"We meet no more;

--

why, why did Heaven

"Mingle two souls that earth has riven,
"Has rent asunder wide as ours ?
"Oh, Arab maid, as soon the Powers
"Of Light and Darkness may combine,

"As I be link'd with thee or thine!

"His grey head from that lightning glance! "Thou know'st him not-he loves the brave;

"Nor lives there under heaven's expanse "One who would prize, would worship thee "And thy bold spirit, more than he. "Oft when, in childhood, I have play'd

"With the bright falchion by his side, "I've heard him swear his lisping maid

"In time should be a warrior's bride. "And still, whene'er at Haram hours, "I take him cool sherbets and flowers, "He tells me, when in playful mood,

"A hero shall my bridegroom be, "Since maids are best in battle woo'd,

"And won with shouts of victory! "Nay, turn not from me - thou alone "Art form'd to make both hearts thy own. "Go-join his sacred ranks thou know'st

"The unholy strife these Persians

wage:

"Good Heav'n, that frown! even now thou glow'st "With more than mortal warrior's rage.

"Haste to the camp by morning's light,
"And, when that sword is rais'd in fight,
"Oh still remember, Love and I
"Beneath its shadow trembling lie!
"One victory o'er those Slaves of Fire,
"Those impious Ghebers, whom my sire
"Abhors

'Hold, hold — thy words are death

The stranger cried, as wild he flung
His mantle back, and show'd beneath
The Gheber belt that round him clung.*-
"Here, maiden, look

weep-blush to see

"Those Slaves of Fire who, morn and even,

"Hail their Creator's dwelling-place

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* "They (the Ghebers) lay so much stress on their cushee or girdle, as not to dare to be an instant without it."-GROSE's Voyage.-"Le jeune homme nia d'abord la chose; mais, ayant été dépouillé de sa robe, et la large ceinture qu'il portoit comme Ghebr," &c. &c. -D'HERBELOT, art. Agduani. "Pour se dis tinguer des Idolâtres de l'Inde, les Guèbres se ceignent tous d'un cordon de laine, ou de poil de chameau." - Encyclopédie Francoise.

D'Herbelot says this belt was generally of leather.

"They suppose the Throne of the Almighty is seated in the sun, and hence their worship of that luminary."— HANWAY. "As to fire, the Ghebers place the spring-head of it in that globe of fire, the Sun, by them called Mythras, or Mihir, to which they pay the highest reverence, in gratitude for the manifold benefits flowing from its ministerial omniscience. But they are so far from confounding the subordination of the Servant with the majesty of its Creator, that

"Yes - I am of that outcast few,
"TO IRAN and to vengeance true,
"Who curse the hour your Arabs came
"To desolate our shrines of flame,
"And swear before God's burning eye,
"To break our country's chains, or die!
"Thy bigot sire, - nay, tremble not, -

"He who gave birth to those dear eyes,
"With me is sacred as the spot

"From which our fires of worship rise!
"But know - 'twas he I sought that night,

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When, from my watch-boat on the sea,
"I caught this turret's glimmering light,
"And up the rude rocks desperately

"If Love hath made one thought his own,

"That Vengeance claims first

"Oh! had we never, never met,

- last

"Or could this heart ev'n now forget

alone!

they not only attribute no sort of sense or reasoning to the sun or fire, in any of its operations, but consider it as a purely passive blind instrument, directed and governed by the immediate impression on it of the will of God; but they do not even give that luminary, all-glorious as it is, more than the second rank amongst his works, reserving the first for that stupendous production of divine power, the mind of man."-GROSE. The false charges brought against the religion of these people by their Mussulman tyrants, is but one proof among many of the truth of this writer's remark, that "calumny is often added to oppression, if but for the sake of justifying it."

"How link'd, how blest we might have been,
"Had fate not frown'd so dark between!
"Hadst thou been born a Persian maid,
"In neighbouring valleys had we dwelt,
"Through the same fields in childhood play'd,
"At the same kindling altar knelt, —
"Then, then, while all those nameless ties,
"In which the charm of Country lies,
"Had round our hearts been hourly spun,
"Till IRAN's cause and thine were one;
"While in thy lute's awakening sigh

Returning hours of glory shine;

"While the wrong'd Spirit of our Land

"Liv'd, look'd, and spoke her wrongs through thee,—

"God! who could then this sword withstand?

"Its very flash were victory!

"But now

- estrang'd, divorc❜d for ever,

"Far as the grasp of Fate can sever; "Our only ties what love has wove,

"In faith, friends, country, sunder'd wide;

"And then, then only, true to love,

"When false to all that's dear beside!

Thy father IRAN's deadliest foe

Thyself, perhaps, ev'n now but no "Hate never look'd so lovely yet!

"All but that bleeding land for thee.

"When other eyes shall see, unmov'd,

"Her widows mourn, her warriors fall,
"Thou❜lt think how well one Gheber lov'd,
"And for his sake thou'lt weep for all!
"But look

With sudden start he turn'd

And pointed to the distant wave,
Where lights, like charnel meteors, burn'd
Bluely, as o'er some seaman's grave;
And fiery darts, at intervals,*

Flew up all sparkling from the main,

As if each star that nightly falls,

Were shooting back to heaven again.

"Farewell sweet! thou cling'st in vain—
"Now, Vengeance, I am thine again!"
Fiercely he broke away, nor stopped,
Nor look'd- but from the lattice dropped
Down mid the pointed crags beneath,
As if he fled from love to death.

While pale and mute young HINDA stood,
Nor mov'd, till in the silent flood

A momentary plunge below

Startled her from her trance of woe;

*"The Mameluks that were in the other boat, when it was dark, used to shoot up a sort of fiery arrows into the air, which in some measure resembled lightning or falling stars." —BAUMGARTEN.