spots, described by one from the Isles of the West,16 as "places of melancholy, delight, and safety, where all the company around were wild peacocks and turtle-doves; she felt a charm in these scenes, so lovely and so new to her, which, for a time, made her indifferent to every other amusement. But LALLA ROOKH was young, and the young love variety; nor could the conversation of her Ladies and the Great Chamberlain, FADLADEEN (the only persons of course admitted to her pavilion), sufficiently enliven those many vacant hours, which were devoted neither to the pillow nor the palankeen. There was a little Persian slave who sung sweetly to the Vina, and who, now and then, lulled the Princess to sleep with the ancient ditties of her country, about the loves of Wamak and Ezra," the fair-haired Zal and his mistress Rodahver; 18 not forgetting the combat of Rustam with the terrible White Demon.19 At other times she was amused by those graceful dancing-girls of Delhi, who had been permitted by the Bramins of the Great Pagoda to attend her, much to the horror of the good Mussulman FADLADEEN, who could see nothing graceful or agreeable in idolaters, and to whom the very tinkling of their golden anklets was an abomination. 20 But these and many other diversions were repeated till they lost all their charm, and the nights and noon-days were beginning to move heavily, when, at length, it was recollected that, among the attendants sent by the bridegroom, was a young poet of Cashmere, much celebrated throughout the valley for his manner of reciting the Stories of the East, on whom his Royal Master had conferred the privilege of being admitted to the pavilion of the Princess, that he might help to beguile the tediousness of the journey by some of his agreeable recitals. At the mention of a poet, FADLADEEN ele vated his critical eyebrows, and, having refreshed his faculties with a dose of that delicious opium 21 which is distilled from the black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders for the minstrel to be forthwith introduced into the presence. 22 The Princess, who had once in her life seen a poet from behind the screens of gauze in her Father's hall, and had conceived from that specimen no very favorable ideas of the Caste, expected but little in this new exhibition to interest her; she felt inclined, however, to alter her opinion on the very first appearance of FERAMORZ. He was a youth about LALLA ROOKн's own age, and graceful as that idol of women, Crishna,2 such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic, beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion of his worshippers into love. His dress was simple, yet not without some marks of costliness; and the ladies of the Princess were not long in discovering that the cloth which encircled his high Tartarian cap was of the most delicate kind that the shawl-goats of Tibet supply.23 Here and there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a flowered girdle of Kashan, hung strings of fine pearl, disposed with an air of studied negligence:-nor did the exquisite embroidery of his sandals escape the observation of these fair critics; who, however they might give way to FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion and government, had the spirit of martyrs in everything relating to such momentous matters as jewels and embroidery. For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recitation by music, the young Cashmerian held in his hand a kitar; such as, in old times, the Arab maids of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the gardens of the Alham bra — and having premised, with much humility, that the story he was about to relate was founded on the adventures of that Veiled Prophet of Khorassan 24 who, in the year of the Hegira 163, created such alarm throughout the Eastern Empire, made an obeisance to the Princess, and thus began: THE VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN.25 26 IN that delightful Province of the Sun, Were ev'n the gleams, miraculously shed O'er MOUSSA's 28 cheek,29 when down the Mount he trod, All glowing from the presence of his God! On either side, with ready hearts and hands, His chosen guard of bold Believers stands; Young fire-eyed disputants, who deem their swords, On points of faith, more eloquent than words; And such their zeal, there's not a youth with brand Uplifted there, but, at the Chief's command, Would make his own devoted heart its sheath, And bless the lips that doom'd so dear a death! In hatred to the Caliph's hue of night,80 Their vesture, helms and all, is snowy white; Their weapons various some equipp'd for speed, 31 Or bows of buffalo horn and shining quivers 88 Between the porphyry pillars, that uphold The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold, Aloft the Haram's curtain'd galleries rise, Where, through the silken network, glancing eyes, From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow Through autumn clouds, shine o'er the pomp below. What impious tongue, ye blushing saints, would dare To hint that aught but Heaven hath placed you there? Or that the loves of this light world could bind, In their gross chain, your Prophet's soaring mind? No-wrongful thought! - commission'd from above To people Eden's bowers with shapes of love, (Creatures so bright, that the same lips and eyes They wear on earth will serve in Paradise,) There to recline among Heaven's native maids, And crown the Elect with bliss that never fades Well hath the Prophet-Chief his bidding done; And every beauteous race beneath the sun, From those who kneel at Brahma's burning founts,3 To the fresh nymphs bounding o'er YEMEN's mounts; From PERSIA's eyes of full and fawn-like ray To the small, half-shut glances of KATHAY; 36 And GEORGIA's bloom, and AZAB's darker smiles, |