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.