They 've gain'd the topmost steep at last. And now they touch the temple's walls, Now Hafed sees the Fire divine,—
When, lo! — his weak, worn comrade falls Dead on the threshold of the Shrine. 'Alas, brave soul, too quickly fled!
And must I leave thee withering here, The sport of every ruffian's tread, The mark for every coward's spear? No, by yon altar's sacred beams!' He cries, and, with a strength that seems Not of this world, uplifts the frame
Of the fallen Chief, and toward the flame Bears him along ; — with death-damp hand The corpse upon the pyre he lays,
Then lights the consecrated brand,
And fires the pile, whose sudden blaze Like lightning bursts o'er Oman's Sea. 'Now, Freedom's God! I come to Thee,' The youth exclaims; and with a smile Of triumph vaulting on the pile
In that last effort, ere the fires
Have harm'd one glorious limb, expires!
What shriek was that on Oman's tide?
It came from yonder drifting bark,
That just hath caught upon her side
The death-light- and again is dark.
It is the boat-ah, why delayed? --
That bears the wretched Moslem maid;
Confided to the watchful care
Of a small veteran band, with whom
Their generous Chieftain would not share
The secret of his final doom,
But hoped when Hinda, safe and free,
Was render'd to her father's eyes,
Their pardon, full and prompt, would be
The ransom of so dear a prize.
Unconscious, thus, of Hafed's fate,
And proud to guard their beauteous freight,
Scarce had they clear'd the surfy waves
That foam around those frightful caves,
When the curst war-whoops, known so well,
Came echoing from the distant dell;
Sudden each oar, upheld and still,
Hung dripping o'er the vessel's side,
And, driving at the current's will,
They rock'd along the whispering tide;
While every eye, in mute dismay,
Was toward that fatal mountain turn'd, Where the dim altar's quivering ray
As yet all lone and tranquil burn'd.
Oh, 't is not, Hinda, in the power
Of Fancy's most terrific touch
To paint thy pangs in that dread hour
Thy silent agony! 't was such
As those who feel could paint too well,
But none e'er felt and lived to tell!
'T was not alone the dreary state
Of a lorn spirit crush'd by fate,
When, though no more remains to dread,
The panic chill will not depart;
When, though the inmate Hope be dead,
Her ghost still haunts the mouldering heart.
No-pleasures, hopes, affections, gone,
The wretch may bear, and yet live on,
Like things within the cold rock found
Alive, when all's congeal'd around.
But there's a blank repose in this,
A calm stagnation, that were bliss
To the keen, burning, harrowing pain,
Now felt through all thy breast and brain;
That spasm of terror, mute, intense,
That breathless, agonized suspense,
From whose hot throb, whose deadly aching,
The heart hath no relief but breaking!
Calm is the wave-heaven's brilliant lights
Reflected dance beneath the prow;
Time was when, on such lovely nights,
She who is there, so desolate now,
Could sit all cheerful, though alone,
And ask no happier joy than seeing
That starlight o'er the waters thrown
No joy but that, to make her blest,
And the fresh, buoyant sense of being, Which bounds in youth's yet careless breast,Itself a star, not borrowing light,
But in its own glad essence bright.
How different now! -But hark! again
The yell of havoc rings!-brave men,
In vain, with beating hearts, ye stand
On the bark's edge—in vain each hand
Half draws the falchion from its sheath;
All's o'er-in rust your blades may lie:
He, at whose word they've scatter'd death,
E'en now, this night, himself must die!
Well may ye look to yon dim tower,
And ask, and wondering guess, what means The battle-cry at this dead hour!
Ah, she could tell you- she who leans Unheeded there, pale, sunk, aghast,
With brow against the dew-cold mast;
Too well she knows
Her soul's first idol and its last,
Lies bleeding in that murderous strife.
But see! what moves upon the height?
Some signal! 't is a torch's light:
What bodes its solitary glare?
In gasping silence toward the Shrine
All eyes are turn'd—thine, Hinda, thine
Fix their last fading life-beams there.
'T was but a moment: fierce and high
The death-pile blazed into the sky,
And far away, o'er rock and flood,
Its melancholy radiance sent;
While Hafed, like a vision, stood
Reveal'd before the burning pyre,
Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of Fire
Shrined in its own grand element!
''Tis he!' the shuddering maid exclaims,—
But, while she speaks, he's seen no more;
High burst in air the funeral flames,
And Iran's hopes and hers are o'er!
One wild heart-broken shriek she gave,—
Then sprung, as if to reach that blaze,
Where still she fix'd her dying gaze,
And, gazing, sunk into the wave,—
Deep, deep,- where never care or pain
Shall reach her innocent heart again!
Farewell-farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea,)
No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water,
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
Oh, fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till Love's witchery came, Like the wind of the south o'er a summer lute blowing, And hush'd all its music, and wither'd its frame!
But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands,
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With nought but the sea-star to light up her tomb.
And still, when the merry date-season is burning,
And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old,
The happiest there, from their pastime returning
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told.
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