Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps,
While curses load the air he breathes
And falchions from unnumbered sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame
His race hath brought on IRAN'S[196]name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike
Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike;
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think thro' unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven,—
One who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured,
To mutter o'er some text of God
Engraven on his reeking sword;[197]
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade with searching art
Had sunk into its victim's heart!
Just ALLA! what must be thy look
When such a wretch before thee stands
Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book,—
Turning the leaves with bloodstained hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust and hate and crime;—
Even as those bees of TREBIZOND,
Which from the sunniest flowers that glad
With their pure smile the gardens round,
Draw venom forth that drives men mad.[198]
Never did fierce Arabia send
A satrap forth more direly great;
Never was IRAN doomed to bend
Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.
Her throne had fallen—her pride was crusht—
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blusht,
In their own land,—no more their own,—
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers where MITHRA once had burned.
To Moslem shrines—oh shame!—were turned,
Where slaves converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship poured,
And curst the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance;—hearts that yet—
Like gems, in darkness, issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set,—
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare:
As he shall know, well, dearly know.
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay
Becalmed in Heaven's approving ray.
Sleep on—for purer eyes than thine
Those waves are husht, those planets shine;
Sleep on and be thy rest unmoved
By the white moonbeam's dazzling power;—
None but the loving and the loved
Should be awake at this sweet hour.
And see—where high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling.
Yon turret stands;—where ebon locks,
As glossy as the heron's wing
Upon the turban of a king,[199]
Hang from the lattice, long and wild,—
'Tis she, that EMIR'S blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Tho' born of such ungentle race;—
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain![200]
Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is Beauty curtained from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining
One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye,—
The flower that blooms beneath the sea,
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity.
So, HINDA. have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined.
And oh! what transport for a lover
To lift the veil that shades them o'er!—
Like those who all at once discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breathed but theirs.
Beautiful are the maids that glide
On summer-eves thro' YEMEN'S[201] dales,
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils;—
And brides as delicate and fair
As the white jasmine flowers they wear,
Hath YEMEN in her blissful clime,
Who lulled in cool kiosk or bower,[202]
Before their mirrors count the time[203]
And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In ARABY'S gay Haram smiled.
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before AL HASSAN'S blooming child.
Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness;—
With eyes so pure that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abasht away,
Blinded like serpents when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze;[204]—
Yet filled with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this:
A soul too more than half divine,
Where, thro' some shades of earthly feeling,
Religion's softened glories shine,
Like light thro' summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere.
Such is the maid who at this hour
Hath risen from her restless sleep
And sits alone in that high bower,
Watching the still and shining deep.
Ah! 'twas not thus,—with tearful eyes
And beating heart,—she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,
In her own land, in happier days.
Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks whose rugged frown
Blackens the mirror of the deep?
Whom waits she all this lonely night?
Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height!—
So deemed at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night-air
After the day-beam's withering fire,[205]
He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it deckt with costliest skill
And fondly thought it safe as fair:—
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,
Nor wake to learn what Love can dare;—
Love, all defying Love, who sees
No charm in trophies won with ease;—
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss
Are plucked on Danger's precipice!
Bolder than they who dare not dive
For pearls but when the sea's at rest,
Love, in the tempest most alive,
Hath ever held that pearl the best
He finds beneath the stormiest water.
Yes, ARABY'S unrivalled daughter,
Tho' high that tower, that rock-way rude,
There's one who but to kiss thy cheek
Would climb the untrodden solitude
Of ARARAT'S tremendous peak,[206]
And think its steeps, tho' dark and dread,
Heaven's pathways, if to thee they led!
Even now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way;—
Even now thou hearest the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,
And stretchest down thy arms of snow
As if to lift him from below!
Like her to whom at dead of night
The bridegroom with his locks of light[207]
Came in the flush of love and pride
And scaled the terrace of his bride;—
When as she saw him rashly spring,
And midway up in danger cling,
She flung him down her long black hair,
Exclaiming breathless, "There, love, there!"
And scarce did manlier nerve uphold
The hero ZAL in that fond hour,
Than wings the youth who, fleet and bold,
Now climbs the rocks to HINDA'S bower.
See-light as up their granite steeps
The rock-goats of ARABIA clamber,[208]
Fearless from crag to crag he leaps,
And now is in the maiden's chamber.
She loves—but knows not whom she loves,
Nor what his race, nor whence he came;—
Like one who meets in Indian groves
Some beauteous bird without a name;
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze
From isles in the undiscovered seas,
To show his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes and wing away!
Will he thus fly—her nameless lover?
ALLA forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over
Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,
Alone, at this same witching hour,
She first beheld his radiant eyes
Gleam thro' the lattice of the bower,
Where nightly now they mix their sighs;
And thought some spirit of the air
(For what could waft a mortal there?)
Was pausing on his moonlight way
To listen to her lonely lay!
This fancy ne'er hath left her mind:
And—tho', when terror's swoon had past,
She saw a youth of mortal kind
Before her in obeisance cast,—
Yet often since, when he hath spoken
Strange, awful words,—and gleams have broken
From his dark eyes, too bright to bear,
Oh! she hath feared her soul was given
To some unhallowed child of air,
Some erring spirit cast from heaven,
Like those angelic youths of old
Who burned for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered left the glorious skies
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes.
Fond girl! nor fiend nor angel he
Who woos thy young simplicity;
But one of earth's impassioned sons,
As warm in love, as fierce in ire
As the best heart whose current runs
Full of the Day-God's living fire.
But quenched to-night that ardor seems,
And pale his cheek and sunk his brow;—
Never before but in her dreams
Had she beheld him pale as now:
And those were dreams of troubled sleep
From which 'twas joy to wake and weep;
Visions that will not be forgot,
But sadden every waking scene
Like warning ghosts that leave the spot
All withered where they once have been.
"How sweetly," said the trembling maid,
Of her own gentle voice afraid,
So long had they in silence stood
Looking upon that tranquil flood—
"How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
"To-night upon yon leafy isle!
"Oft, in my fancy's wanderings,
"I've wisht that little isle had wings,
"And we within its fairy bowers
"Were wafted off to seas unknown,
"Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
"And we might live, love, die, alone!
"Far from the cruel and the cold,—
"Where the bright eyes of angels only
"Should come around us to behold
"A paradise so pure and lonely.
"Would this be world enough for thee?"—
Playful she turned that he might see
The passing smile her cheek put on;
But when she markt how mournfully
His eye met hers, that smile was gone;
And bursting into heart-felt tears,
"Yes, yes," she cried, "my hourly fears,
"My dreams have boded all too right—
"We part—for ever part—tonight!
"I knew, I knew it could not last—
"'Twas bright, 'twas heavenly, but 'tis past!
"Oh! ever thus from childhood's hour
"I've seen my fondest hopes decay;
"I never loved a tree or flower,
"But 'twas the first to fade away.
"I never nurst a dear gazelle
"To glad me with its soft black eye
"But when it came to know me well
"And love me it was sure to die I
"Now too—the joy most like divine
"Of all I ever dreamt or knew,
"To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—
"Oh misery! must I lose that too?
"Yet go—on peril's brink we meet;—
"Those frightful rocks—that treacherous sea—
"No, never come again—tho' sweet,
"Tho' heaven, it may be death to thee.
"Farewell—and blessings on thy way,
"Where'er thou goest, beloved stranger!
"Better to sit and watch that ray
"And think thee safe, tho' far away,
"Than have thee near me and in danger!"