Classic Poem

The singular placidity with which FADLADEEN had listened during the latter
part of this obnoxious story surprised the Princess and FERAMORZ
exceedingly; and even inclined towards him the hearts of these
unsuspicious young persons who little knew the source of a complacency so
marvellous. The truth was he had been organizing for the last few days a
most notable plan of persecution against the poet in consequence of some
passages that had fallen from him on the second evening of recital,--which
appeared to this worthy Chamberlain to contain language and principles for
which nothing short of the summary criticism of the Chabuk would be
advisable. It was his intention therefore immediately on their arrival at
Cashmere to give information to the King of Bucharia of the very dangerous
sentiments of his minstrel; and if unfortunately that monarch did not act
with suitable vigor on the occasion, (that is, if he did not give the
Chabuk to FERAMORZ and a place to FADLADEEN.) there would be an end, he
feared, of all legitimate government in Bucharia. He could not help
however auguring better both for himself and the cause of potentates in
general; and it was the pleasure arising from these mingled anticipations
that diffused such unusual satisfaction through his features and made his
eyes shine out like poppies of the desert over the wide and lifeless
wilderness of that countenance.

Having decided upon the Poet's chastisement in this manner he thought it
but humanity to spare him the minor tortures of criticism. Accordingly
when they assembled the following evening in the pavilion and LALLA ROOKH
was expecting to see all the beauties of her bard melt away one by one in
the acidity of criticism, like pearls in the cup of the Egyptian queen.--
he agreeably disappointed her by merely saying with an ironical smile that
the merits of such a poem deserved to be tried at a much higher tribunal;
and then suddenly passed off into a panegyric upon all Mussulman
sovereigns, more particularly his august and Imperial master, Aurungzebe,
--the wisest and best of the descendants of Timur,--who among other great
things he had done for mankind had given to him, FADLADEEN, the very
profitable posts of Betel-carrier and Taster of Sherbets to the Emperor,
Chief Holder of the Girdle of Beautiful Forms, and Grand Nazir or
Chamberlain of the Haram.

They were now not far from that Forbidden River beyond which no pure
Hindoo can pass, and were reposing for a time in the rich valley of Hussun
Abdaul, which had always been a favorite resting-place of the Emperors in
their annual migrations to Cashmere. Here often had the Light of the
Faith, Jehan-Guire, been known to wander with his beloved and beautiful
Nourmahal, and here would LALLA ROOKH have been happy to remain for ever,
giving up the throne of Bucharia and the world for FERAMORZ and love in
this sweet, lonely valley. But the time was now fast approaching when she
must see him no longer,--or, what was still worse, behold him with eyes
whose every look belonged to another, and there was a melancholy
preciousness in these last moments, which made her heart cling to them as
it would to life. During the latter part of the journey, indeed, she had
sunk into a deep sadness from which nothing but the presence of the young
minstrel could awake her. Like those lamps in tombs which only light up
when the air is admitted, it was only at his approach that her eyes became
smiling and animated. But here in this dear valley every moment appeared
an age of pleasure; she saw him all day and was therefore all day happy,--
resembling, she often thought, that people of Zinge who attribute
the unfading cheerfulness they enjoy to one genial star that rises nightly
over their heads.

The whole party indeed seemed in their liveliest mood during the few days
they passed in this delightful solitude. The young attendants of the
Princess who were here allowed a much freer range than they could safely
be indulged with in a less sequestered place ran wild among the gardens
and bounded through the meadows lightly as young roes over the aromatic
plains of Tibet. While FADLADEEN, in addition to the spiritual comfort
derived by him from a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Saint from whom the
valley is named, had also opportunities of indulging in a small way his
taste for victims by putting to death some hundreds of those unfortunate
little lizards, which all pious Mussulmans make it a point to kill;--
taking for granted that the manner in which the creature hangs its head
is meant as a mimicry of the attitude in which the Faithful say their
prayers.

