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?”