Point the path!
STRANGER.
Young Arab! if thou hast a heart can beat
Evenly in danger, if thy bowels yearn not
With human fears, at scenes where undisgraced
The soldier tried in battle might look back
And tremble, follow me!... for I am bound
Into that cave of horrors.
Thalaba
Gazed on his comrade, he was young, of port
Stately and strong; belike his face had pleased
A woman’s eye, yet the youth read in it
Unrestrained passions, the obdurate soul
Bold in all evil daring; and it taught,
By Nature’s irresistible instinct, doubt
Well timed and wary. Of himself assured,
Fearless of man, and confident in faith,
“Lead on!” cried Thalaba.
Mohareb led the way;
And thro’ the ruined streets,
And thro’ the farther gate
They past in silence on.
What sound is borne on the wind?
Is it the storm that shakes
The thousand oaks of the forest?
But Thalaba’s long locks
Flow down his shoulders moveless, and the wind
In his loose mantle raises not one fold.
Is it the river’s roar
Dashed down some rocky descent?
Along the level plain
Euphrates glides unheard.
What sound disturbs the night,
Loud as the summer forest in the storm,
As the river that roars among rocks?
And what the heavy cloud
That hangs upon the vale,
Thick as the mist o’er a well-watered plain
Settling at evening, when the cooler air
Lets its day-vapours fall;
Black as the sulphur-cloud
That thro’ Vesuvius, or from Hecla’s mouth
Rolls up, ascending from the infernal fires.
From Ait’s bitumen[100] lake
That heavy cloud ascends;
That everlasting roar
From where its gushing springs
Boil their black billows up.
Silent the Arab youth,
Along the verge of that wide lake,
Followed Mohareb’s way
Towards a ridge of rocks that banked its side.
There from a cave with torrent force,
And everlasting roar,
The black bitumen rolled.
The moonlight lay upon the rocks.
Their crags were visible,
The shade of jutting cliffs,
And where broad lichens whitened some smooth spot,
And where the ivy hung
Its flowing tresses down.
A little way within the cave
The moonlight fell, glossing the sable tide
That gushed tumultuous out.
A little way it entered, then the rock
Arching its entrance, and the winding way,
Darkened the unseen depths.
No eye of mortal man
If unenabled by enchanted spell,
Had pierced those fearful depths.
For mingling with the roar
Of the portentous torrent, oft were heard
Shrieks, and wild yells that scared
The brooding Eagle from her midnight nest.
The affrighted countrymen
Call it the Mouth of Hell;
And ever when their way leads near
They hurry with averted eyes,
And dropping their beads[101] fast
Pronounce the holy name.
There pausing at the cavern mouth
Mohareb turned to Thalaba,
“Now darest thou enter in?”
“Behold!” the youth replied,
And leading in his turn the dangerous way
Set foot within the cave.
“Stay Madman!” cried his comrade. “Wouldst thou rush
“Headlong to certain death?
“Where are thine arms to meet
“The Guardian of the Passage?” a loud shriek
That shook along the windings of the cave
Scattered the youth’s reply.
Mohareb when the long reechoing ceased
Exclaimed, “Fate favoured thee,
“Young Arab! when she wrote[102] upon thy brow
“The meeting of to-night;
“Else surely had thy name
“This hour been blotted from the Book of Life!”
So saying from beneath
His cloak a bag he drew;
“Young Arab! thou art brave,” he cried,
“But thus to rush on danger unprepared,
“As lions spring upon the hunter’s spear,
“Is blind, brute courage. Zohak[103] keeps the cave,
“Giantly tyrant of primeval days.
“Force cannot win the passage.” Thus he said
And from his wallet drew a human hand
Shrivelled, and dry, and black,
And fitting as he spake
A taper in its hold,
Pursued: “a murderer on the stake had died,
“I drove the Vulture from his limbs, and lopt
“The hand that did the murder, and drew up
“The tendon-strings to close its grasp,
“And in the sun and wind
“Parched it, nine weeks exposed.
“The Taper,... but not here the place to impart,
“Nor hast thou done the rites,
“That fit thee to partake the mystery.
“Look! it burns clear, but with the air around
“Its dead ingredients mingle deathiness.
“This when the Keeper of the Cave shall feel,
“Maugre the doom of Heaven,
“The salutary[104] spell
“Shall lull his penal agony to sleep
“And leave the passage free.”