LALLA ROOKH, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo's lamp proceeded; and, while she saw with pleasure that it was still unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river. The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. She now, for the first time, felt that shade of melancholy, which comes over the youthful maiden's heart, as sweet and transient as her own breath upon a mirror; nor was it till she heard the lute of FERAMORZ, touched lightly at the door of her pavilion, that she waked from the reverie in which she had been wandering. Instantly her eyes were lighted up with pleasure; and, after a few unheard remarks from FADLADEEN, upon the indecorum of a poet seating himself in presence of a Princess, everything was arranged as on the preceding evening, and all listened with eagerness, while the story was thus continued: : WHOSE are the gilded tents that crowd the way, This world of tents and domes and sun-bright armoury Of crimson cloth, and topp'd with balls of gold; *The edifices of Chilminar and Balbec are supposed to have been built by the Genii, acting under the orders of Jan ben Jan, who governed the world long before the time of Adam. Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun, But yester-eve, so motionless around, So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound Of th' Abyssinian trumpet, † swell and float! Who leads this mighty army?-ask ye "who?" * A native of Khorassan, and allured southward by means of the water of a fountain between Shiraz and Ispahan, called the Fountain of Birds, of which it is so fond, that it will follow wherever that water is carried. "This trumpet is often called in Abyssinia, Nesser Cano, which signifies, the Note of the Eagle."-Note of Bruce's Editor. The two black standards borne before the Caliphs of the house of Abbas were called, allegorically, the Night and the Shadow.-Vide Gibbon. Rous'd in his palace by the dread alarms Ne'er did the march of MAHADI display * The Mahometan religion. + "The Persians swear by the tomb of Shah Besade, who is buried at Casbin; and when one desires another to asseverate a matter, he will ask him if he dare swear by the Holy Grave."--Struy. gold. Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of § Nivem Meccam apportavit, rem ibi aut nunquam aut raro visam.-Abulfeda. 1 First, in the van, the People of the Rock, * Nor less in number, though more new and rude Burning, and headlong, as the Samiel wind,— * The inhabitants of Hejaz, or Arabia Petræa, called by an Eastern writer, People of the Rock."-Ebn Haukal. "the + "Those horses, called by the Arabians Kochlani, of whom a written genealogy has been kept for 2000 years. They are said to derive their origin from King Solomon's steeds."-Niebuhr. + 'Many of the figures on the blades of their swords are wrought in gold or silver, or in marquetry with small gems."-Asiat. Misc., vol. i. § Azab, or Saba. "The chiefs of the Uzbek Tartars wear a plume of white heron's feathers in their turbans."--Account of Independent Tartary. |