As some dark vanish'd dream of sleep! And thou But ha! he answers not Good Heaven! and does she go alone? She now has reach'd that dismal spot
Where, some hours since, his voice's tone Had come to soothe her fears and ills, Sweet as the angel Israfil's,
When every leaf on Eden's tree
Is trembling to his minstrelsy;
Yet now oh, now, he is not nigh
"Hafed! my Hafed! if it be
Thy will, thy doom, this night to die,
Let me but stay to die with thee,
And I will bless thy loved name,
Till the last life-breath leave this frame.
Oh! let our lips, our cheeks, be laid
But near each other while they fade;
Let us but mix our parting breaths,
And I can die ten thousand deaths!
You too, who hurry me away
So cruelly, one moment stay
one moment is not much
for him I pray
Oh! stay-
He yet may come
Hafed! dear Hafed!"
In wild lamentings, that would touch.
A heart of stone, she shriek'd his name
To the dark woods, no Hafed came.
No, hapless pair, you've look'd your last;
Your hearts should both have broken then : The dream is o'er, your doom is cast,
You'll never meet on earth again!
Alas for him, who hears her cries!
Still half-way down the steep he stands, Watching with fix'd and feverish eyes
The glimmer of those burning brands,
That down the rocks, with mournful ray,
Light all he loves on earth away!
Hopeless as they who far at sea
By the cold moon have just consign'd
The corse of one, loved tenderly,
To the bleak flood they leave behind;
And on the deck still lingering stay,
And long look back, with sad delay,
To watch the moonlight on the wave,
That ripples o'er that cheerless grave.
But see! he starts,
That dreadful shout!
what heard he then?
across the glen
From the land side it comes, and loud
Rings through the chasm; as if the crowd
Of fearful things that haunt that dell,
Its Gholes and Dives and shapes of hell,
Had all in one dread howl broke out,
So loud, so terrible that shout!
They come, the Moslems come!" he cries, His proud soul mounting to his eyes;
"Now, spirits of the brave, who roam Enfranchised through yon starry dome, Rejoice, for souls of kindred fire
Are on the wing to join your choir!"
He said; and, light as bridegrooms bound
To their young loves, reclimb'd the steep
And gain'd the shrine: his chiefs stood round, Their swords, as with instinctive leap, Together, at that cry accursed,
Had from their sheaths, like sunbeams, burst. And hark! — again, again it rings;
Near and more near its echoings
Peal through the chasm ; oh who that then
Had seen those listening warrior men,
With their swords grasp'd, their eyes of flame
Turn'd on their Chief, could doubt the shame,
Th' indignant shame, with which they thrill
To hear those shouts and yet stand still?
He read their thoughts, they were his own,
"What! while our arms can wield these
Without one victim to our shades,
One Moslem heart, where, buried deep,
The sabre from its toil may sleep?
No God of Iran's burning skies!
Thou scorn'st th' inglorious sacrifice.
No-though of all earth's hopes bereft,
Life, swords, and vengeance still are left.
We'll make yon valley's reeking caves
Live in the awe-struck minds of men
Till tyrants shudder when their slaves
Tell of the Gheber's bloody glen.
Follow, brave hearts! this pile remains
Our refuge still from life and chains;
But his the best, the holiest bed,
Who sinks entomb'd in Moslem dead!"
Down the precipitous rocks they sprung,
While vigour, more than human, strung
Each arm and heart. Th' exulting foe
Still through the dark defiles below,
Track'd by his torches' lurid fire,
Wound slow, as through Golconda's vale The mighty serpent, in his ire,
Glides on with glittering, deadly trail.
No torch the Ghebers need,
They know each mystery of the dell,
So oft have, in their wanderings, Cross'd the wild race that round them dwell, The very tigers from their delves
Look out, and let them pass, as things Untamed and fearless like themselves!
There was a deep ravine, that lay
Yet darkling in the Moslem's way,-
Fit spot to make invaders rue
The many fallen before the few.
The torrents from that morning's sky
Had fill'd the narrow chasm breast-high,
And on each side, aloft and wild,
Huge cliffs and toppling crags were piled,
The guards with which young Freedom lines
The pathways to her mountain shrines.
Here, at this pass, the scanty band
Of Iran's last avengers stand;
Here wait, in silence like the dead,
And listen for the Moslems' tread
So anxiously, the carrion bird
Above them flaps his wings unheard!
that plunge into the water
Gives signal for the work of slaughter.
Now, Ghebers, now, if e'er your blades
Had point or prowess, prove them now!
Woe to the file that foremost wades!
They come,
And as they tumble, trunk on trunk,
Beneath the gory waters sunk,
Still o'er their drowning bodies press
New victims quick and numberless;
Till scarce an arm in Hafed's band,
a falchion greets each brow,
So fierce their toil, hath power to stir, But listless from each crimson hand
The sword hangs, clogg'd with massacre. Never was horde of tyrants met
With bloodier welcome,
To patriot vengeance hath the sword
More terrible libations pour'd!
All up the dreary, long ravine,
By the red, murky glimmer seen
Of half-quench'd brands, that o'er the flood
Lie scatter'd round and burn in blood,
What ruin glares! what carnage swims!
Heads, blazing turbans, quivering limbs,
Lost swords that, dropp'd from many a hand,
In that thick pool of slaughter stand,-
Wretches who, wading, half on fire
From the toss'd brands that round them fly,
'Twixt flood and flame in shrieks expire;
And some who, grasp'd by those that die,
Sink woundless with them, smother'd o'er
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