To the dim charnel-house; - through all its steams
Of damp and death, led only by those gleams
Which foul Corruption lights, as with design
To show the gay and proud she too can shine!
And, passing on through upright ranks of dead,
Which to the maiden, doubly crazed by dread,
Seem'd, through the bluish death-light round them cast,
To move their lips in mutterings as she pass'd,
There, in that awful place, when each had quaff'd
And pledged in silence such a fearful draught,
Such -oh! the look and taste of that red bowl
Will haunt her till she dies, he bound her soul
By a dark oath, in hell's own language framed,
Never, while earth his mystic presence claim'd,
While the blue arch of day hung o'er them both,
Never, by that all-imprecating oath,
In joy or sorrow from his side to
She swore, and the wide charnel echo'd," Never, never!"
From that
dread hour,
entirely,
wildly given
To him and
- she be
lieved, lost
maid! - to
Heaven;
Her brain,
her heart,
her pas-
sions, all
inflamed,
How proud
she stood,
when in full
haram
named
With light, alas! that was not of the skies,
When round in trances only less than hers,
She saw the haram kneel, her prostrate worshippers!
Well might Mokanna think that form alone
Had spells enough to make the world his own,
Light, lovely limbs, to which the spirit's play
Gave motion, airy as the dancing spray
When from its stem the small bird wings away!
Lips in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smiled,
The soul was lost; and blushes, swift and wild
As are the momentary meteors sent
Across th' uncalm but beauteous firmament.
And then her look! oh! where's the heart so wise,
Could unbewilder'd meet those matchless eyes?
Quick, restless, strange, but exquisite withal,
Like those of angels, just before their fall;
Now shadow'd with the shames of earth, now cross'd
By glimpses of the heaven her heart had lost;
In every glance there broke, without control,
The flashes of a bright but troubled soul,
Where sensibility still wildly play'd,
Like lightning, round the ruins it had made!
And such was now young Zelica, From her who, some years since, delighted ranged The almond groves that shade Bokhara's tide, All life and bliss, with Azim by her side! So alter'd was she now, this festal day, When, 'mid the proud divan's dazzling array, The vision of that youth, whom she had loved, And wept as dead, before her breathed and moved;
When bright, she thought, as if from Eden's track
But half-way trodden, he had wander'd back
Again to earth, glistening with Eden's light-
Her beauteous Azim shone before her sight.
O Reason! who shall say what spells renew,
When least we look for it, thy broken clew?
Through what small vistas o'er the darken'd brain
Thy intellectual daybeam bursts again?
And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win
Unhoped-for entrance through some friend within,
One clear idea, waken'd in the breast
By memory's magic, lets in all the rest?
Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee!
But, though light came, it came but partially;
Enough to show the maze in which thy sense
Wander'd about, but not to guide it thence;
Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave,
But not to point the harbour which might save.
Hours of delight and peace, long left behind,
With that dear form came rushing o'er her mind;
But, oh! to think how deep her soul had gone
In shame and falsehood since those moments shone;
And, then, her oath, there madness lay again,
And, shuddering, back she sunk into a chain
Of mental darkness, as if blest to flee
From light, whose every glimpse was agony!
Yet one relief this glance of former years
Brought, mingled with its pain,— tears, floods of tears, Long frozen at her heart, but now like rills
Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills,
(A summons proud and rare, which all but she,
And she, till now, had heard with ecstasy)
To meet Mokanna at his place of prayer,
A garden oratory, cool and fair,
By the stream's side, where still at close of day
The Prophet of the Veil retired to pray;
Sometimes alone, but oftener far with one,
One chosen nymph, to share his orison.
Of late none found such favour in his sight
As the young Priestess; and though, since that night.
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