Bold as if gifted with ten thousand lives,
Turns on the fierce pursuers' blades, and drives
At once the multitudinous torrent back
While hope and courage kindle in his track;
And, at cach step, his bloody falchion makes
Terrible vistas through which victory breaks!
In vain MOKANNA, midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon, on some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds that, hurrying by,
Leave only her unshaken in the sky -
In vain he yells his desperate curses out,
Deals death promiscuously to all about,

To foes that charge and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the Great Arch-enemy.
The panic spreads-"A miracle!" throughout
The Moslem ranks,
66 a miracle!" they shout,
All gazing on that youth, whose coming seems
A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams;
And every sword, true as o'er billows dim
The needle tracks the load-star, following him!

Right tow'rds MOKANNA now he cleaves his path,
Impatient cleaves, as though the bolt of wrath
He bears from Heav'n withheld its awful burst
From weaker heads, and souls but half-way curst,
To break o'er Him, the mightiest and the worst!
But vain his speed — though, in that hour of blood,
Had all God's seraphs round MOKAnna stood,

Mussulmans, by three thousand angels, led by Gabriel, mounted on his horse Hiazum. See The Koran and its Commentators.

With swords of fire, ready like fate to fall,
MOKANNA'S Soul would have defied them all,
Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong
For human force, hurries ev'n him along;
In vain he struggles 'mid the wedg'd array
Of flying thousands he is borne away;

And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows,
In this forc'd flight, is

murdering as he goes!

As a grim tiger, whom the torrent's might
Surprises in some parch'd ravine at night,
Turns, ev'n in drowning, on the wretched flocks,
Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks,
And, to the last, devouring on his way,

Bloodies the stream he hath not power to stay.

"Alla illa Alla!"- the glad shout renew
"Alla Akbar!" * - the Caliph's in MEROU.
Hang out your gilded tapestry in the streets,
And light your shrines and chaunt your ziraleets.†
The Swords of God have triumph'd -on his throne
Your Caliph sits, and the veil'd Chief hath flown.
Who does not envy that young warrior now,
To whom the Lord of Islam bends his brow,
In all the graceful gratitude of power,

For his throne's safety in that perilous hour?

Who doth not wonder, when, amidst the' acclaim

Of thousands, heralding to heaven his name

*The Tecbir, or cry of the Arabs. "Alla Acbar!" says Ockley, means, "God is most mighty."

f "The ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the women of the East sing upon joyful occasions." —RUSSEL.

'Mid all those holier harmonies of fame,

Which sound along the path of virtuous souls,
Like music round a planet as it rolls,

He turns away-coldly, as if some gloom
Hung o'er his heart no triumphs can illume;
Some sightless grief, upon whose blasted gaze
Though glory's light may play, in vain it plays.
Yes, wretched AZIM! thine is such a grief,
Beyond all hope, all terror, all relief;

A dark, cold calm, which nothing now can break,
Or warm or brighten, like that Syrian Lake,*

Upon whose surface morn and summer shed
Their smiles in vain, for all beneath is dead!
Hearts there have been, o'er which this weight of woe
Came by long use of suffering, tame and slow;
But thine, lost youth! was sudden over thee
It broke at once, when all seem'd ecstasy;
When Hope look'd up, and saw the gloomy Past
Melt into splendour, and Bliss dawn at last
'Twas then, ev'n then, o'er joys so freshly blown,
This mortal blight of misery came down;
Ev'n then, the full, warm gushings of thy heart
Were check'd-like fount-drops, frozen as they start,
And there, like them, cold, sunless relics hang,
Each fix'd and chill'd into a lasting pang.

One sole desire, one passion now remains To keep life's fever still within his veins,

*The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal nor vegetable life.

O'er him and all he lov'd that ruinous blast.

For this, when rumours reach'd him in his flight
Far, far away, after that fatal night, -

Rumours of armies, thronging to the' attack

Of the Veil'd Chief, - for this he wing'd him back,
Fleet as the vulture speeds to flags unfurl'd,
And, when all hope seem'd desp'rate, wildly hurl'd
Himself into a scale, and sav'd a world.
For this he still lives on, careless of all
The wreaths that Glory on his path lets fall;
For this alone exists-like lightning-fire,
To speed one bolt of vengence and expire!

But safe as yet that Spirit of Evil lives; With a small band of desperate fugitives, The last sole stubborn fragment, left unriven Of the proud host that late stood fronting Heaven, He gain'd MEROU - breath'd a short curse of blood O'er his lost throne- then pass'd the JIHON'S flood,*

And gathering all, whose madness of belief

Still saw a Saviour in their down-fall'n Chief,
Rais'd the white banner within NEKSHEB's gates, t
And there, untam'd, the' approaching conqueror waits

Of all his Haram, all that busy hive,
With music and with sweets sparkling alive,
He took but one, the partner of his flight,
One-not for love-not for her beauty's light

*The ancient Oxus.

+ A city of Transoxiana

No, ZELICA stood withering midst the gay,
Wan as the blossom that fell yesterday
From the' Alma tree and dies, while overhead
To-day's young flower is springing in its stead,*
Oh,not for love-the deepest Damn'd must be
Touch'd with Heaven's glory, ere such fiends as he
Can feel one glimpse of Love's divinity.

But no, she is his victim; - there lie all

Her charms for him- charms that can never pall,

As long as hell within his heart can stir,

Or one faint trace of Heaven is left in her.

To work an angel's ruin, to behold

As white a page as Virtue e'er unroll'd
Blacken, beneath his touch, into a scroll
Of damning sins, seal'd with a burning soul-
This is his triumph; this the joy accurst,
That ranks him among demons all but first:
This gives the victim, that before him lies
Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes,

A light like that with which hell-fire illumes
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes!

All the deep daringness of thought and deed
With which the Divest have gifted him—for mark,
Over yon plains, which night had made else dark,

*"You can never cast your eyes on this tree, but you meet there either blossoms or fruit; and as the blossom drops underneath on the ground (which is frequently covered with those purpled-coloured flowers), others come forth in their stead," &c. &c. - NIEUHOFF.

f The Demons of the Persian mythology.