Classic Poem

LALLA ROOKH could think of nothing all day but the misery of those two
young lovers. Her gayety was gone, and she looked pensively even upon
FADLAPEEN. She felt, too, without knowing why, a sort of uneasy pleasure
in imagining that AZIM must have been just such a youth as FERAMORZ; just
as worthy to enjoy all the blessings, without any of the pangs, of that
illusive passion, which too often like the sunny apples of Istkahar
is all sweetness on one side and all bitterness on the other.

As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset they saw a young
Hindoo girl upon the bank, whose employment seemed to them so strange that
they stopped their palankeens to observe her. She had lighted a small lamp
filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthen dish adorned with a
wreath of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to the stream;
and was now anxiously watching its progress down the current, heedless of
the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. LALLA ROOKH was all
curiosity;--when one of her attendants, who had lived upon the banks of
the Ganges, (where this ceremony is so frequent that often in the dusk of
the evening the river is seen glittering all over with lights, like the
Oton-tala or Sea of Stars,) informed the princess that it was the
usual way in which the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages
offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sunk immediately the
omen was disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream and continued
to burn till entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was
considered as certain.

LALLA ROOKH as they moved on more than once looked back to observe how the
young Hindoo's lamp proceeded; and while she saw with pleasure that it was
still unextinguished she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this
life were no better than that feeble light upon the river. The remainder
of the journey was passed in silence. She now for the first time felt that
shade of melancholy which comes over the youthful maiden's heart as sweet
and transient as her own breath upon a mirror; nor was it till she heard
the lute of FERAMOKZ, touched lightly at the door of her pavilion that she
waked from the revery in which she had been wandering. Instantly her eyes
were lighted up with pleasure; and after a few unheard remarks from
FADLADEEN upon the indecorum of a poet seating himself in presence of a
Princess everything was arranged as on the preceding evening and all
listened with eagerness while the story was thus continued:--


Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way,
Where all was waste and silent yesterday?
This City of War which, in a few short hours,
Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powers
Of Him who, in the twinkling of a star,
Built the high pillared halls of CHILMINAR,
Had conjur'd up, far as the eye can see,
This world of tents and domes and sunbright armory:--
Princely pavilions screened by many a fold
Of crimson cloth and topt with balls of gold:--
Steeds with their housings of rich silver spun,
Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun;
And camels tufted o'er with Yemen's shells
Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells!

But yester-eve, so motionless around,
So mute was this wide plain that not a sound
But the far torrent or the locust bird
Hunting among thickets could be heard;--
Yet hark! what discords now of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams are revelling in the wind;
The neigh of cavalry;--the tinkling throngs
Of laden camels and their drivers' songs;--
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies;--
War-music bursting out from time to time
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime;--
Or in the pause when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute,
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of the Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float.

Who leads this mighty army?--ask ye "who?"
And mark ye not those banners of dark hue,
The Night and Shadow, over yonder tent?--
It is the CALIPH'S glorious armament.
Roused in his Palace by the dread alarms,
That hourly came, of the false Prophet's arms,
And of his host of infidels who hurled
Defiance fierce at Islam and the world,
Tho' worn with Grecian warfare, and behind
The veils of his bright Palace calm reclined,
Yet brooked he not such blasphemy should stain,
Thus unrevenged, the evening of his reign;
But having sworn upon the Holy Grave
To conquer or to perish, once more gave
His shadowy banners proudly to the breeze,
And with an army nurst in victories,
Here stands to crush the rebels that o'errun
His blest and beauteous Province of the Sun.

Ne'er did the march of MAHADI display
Such pomp before;--not even when on his way
To MECCA'S Temple, when both land and sea
Were spoiled to feed the Pilgrim's luxury;
When round him mid the burning sands he saw
Fruits of the North in icy freshness thaw,
And cooled his thirsty lip beneath the glow
Of MECCA'S sun with urns of Persian snow:--
Nor e'er did armament more grand than that
Pour from the kingdoms of the Caliphat.
First, in the van, the People of the Rock
On their light mountain steeds of royal stock:
Then chieftains of DAMASCUS proud to see
The flashing of their swords' rich marquetry;--
Men from the regions near the VOLGA'S mouth
Mixt with the rude, black archers of the South;
And Indian lancers in white-turbaned ranks
From the far SINDE or ATTOCK'S sacred banks,
With dusky legions from the Land of Myrrh,
And many a mace-armed Moor and Midsea islander.

