Reclining on the rock beside
Sate a grey-headed man
Watching an hour-glass by.
To him the Damsel spake,
“Is it the hour appointed?” the old man
Nor answered her awhile,
Nor lifted he his downward eye,
For now the glass ran low,
And like the days of age
With speed perceivable,
The latter sands descend:
And now the last are gone.
Then he looked up, and raised his arm, and smote
The adamantine gates.
The gates of adamant
Unfolding at the stroke
Opened and gave the entrance. Then She turned
To Thalaba and said
“Go in the name of God!
“I cannot enter,... I must wait the end
“In hope and agony.
“God and Mohammed prosper thee,
“For thy sake and for ours!”
He tarried not,... he past
The threshold, over which was no return.
All earthly thoughts, all human hopes
And passions now put off,
He cast no backward glance
Towards the gleam of day.
There was a light within,
A yellow light, as when the autumnal Sun
Through travelling rain and mist
Shines on the evening hills.
Whether from central fires effused,
Or if the sunbeams day by day,
From earliest generations, there absorbed,
Were gathering for the wrath-flame. Shade was
In those portentous vaults;
Crag overhanging, nor the column-rock
Cast its dark outline there.
For with the hot and heavy atmosphere
The light incorporate, permeating all,
Spread over all its equal yellowness.
There was no motion in the lifeless air,
He felt no stirring as he past
Adown the long descent,
He heard not his own footsteps on the rock
That thro’ the thick stagnation sent no sound.
How sweet it were, he thought,
To feel the flowing wind!
With what a thirst of joy
He should breathe in the open gales of heaven!
Downward and downward still, and still the way,
The long, long, way is safe.
Is there no secret wile
No lurking enemy?
His watchful eye is on the wall of rock,...
And warily he marks the roof
And warily surveyed
The path that lay before.
Downward and downward still, and still the way,
The long, long, way is safe;
Rock only, the same light,
The same dead atmosphere,
And solitude, and silence like the grave.
At length the long descent
Ends on a precipice;
No feeble ray entered its dreadful gulphs,
For in the pit profound
Black Darkness, utter Night,
Repelled the hostile gleam,
And o’er the surface the light atmosphere
Floated and mingled not.
Above the depth four overawning wings,
Unplumed and huge and strong,
Bore up a little car;
Four living pinions, headless, bodyless,
Sprung from one stem that branched below
In four down-arching limbs,
And clenched the car-rings endlong and aside
With claws of griffin grasp.
But not on these, the depths so terrible,
The wonderous wings, fixed Thalaba his eye,
For there upon the brink,
With fiery fetters fastened to the rock,
A man, a living man, tormented lay,
The young Othatha; in the arms of love,
He who had lingered out the auspicious hour
Forgetful of his call.
In shuddering pity Thalaba exclaimed
“Servant of God, can I not succour thee?”
He groaned and answered, “Son of Man,
“I sinned and am tormented; I endure
“In patience and in hope.
“The hour that shall destroy the Race of Hell,
“That hour shall set me free.”
“Is it not come?” quoth Thalaba,
“Yea! by this omen.” And with fearless hand
He grasped the burning fetters, “in the name
“Of God!” and from the rock
Rooted the rivets, and adown the gulph
Hurled them. The rush of flames roared up,
For they had kindled in their fall
The deadly vapours of the pit profound,
And Thalaba bent on and looked below.
But vainly he explored
The deep abyss of flame
That sunk beyond the plunge of mortal eye,
Now all ablaze as if infernal fires
Illumed the world beneath.
Soon was the poison-fuel spent,
The flame grew pale and dim,
And dimmer now it fades and now is quenched,
And all again is dark,
Save where the yellow air
Enters a little in and mingles slow.
Meantime the freed Othatha clasped his knees
And cried, “Deliverer!” struggling then
With joyful hope, “and where is she,” he cried,
“Whose promised coming for so many a year....”
“Go!” answered Thalaba,
“She waits thee at the gates.”
“And in thy triumph,” he replied,
“There thou wilt join us?” the Deliverer’s eye
Glanced on the abyss, way else was none....
The depth was unascendable.
“Await not me,” he cried,
“My path hath been appointed, go ... embark!
“Return to life,... live happy!”
OTHATHA.
But thy name,...
That thro’ the nations we may blazon it,
That we may bless thee.