On-on he hasten'd, and he drew
My gaze of wonder as he flew:
Though like a demon of the night.
He pass'd, and vanish'd from my sight,
His aspect and his air impress'd

A troubled memory on my breast,
And long upon my startled ear
Rung his dark courser's hoofs of fear.
He spurs his steed; he nears the steep,
That, jutting, shadows o'er the deep;
He winds around; he hurries by ;
The rock relieves him from mine eye;
For well I ween unwelcome he
Whose glance is fix'd on those that flee;
And not a star but shines too bright
On him who takes such, timeless flight.
He wound along; but ere he pass'd
One glance he snatch'd, as if his last,
A moment check'd his wheeling steed,
A moment breathed him from his speed,
A moment on his stirrup stood —
Why looks he o'er the olive wood?

The crescent glimmers on the hill,

The Mosque's high lamps are quivering still:
Though too remote for sound to wake
In echoes of the far tophaike, (8)
The flashes of each joyous peal
Are seen to prove the Moslem's zeal.
To-night, set Rhamazani's sun;
To-night, the Bairam feast's begun;
To-night-but who and what art thou
Of foreign garb and fearful brow?

And what are these to thine or thee,
That thou should'st either pause or flee?

He stood-some dread was on his face,
Soon Hatred settled in its place:
It rose not with the reddening flush
Of transient Anger's hasty blush,
But pale as marble o'er the tomb,
Whose ghastly whiteness aids its gloom.
His brow was bent, his eye was glazed;
He raised his arm, and fiercely raised,
And sternly shook his hand on high,
As doubting to return or fly:

Impatient of his flight delay'd,

Here loud his raven charger neigh'd

Down glanced that hand, and grasp'd his blade ; That sound had burst his waking dream,

As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.

The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;
Away, away, for life he rides:

Swift as the hurl'd on high jerreed (9)
Springs to the touch his startled steed;
The rock is doubled, and the shore
Shakes with the clattering tramp no more;
The crag is won, no more is seen
His Christian crest and haughty mien.
'T was but an instant he restrain'd
That fiery barb so sternly rein'd;
'T was but a moment that he stood,
Then sped as if by death pursued:
But in that instant o'er his soul
Winters of Memory seem'd to roll,

And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.
O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years:
What felt he then, at once opprest
By all that most distracts the breast?
That pause, which ponder'd o'er his fate,
Oh, who its dreary length shall date!
Though in Time's record nearly nought,
It was Eternity to Thought!

For infinite as boundless space

The thought that Conscience must embrace,

Which in itself can comprehend

Woe without name, or hope, or end.

The hour is past, the Giaour is gone;

And did he fly or fall alone?

Woe to that hour he came or went!
The curse for Hassan's sin was sent
To turn a palace to a tomb:

He came, he went, like the Simoom,(10)
That harbinger of fate and gloom,
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath.
The very cypress droops to death —

Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,
The only constant mourner o'er the dead!

The steed is vanish'd from the stall;

No serf is seen in Hassan's hall;
The lonely Spider's thin gray pall

Waves slowly widening o'er the wall;

The Bat builds in his Haram bower;
And in the fortress of his power

The Owl usurps the beacon-tower;

The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim,
With baffled thirst, and famine, grim;

For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed,
Where the weeds and the desolate dust are spread.

'Twas sweet of yore to see it play
And chase the sultriness of day,
As springing high the silver dew
In whirls fantastically flew,

And flung luxurious coolness round

The air, and verdure o'er the ground.

'T was sweet, when cloudless stars were bright, To view the wave of watery light,

And hear its melody by night.

And oft had Hassan's Childhood play'd
Around the verge of that cascade;

And oft upon his mother's breast
That sound had harmonized his rest;
And oft had Hassan's Youth' along
Its bank been soothed by Beauty's song;
And softer seem'd each melting tone.
Of Music mingled with its own.
But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose
Along the brink at Twilight's close:
The stream that fill'd that font is fled.
The blood that warm'd his heart is shed!
And here no more shall human voice

Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.

The last sad note that swell'd the gale

Was woman's wildest funeral wail:

That quench'd in silence, all is still,

But the lattice that flaps when the wind is shrill: Though raves the gust, and floods the rain,

No hand shall close its clasp again.

On desert sands 't were joy to scan
The rudest steps of fellow-man,
So here the very voice of Grief
Might wake an Echo like relief-