Just ere he dies,)—at length those sounds of dread
Fell withering on her soul, "Azim is dead!"
Oh, grief beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without that only tie
For which it loved to live or fear'd to die;-
Lorn as the hung-up lute that ne'er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!
Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul was such,
Ev'n reason sunk-blighted beneath its touch;
And though, ere long, her sanguine spirit rose
Above the first dead pressure of its woes,
Though health and bloom return'd, the delicate chain
Of thought, once tangled, never clear'd again.
Warm, lively, soft as in youth's happiest day,
The mind was still all there, but turn'd astray;—
A wandering bark, upon whose pathway shone
All stars of heaven, except the guiding one!
Again she smiled, nay, much and brightly smiled,
But 'twas a lustre, strange, unreal, wild;
And when she sung to her lute's touching strain,
'Twas like the notes, half ecstasy, half pain,
The bulbul* utters ere her soul depart,
When, vanquish'd by some minstrel's powerful art,
She dies upon the lute whose sweetness broke her heart!
Such was the mood in which that mission found
Young Zelica,-that mission, which around
The Eastern world, in every region blest
With woman's smile sought out its loveliest
To grace that galaxy of lips and eyes
Which the Veil'd Prophet destined for the skies !-
And such quick welcome as a spark receives
Dropp'd on a bed of autumn's wither'd leaves,
Did every tale of these enthusiasts find
In the wild maiden's sorrow-blighted mind.
All fire at once, the madd'ning zeal she caught;—
Elect of Paradise! blest, rapturous thought;
Predestined bride, in Heaven's eternal dome,
Of some brave youth-ha! durst they say "of some?"
No-of the one, one only object traced
In her heart's core too deep to be effaced;
The one whose memory, fresh as life, is twined
With every broken link of her lost mind;
Whose image lives, though reason's self be wreck'd,
Safe 'mid the ruins of her intellect !
Alas, poor Zelica! it needed all
The fantasy which held thy mind in thrall
To see in that gay Haram's glowing maids
A sainted colony for Eden's shades;
Or dream that he,-of whose unholy flame
Thou wert too soon the victim,-shining
From Paradise, to people its pure sphere
With souls like thine, which he hath ruin'd here!
No-had not reason's light totally set,
And left thee dark, thou hadst an amulet
In the loved image, graven on thy heart,
Which would have saved thee from the tempter's art,
And kept alive, in all its bloom of breath,
That purity, whose fading is love's death!-
But lost, inflamed,- —a restless zeal took place
Of the mild virgin's still and feminine grace;-
First of the Prophet's favourites, proudly first
In zeal and charms,-too well th' Impostor nursed
Her soul's delirium, in whose active flame,
Thus lighting up a young, luxuriant frame,
He saw more potent sorceries to bind
To his dark yoke the spirits of mankind,
More subtle chains than hell itself e'er twined.
No art was spared, no witchery ;—all the skill
His demons taught him was employ'd to fill
Her mind with gloom and ecstasy by turns-
That gloom, through which frenzy but fiercer burns;
That ecstasy, which from the depth of sadness
Glares like the maniac's moon, whose light is madness!
'Twas from a brilliant banquet, where the sound Of poesy and music breathed around,
Together picturing to her mind and ear
The glories of that heaven, her destined sphere,
Where all was pure, where every stain that lay
Upon the spirit's light should pass away,
And, realising more than youthful love
E'er wish'd or dream'd, she should for ever rove
Through fields of fragrance by her Azim's side,
His own bless'd, purified, eternal bride !—
'Twas from a scene, a witching trance like this,
He hurried her away, yet breathing bliss,
To the dim charnel-house ;-through all its streams
Of damp and death, led only by those gleams
Which foul corruption lights, as with design
To shew the gay and proud she too can shine !—
And, passing on through upright ranks of dead,
Which to the maiden, doubly crazed by dread,
Seem'd, through the bluish death-light round them cast,
To move their lips in mutterings as she pass'd-
There, in that awful place, when each had quaff'd
And pledged in silence such a fearful draught,
Such-oh! the look and taste of that red bowl
Will haunt her till she dies-he bound her soul
By a dark oath, in hell's own language framed,
Never, while earth his mystic presence claim'd,
While the blue arch of day hung o'er them both,
Never, by that all-imprecating oath,
In joy or sorrow from his side to sever.
She swore, and the wide charnel echo'd, "Never, never!"
From that dread hour, entirely, wildly given
To him and she believed, lost maid!-to Heaven;
Her brain, her heart, her passions all inflamed,
How proud she stood, when in full Haram named
The Priestess of the Faith!-how flash'd her eyes
With light, alas! that was not of the skies,
When round in trances only less than hers,
She saw the Haram kneel, her prostrate worshippers!
