From room to room the ready handmaids hie,
Some skill'd to wreath the turban tastefully,
Or hang the veil, in negligence of shade,
O'er the warm blushes of the youthful maid,
Who, if between the folds but one eye shone,
Like Seba's Queen, could vanquish with that one :*---
While some bring leaves of henna, to imbue
The fingers' ends with a bright roseate hue, †
So bright, that in the mirror's depth they seem
Like tips of coral branches in the stream;
And others mix the Kohol's jetty dye,
To give that long, dark languish to the eye, ‡
Which makes the maids, whom kings are proud to cull
From fair Circassia's vales, so beautiful!
All is in motion; rings and plumes and pearls
Are shining everywhere:-some younger girls
Are gone by moonlight to the garden beds,
To gather fresh, cool chaplets for their heads;
Gay creatures! sweet, though mournful, 'tis to see
How each prefers a garland from that tree
Which brings to mind her childhood's innocent day,
And the dear fields and friendships far away.
The maid of India, blest again to hold
In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold, §
* "Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes."-Solomon's Song.
"They tinged the ends of her fingers scarlet with henna, so that they resembled
branches of coral."-Story of Prince Futtun in Bahardanush,
+ "The women blacken the inside of their eyelids with a powder named the black Kohol."-Russel.
§ "The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-coloured Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit poets with many elegant allusions."--Asiatic Researches, vol. iv.
Thinks of the time when, by the Ganges' flood,
Her little playmates scatter'd many a bud
Upon her long black hair, with glossy gleam,
Just dripping from the consecrated stream;
While the young Arab, haunted by the smell
Of her own mountain flowers, as by a spell,—
The sweet Elcaya,* and that courteous tree
Which bows to all who seek its canopy,t-
Sees, call'd up round her by these magic scents,
The well, the camels, and her father's tents;
Sighs for the home she left with little pain,
And wishes ev'n its sorrows back again!
Meanwhile, through vast illuminated halls,
Silent and bright, where nothing but the falls
Of fragrant waters, gushing with cool sound
From many a jasper fount, is heard around,
Young AZIм roams bewilder'd, nor can guess
What means this maze of light and loneliness.
Here, the way leads o'er tessellated floors
Or mats of Cairo, through long corridors,
Where, rang'd in cassolets and silver urns,
Sweet wood of aloe or of sandal burns;
And spicy rods, such as illume at night
The bowers of Tibet, ‡ send forth odorous light,
Like Peris' wands, when pointing out the road
For some pure Spirit to its blest abode !——
* "A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen.”—Niebuhr. Of the genus Mimosa, "which droops its branches whenever any person approaches
it, seeming as if it saluted those who retire under its shade."-Niebuhr.
"Cloves are a principal ingredient in the composition of the perfumed rods, which men of rank keep constantly burning in their presence."- Turner's Tibet.
And here, at once, the glittering saloon
Bursts on his sight, boundless and bright as noon;
Where, in the midst, reflecting back the rays
In broken rainbows, a fresh fountain plays.
High as th' enamell'd cupola, which towers,
All rich with arabesques of gold and flowers:
And the mosaic floor beneath shines through
The sprinkling of that fountain's silvery dew,
Like the wet, glistening shells, of every dye,
That on the margin of the Red Sea lie.
Here, too, he traces the kind visitings
Of woman's love in those fair, living things
Of land and wave, whose fate-in bondage thrown
For their weak loveliness-is like her own!
On one side, gleaming with a sudden grace
Through water brilliant as the crystal vase
Through which it undulates, small fishes shine,
Like golden ingots from a fairy mine;
While, on the other, lattic'd lightly in
With odoriferous woods of Comorin,*
Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen ;—
Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between
The crimson blossoms of the coral tree, t
In the warm isles of India's sunny sea:
Mecca's blue sacred pigeon, ‡ and the thrush
Of Hindostan, § whose holy warblings gush,
* "C'est d'où vient le bois d'aloes, que les Arabes appellent Oud Comari, et celui du sandal, qui s'y trouve en grande quantité."-D'Herbelot.
"Thousands of variegated loories visit the coral-trees.”—Barrow.
+ "In Mecca there are quantities of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much less kill."-Pitt's Account of the Mahometans.
§"The pagoda thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India. It sits perched on the sacred pagodas, and from thence delivers its melodious song."--Pennant's Hindostan.
At evening, from the tall pagoda's top ;-
Those golden birds that, in the spice time, drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food
Whose scent hath lur'd them o'er the summer flood; *
And those that under Araby's soft sun
Build their high nests of budding cinnamon;+
In short, all rare and beauteous things that fly
Through the pure element, here calmly lie
Sleeping in light, like the green birds that dwell
In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel!
So on, through scenes past all imagining,-
More like the luxuries of that impious king, §
Whom Death's dark angel, with his lightning torch,
Struck down and blasted ev'n in Pleasure's porch,
Than the pure dwelling of a Prophet sent,
Arm'd with Heaven's sword, for man's enfranchisement-
Young AZIM wander'd, looking sternly round,
His simple garb and war-boots' clanking sound
But ill according with the
And silent lull of that voluptuous place!
"Is this, then," thought the youth, "is this the way To free man's spirit from the deadening sway
* Birds of paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in flights from the southern isles to India; and "the strength of the nutmeg," says Tavernier, "so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth."
"That bird which liveth in Arabia, and buildeth its nest with cinnamon."-Brown's Vulgar Errors.
"The spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds."-Gibbon, vol. ix., p. 421.
§ Shedad, who made the delicious gardens of Irim, in imitation of Paradise, and was destroyed by lightning the first time he attempted to enter them.
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