Upon his couch the Veil'd MOKANNA lay,
While lamps around-not such as lend their ray,
Glimmering and cold, to those who nightly pray
In holy Kooм*, or MECCA's dim arcades,—
But brilliant, soft, such lights as lovely maids
Look loveliest in, shed their luxurious glow
Upon his mystic Veil's white glittering flow.
Beside him, 'stead of beads and books of prayer,
Which the world fondly thought he mus'd on there,
Stood vases, fill'd with KISHMEE's† golden wine,

And the red weepings of the SHIRAZ vine;
Of which his curtain'd lips full many a draught
Took zealously, as if each drop they quaff'd,
Like ZEMZEM's Spring of Holiness ‡, had power
To freshen the soul's virtues into flower!

And still he drank and ponder'd-nor could see
The' approaching maid, so deep his reverie;

* The cities of Com (or Koom) and Cashan are full of mosques, mausoleums, and sepulchres of the descendants of Ali, the Saints of Persia. Chardin.

† An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its white wine. The miraculous well at Mecca; so called, says Sale, from the murmuring of its waters.

At length, with fiendish laugh, like that which broke

From EBLIS at the Fall of Man, he spoke :

"Yes, ye vile race, for hell's amusement given, "Too mean for earth, yet claiming kin with heaven; "God's images, forsooth!—such gods as he "Whom INDIA serves, the monkey deity;-* "Ye creatures of a breath, proud things of clay, "To whom if LUCIFER, as grandams say, "Refus'd, though at the forfeit of heaven's light, "To bend in worship, LUCIFER was right!—†

*The God Hannaman.-" Apes are in many parts of India highly venerated, out of respect to the God Hannaman, a deity partaking of the form of that race."-Pennant's Hindoostan.

See a curious account, in Stephen's Persia, of a solemn embassy from some part of the Indies to Goa, when the Portuguese were there, offering vast treasures for the recovery of a monkey's tooth, which they held in great veneration, and which had been taken away upon the conquest of the kingdom of Jafanapatan.

†This resolution of Eblis not to acknowledge the new creature, man, was, according to Mahometan tradition, thus adopted: "The earth (which God had selected for the materials of his work) was carried into Arabia to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where, being first kneaded by the angels, it was afterwards fashioned by God himself into a human form, and left to dry for the space of forty days, or, as others say, as many years; the angels, in the mean time, often visiting it, and Eblis (then one of the angels nearest to God's presence, afterwards the devil) among

"Soon shall I plant this foot upon the neck

"Of your foul race, and without fear or check,

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Luxuriating in hate, avenge my shame,

My deep-felt, long-nurst loathing of man's name!— "Soon at the head of myriads, blind and fierce "As hooded falcons, through the universe

"I'll sweep my darkening, desolating way,
“Weak man my instrument, curst man my prey!

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"Ye wise, ye learn'd, who grope your dull way on

By the dim twinkling gleams of ages gone, "Like superstitious thieves, who think the light "From dead men's marrow guides them best at night"Ye shall have honours-wealth,-yes, Sages, yes"I know, grave fools, your wisdom's nothingness;

the rest; but he, not contented with looking at it, kicked it with his foot till it rung; and knowing God designed that creature to be his superior, took a secret resolution never to acknowledge him as such."-Sale on the Koran.

* A kind of lantern formerly used by robbers, called the Hand of Glory, the candle for which was made of the fat of a dead malefactor. This, however, was rather a western than an eastern superstition.

"Undazzled it can track yon starry sphere,
"But a gilt stick, a bauble blinds it here.
"How I shall laugh, when trumpeted along,

"In lying speech, and still more lying song,

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By these learn'd slaves, the meanest of the throng;

"Their wits bought up, their wisdom shrunk so

small,

"A sceptre's puny point can wield it all!

"Ye too, believers of incredible creeds,

"Whose faith enshrines the monsters which it breeds;

"Who, bolder ev'n than NEMROD, think to rise,

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By nonsense heap'd on nonsense, to the skies;

"Ye shall have miracles, ay, sound ones too,

"Seen, heard, attested, ev'ry thing—but true.
"Your preaching zealots, too inspir'd to seek
"One grace of meaning for the things they speak;
"Your martyrs, ready to shed out their blood,
"For truths too heav'nly to be understood;
"And your State Priests, sole vendors of the lore

"That works salvation;-as, on Ava's shore,

"Where none but priests are privileg❜d to trade "In that best marble of which Gods are made;

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*

They shall have mysteries—ay, precious stuff "For knaves to thrive by-mysteries enough; "Dark, tangled doctrines, dark as fraud can weave, "Which simple votaries shall on trust receive, “While craftier feign belief, till they believe. "A Heav'n too ye must have, ye lords of dust, "A splendid Paradise,-pure souls, ye must: "That Prophet ill sustains his holy call,

"Who finds not heav'ns to suit the tastes of all;
"Houris for boys, omniscience for sages,

"And wings and glories for all ranks and ages.
"Vain things!-as lust or vanity inspires,
"The Heav'n of each is but what each desires,
"And, soul or sense, whate'er the object be,
"Man would be man to all eternity!

"So let him-EBLIS! grant this crowning curse,

"But keep him what he is, no Hell were worse.

* The material of which images of Gaudma (the Birman Deity) are made, is held sacred. "Birmans may not purchase the marble in mass, but are suffered, and indeed encouraged, to buy figures of the Deity ready made."-Symes's Ava, vol. ii. p. 376.