fire-flies.* In the middle of the lawn where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mangoe-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-pretending 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 despatched 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.

It

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 apostasy or persecution in their own. was impossible, he added, not to feel interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles which had been 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 become the prey of strangers, and seen her ancient shrines and natire princes swept away before the march of her intolerant invaders, he felt a sympathy, he owned, with the sufferings of the persecuted Ghebers, which every monument like this before them but tended more powerfully to awaken.

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 pagan-hating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!-sympathy with Fire-worshippers!" +—while Feramorz, happy to take

*The Baya, or Indian Gross-beak.-Sir W. Jones.

+ Voltaire tells us that in his Tragedy, "Les Guèbres," he was generally supposed to have alluded to the Jansenists. I should not be surprised if this story of the Fire-worshippers were found capable of a similar doubleness of applica

tion.

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 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 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.
'Tis moonlight in Harmozia's + walls;
And through her Emir's porphyry halls,
Where, some hours since, was heard the swell
Of trumpet and the clash of zel,+

Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell ;—
The peaceful sun, whom better suits

The music of the bulbul's nest,

Or the light touch of lovers' lutes,

To sing him to his golden rest.

All hushed-there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.

If zephyrs come, so light they come

No leaf is stirred nor wave is driven;-
The wind-tower on the Emir's dome §

Can hardly win a breath from heaven.

Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps;
While curses load the air he breathes,
And falchions from unnumbered sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame

His race hath brought on Iran's || name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike

'Mid eyes that weep, and swords that strike ;-
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,

Who think through unbelievers' blood

* The Persian Gulf, sometimes so called, which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia.

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.

Lies their directest path to heaven;-
One who will pause and kneel unshol
In the warm blood his hand hath poured,
To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword ;-
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
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-stained hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust, and hate, and crime ;-
Even as those bees of Trebizond

Which, from the sunniest flowers that glad
With their pure smile the gardens round,
Draw venom forth that drives men mad.*

Never did fierce Arabia send

A satrap forth more direly great;
Never was Iran doomed to bend

Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.

Her throne had fallen-her pride was crushed-
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blushed,
In their own land,-
,—no more their own,--

To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.

Her towers, where Mithra once had burned,
To Moslem shrines-oh shame !-were turned,
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship poured,
And cursed the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, 'mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high-buoyant still
With hope and vengeance ;-hearts that yet-
Like gems, in darkness, issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set,-
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay

Becalmed in Heaven's approving ray.
Sleep on-for purer eyes than thine

Those waves are hushed, those planets shine;

Sleep on, and be thy rest unmoved

By the white moonbeam's dazzling power ;

* "There is a kind of Rhododendron about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad."-Tournefort.

None but the loving and the loved
Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see where, high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling,
Yon turret stands ;-where ebon locks,
As glossy as a heron's wing

Upon the turban of a king,
Hang from the lattice, long and wild,-
'Tis she, that Emir's blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Though born of such ungentle race ;-
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain !*

Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is Beauty, curtained from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining

One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye,-

The flower that blooms beneath the sea,
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity.
So, Hinda, have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined.
And oh, what transport for a lover

To lift the veil that shades them o'er !-
Like those who, all at once, discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore,
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breathed but theirs.

Beautiful are the maids that glide,

On summer-eves, through Yemen's + dales,
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils ;-

And brides, as delicate and fair

As the white jasmine flowers they wear,
Hath Yemen in her blissful clime,

Who, lulled in cool kiosk or bower,+
Before their mirrors count the time,

And grow still lovelier every hour,
But never yet hath bride or maid
In Araby's gay Haram smiled

* "The Fountain of Youth, by a Mahometan tradition, is situated in some dark region of the East."-Richardson.

† Arabia Felix.

"In the midst of the garden is the chiosk, that is, a large room, commonly beautified with a fine fountain in the midst of it. It is raised nine or ten steps, and inclosed with gilded lattices, round which vines, jessamines, and honeysuckles, make a sort of green wall; large trees are planted round this place, which is the scene of their greatest pleasures."-Lady M. W. Montagu.

Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before Al Hassan's blooming child.
Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness ;-
With eyes so pure that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abashed away,
Blinded like serpents, when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze;
Yet filled with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this:
A soul, too, more than half divine,

Where, through some shades of earthly feeling,
Religion's softened glories shine,

Like light through summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm, and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere.

Such is the maid who, at this hour,

Hath risen from her restless sleep,
And sits alone in that high bower,

Watching the still and shining deep.
Ah! 'twas not thus,- with tearful eyes,
And beating heart,-she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,

In her own land, in happier days.
Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks, whose rugged frown
Blackens the mirror of the deep?
Whom waits she all this lonely night?
Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height !—
So deemed at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night-air,
After the day-beam's withering fire,

He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it decked with costliest skill,
And fondly thought it safe as fair :—
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,
Nor wake to learn what Love can dare ;-

Love, all-defying Love, who sees
No charm in trophies won with ease ;-
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss

Are plucked on Danger's precipice !

"They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of those stones (emeralds), he immediately becomes blind."-Ahmed ben Abdalaziz, Treatise on Jewels.