To the slack sail impatient cast, Blest ALLA! who shall save her now? There's not in all that warrior band Yes yes her fears are all too true, And Heaven hath, in this dreadful hour, Abandon'd her to HAFED's power; HAFED, the Gheber!-at the thought To loathe, as some foul fiend of sin, And she is now his captive, thrown In his fierce hands, alive, alone; * D'Herbelot, art. Agduani. "The Guebres are known by a dark yellow colour, which the men affect in their clothes."-THEVENOT. "The Kolah, or cap, worn by the Persians, is made of the skin of the sleep of Tartary."-WARING. What was the daring hope that then She darted through that armed crowd That ev'n the sternest warrior bow'd But no The vision that before her shone Through all the maze of blood and storm, Is fled 'twas but a phantom form One of those pasing, rainbow dreams, Half light, half shade, which Fancy's beams In trance or slumber round the soul. But now the bark, with livelier bound, the crew's in motion, The oars are out, and with light sound Their course is tow'rd that mountain-hold, Those towers, that make her life-blood freeze, Where MECCA's godless enemies Lie, like beleaguer'd scorpions, roll'd In their last deadly, venomous fold! Amid the' illumin'd land and flood Sunless that mighty mountain stood; Save where, above its awful head, There shone a flaming cloud, blood-red, Hung out to mark where death whould be! Had her bewilder'd mind the power Through which departed spirits go:- as if each Sat breathless, and too aw'd for speech Seem'd dark, so sullenly around 262 The goblin echoes of the cave But soft they pause - the current turns Beneath them from its onward track; The vexed tide, all foaming, back, - When, hark! - some desperate foot has sprung The oars are up- the grapple clings, Blest power of sunshine! - genial Day, For man to leave it for the gloom, The deep, cold shadow of the tomb. Ev'n HINDA, though she saw not where Or whither wound the perilous road, Yet knew by that awakening air, Which suddenly around her glow'd, That they had risen from darkness then, And breath'd the sunny world again! But soon this balmy freshness fled For now the steepy labyrinth led -- Through damp and gloom — 'mid crash of boughs, And fall of loosen'd crags, that rouse The leopard from his hungry sleep, Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey, And long is heard, from steep to steep, Chasing them down their thundering way! The jackal's cry- the distant moan Of the hyena, fierce and lone- Of torrents in the glen beneath, As 'twere the ever-dark Profound That rolls beneath the Bridge of Death! All, all is fearful ev'n to see, To gaze on those terrific things. She now but blindly hears, would be Relief to her imaginings; Since never yet was shape so dread, But Fancy, thus in darkness thrown, And by such sounds of horror fed, Could frame more dreadful of her own. |