Nor less in number tho' more new and rude
In warfare's school was the vast multitude
That, fired by zeal or by oppression wronged,
Round the white standard of the impostor thronged.
Beside his thousands of Believers--blind,
Burning and headlong as the Samiel wind--
Many who felt and more who feared to feel
The bloody Islamite's converting steel,
Flockt to his banner;--Chiefs of the UZBEK race,
Waving their heron crests with martial grace;
TURKOMANS, countless as their flocks, led forth
From the aromatic pastures of the North;
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills,--and those
Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows
Of HINDOO KOSH, in stormy freedom bred,
Their fort the rock, their camp the torrent's bed.
But none of all who owned the Chief's command
Rushed to that battle-field with bolder hand
Or sterner hate than IRAN'S outlawed men,
Her Worshippers of Fire--all panting then
For vengeance on the accursed Saracen;
Vengeance at last for their dear country spurned,
Her throne usurpt, and her bright shrines o'erturned.

From YEZD'S eternal Mansion of the Fire
Where aged saints in dreams of Heaven expire:
From BADKU and those fountains of blue flame
That burn into the CASPIAN, fierce they came,
Careless for what or whom the blow was sped,
So vengeance triumpht and their tyrants bled.

Such was the wild and miscellaneous host
That high in air their motley banners tost
Around the Prophet-Chief--all eyes still bent
Upon that glittering Veil, where'er it went,
That beacon thro' the battle's stormy flood,
That rainbow of the field whose showers were blood!

Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set
And risen again and found them grappling yet;
While streams of carnage in his noontide blaze,
Smoke up to Heaven--hot as that crimson haze
By which the prostrate Caravan is awed
In the red Desert when the wind's abroad.
"Oh, Swords of God!" the panting CALIPH calls,--
"Thrones for the living--Heaven for him who falls!"--
"On, brave avengers, on," MOKANNA cries,
"And EBLIS blast the recreant slave that flies!"
Now comes the brunt, the crisis of the day--
They clash--they strive--the CALIPH'S troops give way!
MOKANNA'S self plucks the black Banner down,
And now the Orient World's Imperial crown
Is just within his grasp--when, hark, that shout!
Some hand hath checkt the flying Moslem's rout;
And now they turn, they rally--at their head
A warrior, (like those angel youths who led,
In glorious panoply of Heaven's own mail,
The Champions of the Faith thro BEDER'S vale,)
Bold as if gifted with ten thousand lives,
Turns on the fierce pursuers' blades, and drives
At once the multitudinous torrent back--
While hope and courage kindle in his track;
And at each step his bloody falchion makes
Terrible vistas thro' which victory breaks!
In vain MOKANNA, midst the general flight,
Stands like the red moon on some stormy night
Among the fugitive clouds that hurrying by
Leave only her unshaken in the sky--
In vain he yells his desperate curses out,
Deals death promiscuously to all about,
To foes that charge and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the Great Archenemy.
The panic spreads--"A miracle!" throughout
The Moslem ranks, "a miracle!" they shout,
All gazing on that youth whose coming seems
A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams;
And every sword, true as o'er billows dim
The needle tracks the lode-star, following him!

Right towards MOKANNA now he cleaves his path,
Impatient cleaves as tho' the bolt of wrath
He bears from Heaven withheld its awful burst
From weaker heads and souls but half way curst,
To break o'er Him, the mightiest and the worst!
But vain his speed--tho', in that hour of blood,
Had all God's seraphs round MOKANNA stood
With swords o'fire ready like fate to fall,
MOKANNA'S soul would have defied them all;
Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong
For human force, hurries even him along;
In vain he struggles mid the wedged array
Of flying thousands--he is borne away;
And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows,
In this forced flight, is--murdering as he goes!
As a grim tiger whom the torrent's might
Surprises in some parched ravine at night,
Turns even in drowning on the wretched flocks
Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks,
And, to the last, devouring on his way,
Bloodies the stream lie hath not power to stay.

"Alla illa Alla!"--the glad shout renew--
"Alla Akbar"--the Caliph's in MEROU.
Hang out your gilded tapestry in the streets,
And light your shrines and chant your ziraleets.
The swords of God have triumpht--on his throne
Your Caliph sits and the veiled Chief hath flown.
Who does not envy that young warrior now
To whom the Lord of Islam bends his brow,
In all the graceful gratitude of power,
For his throne's safety in that perilous hour?
Who doth not wonder, when, amidst the acclaim
Of thousands heralding to heaven his name--
Mid all those holier harmonies of fame
Which sound along the path of virtuous souls,
Like music round a planet as it rolls,--
He turns away--coldly, as if some gloom
Hung o'er his heart no triumphs can illume;--
Some sightless grief upon whose blasted gaze
Tho' glory's light may play, in vain it plays.
Yes, wretched AZIM! thine is such a grief,
Beyond all hope, all terror, all relief!
A dark, cold calm, which nothing now can break.
Or warm or brighten,--Like that Syrian Lake
Upon whose surface morn and summer shed
Their smiles in vain, for all beneath is dead!--
Hearts there have been o'er which this weight of woe
Came by long use of suffering, tame and slow;
But thine, lost youth! was sudden--over thee
It broke at once, when all seemed ecstasy;
When Hope lookt up and saw the gloomy Past
Melt into splendor and Bliss dawn at last--
'Twas then, even then, o'er joys so freshly blown
This mortal blight of misery came down;
Even then, the full, warm gushings of thy heart
Were checkt--like fount-drops, frozen as they start--
And there like them cold, sunless relics hang,
Each fixt and chilled into a lasting pang.

