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 Heav'n-hot as that crimson haze, By which the prostrate Caravan is aw'd,*

In the red Desert, when the wind's abroad.

"On, Swords of God!" the panting CALIPH calls, "Thrones for the living-Heav'n 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 check'd the flying Moslem's rout;

*

Savary says of the south wind, which blows in Egypt from February to May, "Sometimes it appears only in the shape of an impetuous whirlwind, which passes rapidly, and is fatal to the traveller, surprised in the middle of the deserts. Torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firmament is enveloped in a thick veil, and the sun appears of the colour of blood. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in it."

And now they turn, they rally—at their head

A warrior, (like those angel youths who led,
In glorious panoply of Heav'n's own mail,

The Champions of the Faith through 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 through 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 Arch-enemy.

* In the great victory gained by Mahomed at Beder, he was assisted, say the Mussulmans, by three thousand angels, led by Gabriel, mounted on his horse Hiazum.-See The Koran and its Commentators.

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 load-star, following him!

Right tow'rds MOKANNA now he cleaves his path,
Impatient cleaves, as though the bolt of wrath
He bears from Heav'n 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-though, in that hour of blood,
Had all God's seraphs round MOKANNA stood,
With swords of 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 ev'n him along;
In vain he struggles 'mid the wedg'd array
Of flying thousands-he is borne away;
And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows,
In this forc'd flight, is-murdering as he goes!

As a grim tiger, whom the torrent's might
Surprizes in some parch'd ravine at night,

Turns, ev'n 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 he 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 chaunt your ziraleets. † The Swords of God have triumph'd—on his throne Your Caliph sits, and the veil'd Chief hath flown. Who does not warrior now,

envy that young

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?

* The Tecbir, or cry of the Arabs.

Ockley, means "God is most mighty."

"Alla Acbar!" says

†The ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the women of the East sing upon joyful occasions.- Russel.

Who doth not wonder, when, amidst the' acclaim

Of thousands, heralding to heav'n 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
Though 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 seem'd ecstasy;

* The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal nor vegetable

life.