their rear,
“And thin their spreading flanks,
“Rejoicing o’er their banquet! deemest thou
“The scent of water, on the Syrian mosque
“Placed with priest-mummery, and the jargon-rites
“That fool the multitude, has led them here
“From far Khorasan?[67] Allah who decreed
“Yon tribe the plague and punishment of man,
“These also hath he doomed to meet their way:
“Both passive instruments
“Of his all-acting will,
“Sole mover he, and only spring of all.”