have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for LALLA ROOKH to refuse;—he had never before looked half so animated, and when he spoke of the Holy Valley, his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted; and while FADLADEEN sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story: 'TIS moonlight over Oman's Sea ;* Her banks of pearl and palmy isles And her blue waters sleep in smiles. *The Persian Gulf, sometimes so called, which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia. 'Tis moonlight in Harmozia's* walls, Of trumpet and the clash of zel,+ Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell ;— If zephyrs come, so light they come, Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven ;- Ev'n he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps Are starting to avenge the shame His race hath brought on Iran's § name. 'Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike;- * The present Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf. + 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. § "Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia."-Asiat. Res., Disc. 5. One, who will pause and kneel unshod Engraven on his reeking sword; *— 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-stain❜d 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 Never did fierce Arabia send A satrap forth more direly great; Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight. Her throne had fall'n-her pride was crush'd- To crouch beneath a stranger's throne. * "On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually inscribed." Russel. "There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad."-Tournefort. Her towers, where Mithra once had burn'd, And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there, Becalm'd in Heaven's approving ray! Those waves are hush'd, those planets shine. Sleep on, and be thy rest unmov'd By the white moonbeam's dazzling power; None but the loving and the lov'd Should be awake at this sweet hour. And see-where, high above those rocks As glossy as a heron's wing Upon the turban of a king,* "Their kings wear plumes of black herons' feathers upon the right side, as a badge of sovereignty."-Hanway. |