- Would on that bosom he once lov'd remain, 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's o'er the' unechoing ground, From that wild ZELICA, whose every glance Was thrilling fire, whose every thought a trance! Upon his couch the Veil'd MOKANNA lay, While lamps around - not such as lend their ray, Glimmering and cold, to those who nightly pray But brilliant, soft, such lights as lovely maids Which the world fondly thought he mused on there, And still he drank and ponder'd — nor could see At length with fiendish laugh, like that which broke "Whom INDIA serves, the monkey deity; § "The cities of Coin (or Koom) and Cashan are full of mosques, mausoleums, and sepulchres of the descendants of Ali, the Saints of Persia."- CHAR DIN. † An island in the Persian Gulf, celebrated for its white wine. The miraculous well at Mecca; so called, says Sale, from the murmuring of its waters. § The god Hannaman. -" Apes are in many parts of India highly venerated, out of respect to the God Hannaman, a deity partaking of the form of that race." PENNANT'S Hindoostan. See a curios account, in Stephen's Persia, of a solemn embassy from some part of the Indies to Goa, when the Portuguese were there, offering vast treasures for the recovery of a monkey's tooth, which they held in great veneration "Ye creatures of a breath, proud things of clay, "My deep-felt, long-nurst loathing of man's name! way on "Ye wise, ye learn'd, who grope your dull "By the dim twinkling gleams of ages gone, "Like superstitious thieves, who think the light "From dead men's marrow guides them best at night †— and which had been taken away upon the conquest of the kingdom of Jafanapatan. * This resolution of Eblis not to acknowledge the new creature, man, was, according to Mahometan tradition, thus adopted: -"The earth (which God had selected for the materials of his work) was carried into Arabia to a place between Mecca and Tayef, where, being first kneaded by the angels, it was afterwards fashioned by God himself into a human form, and left to dry for the space of forty days, or as others say, as many years; the angels, in the mean time, often visiting it, and Eblis (then one of the angels nearest to God's presence afterwards the devil) among the rest; but he, not contented with looking at it, kicked it with his foot till it rung; and knowing God designed that creature to be his superior, took a secret resolution never to acknowledge him as such."— SALE on the Koran. † A kind of lantern formerly used by robbers, called the Hand of Glory, the candle for which was made of the fat of a dead malefactor. Thts, however, was rather a western than an eastern superstition. "Ye shall have honours - wealth, - yes Sages, yes— I know, grave fools, your wisdom's nothingness; “Undazzled it can track yon starry sphere, "In lying speech, and still more lying song, By these learn'd slaves, the meanest of the throng; "Their wits bought up, their wisdom shrunk so small, "A scepter's puny point can wield it all! "Ye too, believers of incredible creeds, "Whose faith enshrines the monsters which it breeds; 'Who, bolder ev'n than NEMROD, think to rise, "By nonsense heap'd on nonsense, to the skies; * The material of which images of Gaudma (the Birman Deity)are made, is held sacred. "Birmans may not purchase the marble in mass, but are suffered, and indeed encouraged, to buy figures of the Deity ready made." - SYME'S Ava, vol. ii. p. 376, "Dark, tangled doctrines, dark as fraud can weave "Who finds not heav'ns to suit the tastes of all; "And wings and glories for all ranks and ages. "So let him EBLIS! grant this crowning curse, "Oh my lost soul!" exclaim'd the shuddering maid, Whose ears had drunk like poison all he said: MOKANNA Started - not abash'd, afraid, He knew no more of fear than one who dwells But, in those dismal words that reach'd his ear, So like that voice, among the sinful dead, In which the legend o'er Hell's Gate is read, That, new as 'twas from her, whom nought could dim Or sink till now, it startled even him. "Ha, my fair Priestess!' thus, with ready wile, "thou, whose smile The' imposter turn'd to grect her |