THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

'Tis moonlight over OMAN'S SEA;1

Her banks of pearl and palmy isles Bask in the night-beam beauteously,

And her blue waters sleep in smiles.
'Tis moonlight in HARMOZIA's 2 walls,
And through her EMIR's porphyry halls,
Where, some hours since, was heard the swell
Of trumpet and the clash of zel,3
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 hushed-there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.

If zephyrs come, so light they come,

Nor leaf is stirred nor wave is driven; The wind-tower on the EMIR's dome 4 Can hardly win a breath from heaven.

1 The Persian Gulf, sometimes so called, which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia.

2 The present Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf. 3 A Moorish instrument of music.

"At Gombaroon and other places in Persia, they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses."

Le Bruyn

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

His race hath brought on IRAN's1 name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike

'Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike; ---One of that saintly, murderous brood,

To carnage and the Koran given,

Who think through unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven;-
One, who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured,
To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword; 2—
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade, with searching art,
Had sunk into its victim's heart!

Just ALLA! what must be thy look,

When such a wretch before thee stands

Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book,

Turning the leaves with blood-stained hands, And wresting from its page sublime

His creed of lust, and hate, and crime;
Ev'n as those bees of TREBIZOND,

Which, from the sunniest flowers that glad

1 "Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia.” Visc. 5.

2 On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usuall Inscribed.".

Russel

With their pure smile the gardens round,
Draw venom forth that drives men mad.1

Never did fierce ARABIA send

A satrap forth more direly great; Never was IRAN doomed to bend

Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.

Her throne had fallen - her pride was crushed-
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blushed,
In their own land, no more their own,
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers, where MITHRA once had burned,
To Moslem shrines O shame! were turned.
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship poured,
And cursed the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, 'mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance; -hearts that yet —
Like gems, in darkness, issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor 'slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay

Becalmed in Heaven's approving ray.

Sleep on

for purer eyes than thine

Those waves are hushed, those planets shine;

"There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad.".

Tournefort.

Sleep on, and be thy rest unmoved

By the white moonbeam's dazzling power;None but the loving and the loved

Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see where, high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling,
Yon turret stands; - where ebon locks,
As glossy as a heron's wing

Upon the turban of a king,1

Hang from the lattice, long and wild, -
"Tis she, that EMIR's blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Though born of such ungentle race;
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain ! 2

O, what a pure and sacred thing
Is Beauty, curtained from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining

One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye, -

The flower that blooms beneath the sea,
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie

Hid in more chaste obscurity.
So, HINDA, have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined.
And, O, what transport for a lover

To lift the veil that shades them o'er!—

1 "Their kings wear plumes of black herons' feathers upon the right side, as a badge of sovereignty." Hanway.

2 "The Fountain of Youth, by a Mahometan tradition, is situated in some dark region of the East.". - Richardson.

Like those who, all at once, discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore,
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breathed but theirs.

Beautiful are the maids that glide,

On summer-eves, through YEMEN'S1 dales,
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils;
And brides, as delicate and fair

As the white jasmine flowers they wear,
Hath YEMEN in her blissful clime,

Who, lulled in cool kiosk or bower,2
Before their mirrors count the time,3
And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In ARABY'S gay Haram smiled,
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before AL HASSAN'S blooming child.

1 Arabia Felix.

2 “In the midst of the garden is the chiosk, that is, a large room, commonly beautified with a fine fountain in the midst of it. It is raised nine or ten steps, and enclosed with gilded lattices, round which vines, jessamines, and honeysuckles, make a sort of green wall; large trees are planted round this place, which is the scene of their greatest pleasures.". Lady M. W.

Montagu.

3 The women of the East are never without their looking-glasses. "In Barbary," says Shaw, "they are so fond of their looking-glasses, which they hang upon their breasts, that they will not lay them aside, even when, after the drudgery of the day, they are obliged to go two or three miles with a pitcher or a goat's skin to fetch water.". Travels.

In other parts of Asia they wear little looking-glasses on their thumbs. "Hence (and from the lotus being considered the emblem of beauty) is the meaning of the following mute intercourse of two lovers before their pa rents:

He, with salute of deference due,
Á lotus to his forehead pressed;

She raised her mirror to his view,
Then turned it inward to her breast,' "

Asiatic Miscellany, vol. ii.