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Then, too, your Prophet from his angel brow “Shall cast the Veil, that hides its splendours now, "And gladden'd Earth shall, through her wide expanse, “ Bask in the glories of this countenance !

"For thee, young warrior, welcome!-thou hast yet "Some tasks to learn, some frailties to forget, “Ere the white war-plume o'er thy brow can wave ;“But, once my own, mine all till in the grave!” The Pomp is at an end,-the crowds are goneEach ear and heart still haunted by the tone Of that deep voice, which thrill'd like ALLA's own! The Young all dazzled by the plumes and lances, The glittering throne, and Haram's half-caught glances, The Old deep pondering on the promised reign

Of

peace and truth; and all the female train Ready to risk their eyes, could they but gaze A moment on that brow's miraculous blaze!

But there was one among the chosen maids Who blush'd behind the gallery's silken shades, One, to whose scul the pageant of to-day

Has been like death ;-you saw her pale dismay,

Ye wondering sisterhood, and heard the burst
Of exclamation from her lips, when first
She saw that youth, too well, too dearly known,
Silently kneeling at the Prophet's throne.

Ah ZELICA! there was a time, when bliss
Shone o'er thy heart from every look of his ;
When but to see him, hear him, breathe the air
In which he dwelt, was thy soul's fondest prayer!
When round him hung such a perpetual spell,
Whate'er he did, none ever did so well.

Too happy days! when, if he touch❜d a flower
Or gem of thine, 'twas sacred from that hour;
When thou didst study him till
every tone
And gesture and dear look became thy own,—
Thy voice like his, the changes of his face
In thine reflected with still lovelier grace,
Like echo, sending back sweet music, fraught
With twice th' aërial sweetness it had brought!
Yet now he comes-brighter than even he
E'er beam'd before,-but ah! not bright for thee;
No-dread, unlook'd for, like a visitant

From th' other world, he comes as if to haunt

Thy guilty soul with dreams of lost delight,
Long lost to all but Memory's aching sight :—
Sad dreams! as when the Spirit of our Youth
Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth
And innocence once ours, and leads us back,
In mournful mockery, o'er the shining track
Of our young life, and points out every ray
Of hope and peace we've lost upon the way!

Once happy pair!-in proud BоKHARA's groves, Who had not heard of their first youthful loves? Born by that ancient flood,* which from its spring In the Dark Mountains swiftly wandering, Enrich'd by every pilgrim brook that shines With relics from BUCHARIA'S ruby mines, And, lending to the CASPIAN half its strength, In the cold Lake of Eagles sinks at length;There, on the banks of that bright river born, The flowers, that hung above the wave at morn, Bless'd not the waters as they murmur'd by, With holier scent and lustre, than the sigh

* The Amoo, which rises in the Belur Tag, or Dark Mountains, and, running nearly from cast to west, splits into two branches, one of which falls into the Caspian sea, and the other into Aral Nahr, or the Lake o' Eagles.

And virgin glance of first affection cast

Upon their youth's smooth current as it pass'd!
But war disturb'd this vision-far away

From her fond eyes, summon'd to join th' array
Of PERSIA'S warriors on the hills of THRACE,
The youth exchanged his sylvan dwelling-place
For the rude tent and war-field's deathful clash,-
His ZELICA'S Sweet glances for the flash
Of Grecian wild-fire,-and Love's gentle chains
For bleeding bondage on BYZANTIUM's plains.

Month after month, in widowhood of soul Drooping, the maiden saw two summers roll Their suns away-but, ah! how cold and dim Even summer suns, when not beheld with him! From time to time ill-omen'd rumours came

(Like spirit-tongues, muttering the sick-man's name, Just ere he dies); at length, those sounds of dread Fell withering on her soul," Azım is dead!" Oh grief, beyond all other griefs, when fate First leaves the young heart lone and desolate n the wide world, without that only tie For which it loved to live or fear'd to die ;

VOL. I.

2

Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!

Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul was such, Even reason sunk blighted beneath its touch; And though, ere long, her sanguine spirit rose Above the first dead pressure of its woes, Though health and bloom return'd, the delicate chair Of thought, once tangled, never clear'd again. Warm, lively, soft as in youth's happiest day, The mind was still all there, but turn'd astray ;A wandering bark, upon whose pathway shone All stars of heaven, except the guiding one! Again she smiled, nay, much and brightly smiled, But 'twas a lustre, strange, unreal, wild; And when she sung to her lute's touching strain, 'Twas like the notes, half extacy, half pain, The bulbul* utters, ere her soul depart,

--

When, vanquish'd by some minstrel's powerful art, She dies upon the lute whose sweetness broke her heart!

Such was the mood in which that mission found Young ZELICA,-that mission, which around

* The nightingale.