About two miles from Hussun Abdaul were those Royal Gardens which had
grown beautiful under the care of so many lovely eyes, and were beautiful
still though those eyes could see them no longer. This place, with its
flowers and its holy silence interrupted only by the dipping of the wings
of birds in its marble basins filled with the pure water of those hills,
was to LALLA ROOKH all that her heart could fancy of fragrance, coolness,
and almost heavenly tranquillity. As the Prophet said of Damascus, "it was
too delicious;"--and here in listening to the sweet voice of
FERAMORZ or reading in his eyes what yet he never dared to tell her, the
most exquisite moments of her whole life were passed. One evening when
they had been talking of the Sultana Nourmahal, the Light of the Haram,
who had so often wandered among these flowers, and fed with her own
hands in those marble basins the small shining fishes of which she was so
fond,--the youth in order to delay the moment of separation proposed to
recite a short story or rather rhapsody of which this adored Sultana was
the heroine. It related, he said, to the reconcilement of a sort of
lovers' quarrel which took place between her and the Emperor during a
Feast of Roses at Cashmere; and would remind the Princess of that
difference between Haroun-al-Raschid and his fair mistress Marida, which
was so happily made up by the soft strains of the musician Moussali. As
the story was chiefly to be told in song and FERAMORZ had unluckily
forgotten his own lute in the valley, he borrowed the vina of LALLA
ROOKH'S little Persian slave, and thus began:--


THE LIGHT OF THE HARAM.


Who has not heard of the Vale of CASHMERE,
With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,
Its temples and grottos and fountains as clear
As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?

Oh! to see it at sunset,--when warm o'er the Lake
Its splendor at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride full of blushes when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!--
When the shrines thro' the foliage are gleaming half shown,
And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own.
Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells,
Here the Magian his urn full of perfume is swinging,
And here at the altar a zone of sweet bells
Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing.
Or to see it by moonlight when mellowly shines
The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines,
When the water-falls gleam like a quick fall of stars
And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars
Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool, shining walks where the young people meet.--
Or at morn when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness as if but just born of the Sun.
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day
From his Haram of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind full of wantonness wooes like a lover
The young aspen-trees,
till they tremble all over.
When the East is as warm as the light of first hopes,
And day with his banner of radiance unfurled
Shines in thro' the mountainous portal that opes,
Sublime, from that Valley of bliss to the world!

But never yet by night or day,
In dew of spring or summer's ray,
Did the sweet Valley shine so gay
As now it shines--all love and light,
Visions by day and feasts by night!
A happier smile illumes each brow;
With quicker spread each heart uncloses,
And all is ecstasy--for now
The Valley holds its Feast of Roses;
The joyous Time when pleasures pour
Profusely round and in their shower
Hearts open like the Season's Rose,--
The Floweret of a hundred leaves
Expanding while the dew-fall flows
And every leaf its balm receives.

'Twas when the hour of evening came
Upon the Lake, serene and cool,
When day had hid his sultry flame
Behind the palms of BARAMOULE,
When maids began to lift their heads.
Refresht from their embroidered beds
Where they had slept the sun away,
And waked to moonlight and to play.
All were abroad:--the busiest hive
On BELA'S hills is less alive
When saffron-beds are full in flower,
Than lookt the Valley in that hour.
A thousand restless torches played
Thro' every grove and island shade;
A thousand sparkling lamps were set
On every dome and minaret;
And fields and pathways far and near
Were lighted by a blaze so clear
That you could see in wandering round
The smallest rose-leaf on the ground,
Yet did the maids and matrons leave
Their veils at home, that brilliant eve;
And there were glancing eyes about
And cheeks that would not dare shine out
In open day but thought they might
Look lovely then, because 'twas night.
And all were free and wandering
And all exclaimed to all they met,
That never did the summer bring
So gay a Feast of Roses yet;--
The moon had never shed a light
So clear as that which blest them there;
The roses ne'er shone half so bright,
Nor they themselves lookt half so fair.

And what a wilderness of flowers!
It seemed as tho' from all the bowers
And fairest fields of all the year,
The mingled spoil were scattered here.
The lake too like a garden breathes
With the rich buds that o'er it lie,--
As if a shower of fairy wreaths
Had fallen upon it from the sky!
And then the sounds of joy,--the beat
Of tabors and of dancing feet;--
The minaret-crier's chant of glee
Sung from his lighted gallery,
And answered by a ziraleet
From neighboring Haram, wild and sweet;--
The merry laughter echoing
From gardens where the silken swing
Wafts some delighted girl above
The top leaves of the orange-grove;
Or from those infant groups at play
Among the tents that line the way,
Flinging, unawed by slave or mother,
Handfuls of roses at each other.--
Then the sounds from the Lake,--the low whispering in boats,
As they shoot thro' the moonlight,--the dipping of oars
And the wild, airy warbling that everywhere floats
Thro' the groves, round the islands, as if all the shores
Like those of KATHAY uttered music and gave
An answer in song to the kiss on each wave.
But the gentlest of all are those sounds full of feeling
That soft from the lute of some lover are stealing,--
Some lover who knows all the heart-touching power
Of a lute and a sigh in this magical hour.
Oh! best of delights as it everywhere is
To be near the loved One,--what a rapture is his
Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide
O'er the Lake of CASHMERE with that One by his side!

If woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
Think, think what a Heaven she must make of CASHMERE!

So felt the magnificent Son of ACBAR,
When from power and pomp and the trophies of war
He flew to that Valley forgetting them all
With the Light of the HARAM, his young NOURMAHAL.
When free and uncrowned as the Conqueror roved
By the banks of that Lake with his only beloved
He saw in the wreaths she would playfully snatch
From the hedges a glory his crown could not match,
And preferred in his heart the least ringlet that curled
Down her exquisite neck to the throne of the world.

There's a beauty for ever unchangingly bright,
Like the long, sunny lapse of a summer-day's light,
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender
Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor.
This was not the beauty--oh, nothing like this
That to young NOURMAHAL gave such magic of bliss!
But that loveliness ever in motion which plays
Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies
From the lip to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes;
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams,
Like the glimpses a saint hath of Heaven in his dreams.
When pensive it seemed as if that very grace,
That charm of all others, was born with her face!
And when angry,--for even in the tranquillest climes
Light breezes will ruffle the blossoms sometimes--
The short, passing anger but seemed to awaken
New beauty like flowers that are sweetest when shaken.
If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye
At once took a darker, a heavenlier dye,
From the depth of whose shadow like holy revealings
From innermost shrines came the light of her feelings.
Then her mirth--oh! 'twas sportive as ever took wing
From the heart with a burst like the wild-bird in spring;
Illumed by a wit that would fascinate sages,
Yet playful as Peris just loosed from their cages.
While her laugh full of life, without any control
But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul;
And where it most sparkled no glance could discover,
In lip, cheek, or eyes, for she brightened all over,--
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon
When it breaks into dimples and, laughs in the sun.
Such, such were the peerless enchantments that gave
NOURMAHAL the proud Lord of the East for her slave:
And tho' bright was his Haram,--a living parterre
Of the flowers of this planet--tho' treasures were there,
For which SOLIMAN'S self might have given all the store
That the navy from OPHIR e'er winged to his shore,
Yet dim before her were the smiles of them all
And the Light of his Haram was young NOURMAHAL!

But where is she now, this night of joy,
When bliss is every heart's employ?--
When all around her is so bright,
So like the visions of a trance,
That one might think, who came by chance
Into the vale this happy night,
He saw that City of Delight
In Fairy-land, whose streets and towers
Are made of gems and light and flowers!
Where is the loved Sultana? where,
When mirth brings out the young and fair,
Does she, the fairest, hide her brow
In melancholy stillness now?

Alas!--how light a cause may move
Dissension between hearts that love!
Hearts that the world in vain had tried
And sorrow but more closely tied;
That stood the storm when waves were rough
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,
Like ships that have gone down at sea
When heaven was all tranquillity!
A something light as air--a look,
A word unkind or wrongly taken--
Oh! love that tempests never shook,
A breath, a touch like this hath shaken.

And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining one by one
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts so lately mingled seem
Like broken clouds,--or like the stream
That smiling left the mountain's brow
As tho' its waters ne'er could sever,
Yet ere it reach the plain below,
Breaks into floods that part for ever.

Oh, you that have the charge of Love,
Keep him in rosy bondage bound,
As in the Fields of Bliss above
He sits with flowerets fettered round;--
Loose not a tie that round him clings.
Nor ever let him use his wings;
For even an hour, a minute's flight
Will rob the plumes of half their light.
Like that celestial bird whose nest
Is found beneath far Eastern skies,
Whose wings tho' radiant when at rest
Lose all their glory when he flies!

Some difference of this dangerous kind,--
By which, tho' light, the links that bind
The fondest hearts may soon be riven;
Some shadow in Love's summer heaven,
Which, tho' a fleecy speck at first
May yet in awful thunder burst;--
Such cloud it is that now hangs over
The heart of the Imperial Lover,
And far hath banisht from his sight
His NOURMAHAL, his Haram's Light!
Hence is it on this happy night
When Pleasure thro' the fields and groves
Has