One sole desire, one passion now remains
To keep life's fever still within his veins,
Vengeance!--dire vengeance on the wretch who cast
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast.
For this, when rumors reached him in his flight
Far, far away, after that fatal night,--
Rumors of armies thronging to the attack
Of the Veiled Chief,--for this he winged him back,
Fleet as the Vulture speeds to flags unfurled,
And when all hope seemed desperate, wildly hurled
Himself into the scale and saved a world.
For this he still lives on, careless of all
The wreaths that Glory on his path lets fall;
For this alone exists--like lightning-fire,
To speed one bolt of vengeance and expire!

But safe as yet that Spirit of Evil lives;
With a small band of desperate fugitives,
The last sole stubborn fragment left unriven
Of the proud host that late stood fronting Heaven,
He gained MEROU--breathed a short curse of blood
O'er his lost throne--then past the JIHON'S flood,
And gathering all whose madness of belief
Still saw a Saviour in their down-fallen Chief,
Raised the white banner within NEKSHEB'S gates,
And there, untamed, the approaching conqueror waits.

Of all his Haram, all that busy hive,
With music and with sweets sparkling alive,
He took but one, the partner of his flight,
One--not for love--not for her beauty's light--
No, ZELICA stood withering midst the gay.
Wan as the blossom that fell yesterday
From the Alma tree and dies, while overhead
To-day's young flower is springing in its stead.
Oh, not for love--the deepest Damned must be
Touched with Heaven's glory ere such fiends as he
Can feel one glimpse of Love's divinity.
But no, she is his victim; there lie all
Her charms for him-charms that can never pall,
As long as hell within his heart can stir,
Or one faint trace of Heaven is left in her.
To work an angel's ruin,--to behold
As white a page as Virtue e'er unrolled
Blacken beneath his touch into a scroll
Of damning sins, sealed with a burning soul--
This is his triumph; this the joy accurst,
That ranks him among demons all but first:
This gives the victim that before him lies
Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes,
A light like that with which hellfire illumes
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes!

But other tasks now wait him--tasks that need
All the deep daringness of thought and deed
With which the Divs have gifted him--for mark,
Over yon plains which night had else made dark,
Those lanterns countless as the winged lights
That spangle INDIA'S field on showery nights,--
Far as their formidable gleams they shed,
The mighty tents of the beleaguerer spread,
Glimmering along the horizon's dusky line
And thence in nearer circles till they shine
Among the founts and groves o'er which the town
In all its armed magnificence looks down.
Yet, fearless, from his lofty battlements
MOKANNA views that multitude of tents;
Nay, smiles to think that, tho' entoiled, beset,
Not less than myriads dare to front him yet;--
That friendless, throneless, he thus stands at bay,
Even thus a match for myriads such as they.
"Oh, for a sweep of that dark Angel's wing,
"Who brushed the thousands of the Assyrian King
"To darkness in a moment that I might
"People Hell's chambers with yon host to-night!
"But come what may, let who will grasp the throne,
"Caliph or Prophet, Man alike shall groan;
"Let who will torture him, Priest--Caliph--King--
"Alike this loathsome world of his shall ring
"With victims' shrieks and howlings of the slave,--
"Sounds that shall glad me even within my grave!"
Thus, to himself--but to the scanty train
Still left around him, a far different strain:--
"Glorious Defenders of the sacred Crown
"I bear from Heaven whose light nor blood shall drown
"Nor shadow of earth eclipse;--before whose gems
"The paly pomp of this world's diadems,
"The crown of GERASHID. the pillared throne
"Of PARVIZ and the heron crest that shone
"Magnificent o'er ALI'S beauteous eyes.
"Fade like the stars when morn is in the skies:
"Warriors, rejoice--the port to which we've past
"O'er Destiny's dark wave beams out at last!
"Victory's our own--'tis written in that Book
"Upon whose leaves none but the angels look,
"That ISLAM'S sceptre shall beneath the power
"Of her great foe fall broken in that hour
"When the moon's mighty orb before all eyes
"From NEKSHEB'S Holy Well portentously shall rise!
"Now turn and see!"--They turned, and, as he spoke,
A sudden splendor all around them broke,
And they beheld an orb, ample and bright,
Rise from the Holy Well and cast its light
Round the rich city and the plain