Well might Mokanna think that form alone
Had spells enough to make the world his own:-
Light, lovely limbs, to which the spirit's play
Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray,
When from its stem the small bird wings away!
Lips in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smiled,
The soul was lost; and blushes, swift and wild
As are the momentary meteors sent
Across th' uncalm, but beauteous firmament.
And then her look!-oh! where's the heart so wise,
Could unbewilder'd meet those matchless eyes?
Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal,
Like those of angels, just before their fall;
Now shadow'd with the shames of earth-now crost
By glimpses of the heaven her heart had lost;
In every glance there broke, without control,
The flashes of a bright but troubled soul,
Where sensibility still wildly play'd,
Like lightning, round the ruins it had made!
And such was now young Zelica-so changed
From her who, some years since, delighted ranged
The almond groves that shade Bokhara's tide,
All life and bliss, with Azim by her side!
So altered was she now, this festal day,
When, 'mid the proud Divan's dazzling array,
The vision of that youth, whom she had loved,
And wept as dead, before her breathed and moved;
When-bright, she thought, as if from Eden's track
But half-way trodden, he had wander'd back
Again to earth, glistening with Eden's light-
Her beauteous Azim shone before her sight.
Oh Reason! who shall say what spells renew,
When least we look for it, thy broken clew!
Through what small vistas o'er the darken'd brain
Thy intellectual day-beam bursts again;
And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win
Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within,
One clear idea, wakened in the breast
By memory's magic, lets in all the rest!
Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee!
But though light came, it came but partially;
Enough to shew the maze in which thy sense
Wander'd about,-but not to guide it thence;
Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave,
But not to point the harbour which might save.
Hours of delight and peace, long left behind,
With that dear form came rushing o'er her mind;
But oh! to think how deep her soul had gone
In shame and falsehood since those moments shone;
And, then, her oath-there madness lay again,
And shuddering, back she sunk into her chain
Of mental darkness, as if blest to flee
From light, whose every glimpse was agony !
Yet, one relief this glance of former years
Brought, mingled with its pain,-tears, floods of tears,
Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills
Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills,
And gushing warm, after a sleep of frost,
Through valleys where their flow had long been lost!
Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame
Trembled with horror, when the summons came
(A summons proud and rare, which all but she,
And she till now, had heard with ecstasy)
To meet Mokanna at his place of prayer,
A garden oratory, cool and fair,
By the stream's side, where still at close of day
The Prophet of the Veil retired to pray;
Sometimes alone-but oftener far with one,
One chosen nymph to share his orison.
Of late none found such favour in his sight As the young Priestess; and though since that night When the death-caverns echo'd every tone Of the dire oath that made her all his own,
Th' Impostor, sure of his infatuate prize,
Had more than once thrown off his soul's disguise,
And utter'd such unheavenly, monstrous things
As even across the desperate wanderings
Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out,
Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt;
Yet zeal, ambition, her tremendous vow,
The thought still haunting her of that bright brow
Whose blaze, as yet from mortal eye conceal'd,
Would soon, proud triumph! be to her reveal'd,
To her alone;-and then the hope, most dear,
Most wild of all, that her transgression here
Was but a passage through earth's grosser fire,
From which the spirit would at last aspire,
Even purer than before,-as perfumes rise
Through flame and smoke, most welcome to the skies-
And that when Azim's fond, Divine embrace
Should circle her in heaven, no darkening trace
Would on that bosom he once loved remain,
But all be bright, be pure, be his again :-
These were the wildering dreams, whose curst deceit
Had chain'd her soul beneath the tempter's feet,
And made her think even damning falsehood sweet.
But now that shape, which had appall'd her view,
That semblance-oh, how terrible, if true!-
Which came across her frenzy's full career
With shock of consciousness, cold, deep, severe,
As when, in northern seas, at midnight dark,
An isle of ice encounters some swift bark,
And, startling all its wretches from their sleep,
By one cold impulse hurls them to the deep ;-
So came that shock not frenzy's self could bear,
And waking up each long-lull'd image there,
But check'd her headlong soul, to sink it in despair!
Wan and dejected, through the evening dusk,
She now went slowly to that small kiosk,
Where, pondering alone his impious schemes,
Mokanna waited her-too wrapt in dreams
Of the fair-ripening future's rich success
To heed the sorrow, pale and spiritless,
That sat upon his victim's downcast brow,
Or mark how slow her step, how alter'd now
From the quick, ardent Priestess, whose light bound
Came like a spirit o'er th' unechoing ground,-
From that wild Zelica, whose every glance
Was thrilling fire, whose very thought a trance!
Upon his couch the veil'd Mokanna lay,
While lamps around-not such as lend their ray,
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