THALABA.
Bless the Merciful!
Then Thalaba pronounced the name of God
And leapt into the car.
Down, down, it sunk,... down down....
He neither breathes nor sees;
His eyes are closed for giddiness
His breath is sinking with the fall.
The air that yields beneath the car
Inflates the wings above.
Down ... down ... a mighty depth!...
And was the Simorgh with the Powers of ill
Associate to destroy?
And was that lovely mariner
A fiend as false as fair?
For still he sinks down ... down....
But ever the uprushing wind
Inflates the wings above,
And still the struggling wings
Repel the rushing wind.
Down ... down ... and now it strikes.
He stands and totters giddily,
All objects round, awhile,
Float dizzy on his sight.
Collected soon he gazes for the way.
There was a distant light that led his search;
The torch a broader blaze,
The unpruned taper flames a longer flame,
But this was fierce as is the noon-tide sun,
So in the glory of its rays intense
It quivered with green glow.
Beyond was all unseen,
No eye could penetrate
That unendurable excess of light.
It veiled no friendly form, thought Thalaba,
And wisely did he deem,
For at the threshold of the rocky door,
Hugest and fiercest of his kind accurst,
Fit warden of the sorcery gate
A rebel Afreet lay.
He scented the approach of human food
And hungry hope kindled his eye of flame.
Raising his hand to save the dazzled sense
Onward held Thalaba,
And lifted still at times a rapid glance.
Till, the due distance gained,
With head abased, he laid
The arrow in its rest.
With steady effort and knit forehead then,
Full on the painful light
He fixed his aching eye, and loosed the bow.
An anguish yell ensued,
And sure no human voice had scope or power
For that prodigious shriek
Whose pealing echoes thundered up the rock.
Dim grew the dying light,
But Thalaba leapt onward to the doors
Now visible beyond,
And while the Afreet warden of the way
Was writhing with his death-pangs, over him
Sprung and smote the stony doors,
And bade them in the name of God give way.
The dying Fiend beneath him at that name
Tossed in worse agony,
And the rocks shuddered, and the rocky doors
Rent at the voice asunder. Lo ... within....
The Teraph and the fire,
And Khawla, and in mail complete
Mohareb for the strife.
But Thalaba with numbing force
Smites his raised arm, and rushes by,
For now he sees the fire amid whose flames
On the white ashes of Hodeirah lies
Hodeirah’s holy Sword.
He rushes to the fire,
Then Khawla met the youth
And leapt upon him, and with clinging arms
Clasps him, and calls Mohareb now to aim
The effectual vengeance. O fool! fool! he sees
His Father’s Sword, and who shall bar his way?
Who stand against the fury of that arm
That spurns her to the earth?
She rises half, she twists around his knees,
A moment ... and he vainly strives
To shake her from her hold,
Impatient then into her cursed breast
He stamps his crushing heel,
And from her body, heaving now in death
Springs forward to the Sword.
The co-existent flame
Knew the Destroyer; it encircled him,
Rolled up his robe and gathered round his head,
Condensing to intenser splendour there,
His crown of glory and his light of life
Hovered the irradiate wreath.
The moment Thalaba had laid his hand
Upon his Father’s Sword,
The Living Image in the inner cave
Smote the Round Altar. The Domdaniel rocked
Thro’ all its thundering vaults;
Over the surface of the reeling Earth
The alarum shock was felt:
The Sorcerer brood, all, all, where’er dispersed,
Perforce obeyed the summons; all, they came
Compelled by Hell and Heaven,
By Hell compelled to keep
Their baptism-covenant,
And with the union of their strength
Oppose the common danger; forced by Heaven
To share the common doom.
Vain are all spells! the Destroyer
Treads the Domdaniel floor.
They crowd with human arms and human force
To crush the single foe;
Vain is all human force!
He wields his Father’s Sword,
The vengeance of awakened Deity!
But chief on Thalaba Mohareb prest,
The language of the inspired Witch
Announced one fatal blow for both,
And desperate of self-safety, yet he hoped
To serve the cause of Eblis, and uphold
His empire true in death.
Who shall withstand his way?
Scattered before the sword of Thalaba
The sorcerer throng recede
And leave him space for combat. Wretched man
What shall the helmet or the shield avail
Against Almighty anger! wretched man,
Too late Mohareb finds that he has chosen
The evil part! he rears his shield
To meet the Arabian’s sword,...
Under the edge of that fire-hardened steel
The shield falls severed; his cold arm
Rings with the jarring blow,...
He lifts his scymetar,
A second stroke, and lo! the broken hilt
Hangs from his palsied hand!
And now he bleeds! and now he flies!
And fain would hide himself amid the throng,
But they feel the sword of Hodeirah,
But they also fly from the ruin!
And hasten to the inner cave,
And fall all fearfully
Around the Giant Idol’s feet,
Seeking salvation from the Power they served.