Once more to see her dear gazelles Shooting around their jasper fount.' Her little garden mosque to see, In her own sweet acacia bower. Can these delights, that wait her now, No silent, from her train apart, As if ev'n now she felt at heart - The chill of her approaching doom, — And o'er the wide, tempestuous wave, 5 "The Empress of Jehan-Guire used to divert herself with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were many years afterwards known by fillets of gold, which she caused to be put round them.". Harris. Blood, blood, in steaming tides shall run, "Where art thou, glorious stranger! thou, "So lov'd, so lost, where art thou now? "Foe Gheber - infidel whate'er "Th' unhallow'd name thou'rt doom'd to bear, "Still glorious - still to this fond heart "Dear as its blood, whate'er thou art! "Yes ALLA, dreadful ALLA! yes · "If there be wrong, be crime in this, "Forgetting faith, home, father, — all — "Before its earthly idol fall, "Nor worship ev'n Thyself above him. "For oh! so wildly do I love him, "Thy Paradise itself were dim "And joyless, if not shar'd with him !" Her hands were clasp'd her eyes upturn'd, - Dropping their tears like moonlight rain; And, though her lip, fond raver! burn'd With words of passion, bold, profane, Yet was there light around her brow, A holiness in those dark eyes, Which show'd - though wandering earthward now, Her spirit's home was in the skies. Yes for a spirit, pure as hers, Is always pure, ev'n while it errs; So wholly had her mind forgot Nor heard the frequent shout, the tread But hark! that war-whoop on the deck That crash, as if each engine there, Mast, sails, and all, were gone to wreck, Merciful heav'n! what can it be? 'Tis not the storm, though fearfully The ship has shuddered as she rode O'er mountain waves 66 Forgive me, God! "Forgive me"-shriek'd the maid and knelt, Trembling all over, for she felt As if her judgment-hour was near; While crouching round, half dead with fear, Her hand-maids clung, nor breath'd, nor stirr'd When, hark! - a second crash - a third And now, as if a bolt of thunder Had riv❜n the labouring planks asunder, The deck falls in - what horrors then! Blood, waves, and tackle, swords and men Still fighting on and some that call "For God and IRAN !" as they fall! Whose was the hand that turn'd away The perils of th' ́infuriate fray, And snatch'd her breathless from beneath This wilderment of wreck and death? She knew not for a faintness came Chill o'er her, and her sinking frame Amid the ruins of that hour Lay, like a pale and scorched flower, Beneath the red volcano's shower! But oh! the sights and sounds of dread The yawning deck - the crowd that strove The sail, whose fragments, shivering o'er The strugglers' heads, all dash'd with gore, Flutter'd like bloody flags the clash Of sabres, and the lightning's flash 6 Like meteor brands as if throughout The elements one fury ran, One general rage, that left a doubt Which was the fiercer, Heav'n or Man! 'Twas fancy all-yet once she thought, While yet her fading eyes could see, High on the ruin'd deck she caught A glimpse of that unearthly form, That glory of her soul, —ev'n then, 6 The meteors that Pliny calls "faces." |