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For many days after their departure from Lahore, a considerable degree of gloom hung over the whole party. LALLA ROOKн, who had intended to make illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel, as usual, to the pavilion, soon found that to feign indisposition was , unnecessary; - FADLADEEN felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled, and was very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) for not having continued his delectable alley of trees,207 at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere; while the Ladies, who had nothing now to do all day but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to FADLADEEN, seemed heartily weary of the life they led, and, in spite of all the Great Chamberlain's criticisms, were so tasteless as to wish for the poet again. One evening, as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night, the Princess, who, for the freer enjoyment of the air, had mounted her favorite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove, heard the notes of a lute from within its leaves, and a voice, which she but too well knew, singing the following words:

TELL me not of joys above,

If that world can give no bliss,
Truer, happier than the Love

Which enslaves our souls in this.

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Far from me their dangerous glow,
If those looks that light the skies
Wound like some that burn below.

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Who, that midst a desert's heat
Sees the waters fade away,
Would not rather die than meet

Streams again as false as they?

The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered, went to LALLA ROOKH's heart; — and, as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help feeling it to be a sad but still sweet certainty, that FERAMORZ was to the full as enamoured and miserable as herself.

The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot they had come to since they left Lahore. On each side of them was a grove full of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most graceful trees of the East; where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of the Palmyra, that favorite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies.208 In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mango-trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus; 209 while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful-looking tower, which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some religion no longer known, and which spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the wonder and conjectures of all. LALLA ROOKH guessed in vain, and the all-pretending FADLADEEN, who had never till this journey been beyond the precincts of Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested that perhaps FERAMORZ could

satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his
native mountains, and this tower might perhaps be a
relic of some of those dark superstitions which had pre-
vailed in that country before the light of Islam dawned
upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually preferred his
own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else
could give him, was by no means pleased with this
officious reference; and the Princess, too, was about to cv
interpose a faint word of objection, but, before either of
them could speak, a slave was despatched for Feramorz,
who, in a very few minutes, made his appearance before
them-looking so pale and unhappy in LALLA ROOKH'S
eyes, that she repented already of her cruelty in having
so long excluded him.

That venerable tower, he told them, was the remains of an ancient Fire-temple, built by those Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who, many hundred years since, had fled hither from their Arab conquerors,210 preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy or persecution in their own. It was impossible, he added, not to feel interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles which had been. made by these original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their bigoted conquerors. Like their own Fire in the Burning Field at Bakou,211 when suppressed in one place, they had but broken out with fresh flame in another; and, as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy Valley which had in the same manner become the prey of strangers, 212 and seen her ancient shrines and native princes swept away before the march of her intolerant invaders, he felt a sympathy, he owned, with the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every monument like this before them but tended more powerfully to awaken.

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It was the first time that FERAMORZ had ever ventured upon so much prose before FADLADEEN, and it may easily be conceived what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most paganhating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!sympathy with Fire-worshippers!" 218- while FERAMORZ, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those struggles of the brave Fire-worshippers against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for LALLA ROOKн to refuse; he had never before looked half so animated; and when he spoke of the Holy Valley, his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted; and while FADLADEEN sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story of the Fire-worshippers: —

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THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

'Tis moonlight over OMAN'S SEA; 214 Her banks of pearl and balmy isles Bask in the night-beam beauteously,

And her blue waters sleep in smiles. 'Tis moonlight in HARMOZIA'S 215 walls, And through her EMIR's porphyry halls, Where, some hours since, was heard the swell Of trumpet and the clash of zel,216 Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell; The peaceful sun, whom better suits. The music of the bulbul's nest, Or the light touch of lovers' lutes, To sing him to his golden rest. All hush'd-there's not a breeze in motion; The shore is silent as the ocean. If zephyrs come, so light they come,

Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven;The wind-tower on the EMIR's dome 217 Can hardly win a breath from heaven.

Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps;
While curses load the air he breathes,
And falchions from unnumber'd sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame

218

His race hath brought on IRAN'S name.

Hard, heartless Chief, unmov'd alike

'Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike;

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