their heads plates of gold and silver flowers, and then threw them around to be gathered by the populace. For many days after their departure from Lahore, a considerable degree of gloom hung over the whole party Lalla Rookl, who had intended to make illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel as usual, to the pavilion, soon found that to feign indisposition was unnecessary; - Fadladeen felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled, and was very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) for not having continued his delectable alley of trees, at least as far as the mountains of Cashmere; - while the Ladies, who had nothing now to do all day but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to Fadladeen, seemed heartily weary of the life they led, and, in spite of all the Great Chamberlain's criticisms, were so tasteless as to wish for the poet again. One evening, as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night, the Princess, who, for the freer enjoyment of the air, had mounted her favorite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove heard the notes of a lute from within its leaves, and a voice, which she but too well knew, singing the following words: TELL me not of joys above, If that world can give no bliss, Truer, happier than the Love Which enslaves our souls in this. Tell me not of Houris' eyes; Far from me their dangerous glow Who, that feels what Love is here, Would, for ev'n Elysium's sphere, Who, that midst a desert's heat The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered, went to Lalla Rookh's heart; and, as she reluctantly rode on, she could not help feeling it to be a sad but still sweet certainty, that Feramorz was to the full as enamored and miserable as herself. The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot they had come to since they left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove full of small Hindoo temples, and planted with the most graceful trees of the East; where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of the Palmyra, that favorite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the chambers of its nest with fire-flies. In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mango-trees, on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red lotus; while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful looking tower, which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some religion no longer known, and which spoke the voice of desolation in the midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the wonder and conjectures of all. Lalla Rookh guessed in vain, and the all-pre tending Fadladeen, who had never till this journey been beyond the precincts of Delhi, was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested that perhaps Feramorz could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching his native mountains, and this tower might perhaps be a relic of some of those dark superstitions, which had prevailed in that country before the light of Islam dawned upon it. The Chamberlain, who usually preferred his own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else could give him, was by no means pleased with this officious reference; and the Princess, too, was about to interpose a faint word of objection, but, before either of them could speak, a slave was dispatched for Feramorz, who, in a very few minutes, made his appearance before them-looking so pale and unhappy in Lalla Rookh's eyes, that she repented already of her cruelty in having so long excluded him. That venerable tower, he told them, was the remains of an ancient Fire-Temple, built by those Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who, many hundred years since, had fled hither from their Arab conquerors, preferring liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostacy or persecution in their own. It was impossible, he added, not to feel interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles, which had Deen made by these original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their bigoted conquerors. Like their own Fire in the Burning Field at Bakou, when suppressed in one place, they had but broken out with fresh flame in another; and, as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy Valley, which had in the same manner became the prey of strangers, and seen her ancient shrines and native princes swept away before the march of her intolerant invaders, he felt a syınpathy, he owned, with the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every monument like this before them but tended more powerfully to awaken. 66 It was the first time that Feramorz had ever ventured upon so much prose before Fadladeen, and it may easily be conceived what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most paganhating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, " Bigoted conquerors!— sympathy with Fire-worshippers!" - while Feramorz, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those struggles of the brave Fire-worshippers against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should 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 cimeter 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 of the Fire-worshippers: THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS. Tis moonlight over Oman's Sea; Her banks of pearl and palmy isles Bask in the night-beam beauteously, And her blue waters sleep in smiles. "T is moonlight in Harmozia's walls, And through her Emir's porphyry halls, Where, some hours since, was heard the swel Of trumpet and the clash of zel Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell; - The music of the bulbul's nest, Ev'n he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike; |