That ecstasy, which from the depth of sadness

Glares like the maniac's moon, whose light is madness!

'Twas from a brilliant banquet, where the sound Of poesy and music breathed around,

Together picturing to her mind and ear

The glories of that heaven, her destined sphere,
Where all was pure, where every stain that lay
Upon the spirit's light should pass away,

And, realizing more than youthful love

E'er wished or dreamed, she should for ever rove
Through fields of fragrance by her Azim's side,
His own blessed, purified, eternal bride!—
'Twas from a scene, a witching trance like this,
He hurried her away, yet breathing bliss,
To the dim charnel-house ;-through all its steams
Of damp and death, led only by those gleams
Which foul Corruption lights, as with design
To show the gay and proud she too can shine-
And, passing on through upright ranks of Dead,
Which to the maiden, doubly crazed by dread,
Seemed, through the bluish death-light round them cast,
To move their lips in mutterings as she passed--
There, in that awful place, when each had quaffed
And pledged in silence such a fearful draught,
Such-O! the look and taste of that red bowl
Will haunt her till she dies-he bound her soul

By a dark oath, in hell's own language framed,
Never, while earth his mystic presence claimed,
While the blue arch of day hung o'er them both,
Never, by that all-imprecating oath,

In joy or sorrow from his side to sever.

She swore, and the wide charnel echoed, "Never, never!"

From that dread hour, entirely, wildly given
To him and she believed, lost maid!-to heaven;
Her brain, her heart, her passions all inflamed,
How proud she stood, when in full Haram named
The Priestess of the Faith!-how flashed her eyes
With light, alas! that was not of the skies,
When round, in trances, only less than hers,
She saw the Haram kneel, her prostrate worshippers.
Well might MOKANNA think that form alone

Had spells enough to make the world his own :—
Light, lovely limbs, to which the spirit's play
Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray,
When from its stem the small bird wings away;
Lips, in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smiled,
The soul was lost; and blushes, swift and wild
As are the momentary meteors sent

Across th' uncalm, but beauteous firmament.
And then her look-O! where's the heart so wise

Could unbewildered meet those matchless eyes?

Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal,

Like those of angels, just before their fall;

Now shadowed with the shames of earth-now crossed

By glimpses of the heaven her heart had lost;

In every glance there broke, without control,

The flashes of a bright but troubled soul,
Where sensibility still wildly played,

Like lightning, round the ruins it had made!

And such was now young ZELICA-SO changed
From her who, some years since, delighted ranged
The almond groves that shade BOKHARA's tide,
All life and bliss, with AZIM by her side!
So altered was she now, this festal day,
When, 'mid the proud Divan's dazzling array,
The vision of that Youth whom she had loved,
Had wept as dead, before her breathed and moved ;-
When-bright, she thought, as if from Eden's track

But half-way trodden, he had wandered back
Again to earth, glistening with Eden's light—
Her beauteous AZIM shone before her sight.

O Reason! who shall say what spells renew, When least we look for it, thy broken clew! Through what small vistas o'er the darkened brain Thy intellectual daybeam bursts again;

And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win
Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within,
One clear idea, wakened in the breast
By memory's magic, lets in all the rest.
Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee!
But though light came, it came but partially;
Enough to show the maze, in which thy sense
Wandered about,—but not to guide it thence;
Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave,
But not to point the harbour which might save.
Hours of delight and peace, long left behind,
With that dear form came rushing o'er her mind;
But O! to think how deep her soul had gone

In shame and falsehood since those moments shone;
And then, her oath-there madness lay again,
And, shuddering, back she sunk into her chain
Of mental darkness, as if blessed to flee
From light, whose every glimpse was agony!

Yet, one relief this glance of former years

Brought, mingled with its pain,-tears, floods of tears, Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills

Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills,

And gushing warm, after a sleep of frost,

Through valleys where their flow had long been lost.

Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame Trembled with horror, when the summons came

(A summons proud and rare, which all but she,
And she, till now, had heard with ecstasy)

To meet MOKANNA at his place of prayer,
A garden oratory, cool and fair,

By the stream's side, where still at close of day
The Prophet of the Veil retired to pray
Sometimes alone-but, oftener far, with one,
One chosen nymph to share his orison.

Of late none found such favour in his sight As the young Priestess; and though, since that night When the death-caverns echoed every tone

Of the dire oath that made her all his own,

Th' Impostor, sure of his infatuate prize,

Had, more than once, thrown off his soul's disguise,

And uttered such unheavenly, monstrous things,

As ev'n across the desperate wanderings

Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out,
Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt;—
Yet zeal, ambition, her tremendous vow,

The thought, still haunting her, of that bright brow
Whose blaze, as yet from mortal eye concealed,
Would soon, proud triumph! be to her revealed,
To her alone ;-and then the hope, most dear,
Most wild of all, that her transgression here
Was but a passage through earth's grosser fire,
From which the spirit would at last aspire,