'Tis moonlight over OMAN's Sea ;*-
Her banks of pearl and palmy isles
Bask in the night-beam beauteously,
And her blue waters sleep in smiles.
'Tis moonlight in HARMOZIA'st walls,
And through her EMIR's porphyry halls,
Where, some hours since, was heard the swell
Of trumpet and the clash of zel,+
Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell;-
The peaceful sun, whom better suits
The music of the bulbul's nest,
Or the light touch of lovers' lutes,
To sing him to his golden rest!
All hush'd-there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.
If zephyrs come, so light they come,
Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven;-;
The wind-tower on the EMIR's domes
Can hardly win a breath from heaven,
Ev'n he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps;
While curses load the air he breathes,
And falchions from unnumber'd sheathes
The Persian Gulf, sometimes, so called which separates the shores of Persia and Arabia.
The present Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf
A Moorish instrument of music.
At Gombaroon and other places in Persia, they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses."--Le Bryan.
Are starting to avenge the shame
His race hath brought on IRAN's* name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmov'd alike
Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike ;-
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven.
One, who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath pour'd,
To mutter o'er some text of God
Engraven on his recking sword ;†—
Nay, who can coolly note the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade, with searching art,
Had sunk into its victim's heart!
Just ALLA! what must be thy look,
When such a wretch before thee stands
Unblushing, with thy Sacred Book,
Turning the leaves with blood-stained hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust and hate and crime?
Ev'n as those bees of TREBIZOND,-
Which from the sunniest flowers that glad
With their pure smile the gardens round,
Draw venom forth that drives men mad!
* "Iran is the true general name of the empire of Persia."Asiat. Res. Disc. 5.
"On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually inscribed."---Russel.
"There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizon, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad."---Tournefort.
Never did fierce ARABIA send
A satrap forth more direly great; Never was IRAN doom'd to bend
Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.
Her throne half fall'n-her pride was crash'd-
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blush'd,
In their own land-no more their own.-
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers, where MITHRA once had burn'd,
To Mosłem shrine-oh shame! were tura'd
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship pour'd,
And curs'd the faith their siers ador'd.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance;-hearts that yet,
Like gems, in darkness issuing rays
They've treasur'd from the sun that's set,-
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay
Becalm'd in Heaven's approving ray!
Sleep on-for purer eyes than thine
Those waves are hush'd, those planets shine.
Sleep on,
and be thy rest unmov'd
By the white moonbeam's dazzling power;
None but the loving and the lov'd
Should be awake at this sweet hour.
And see-where, high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling,
Yon turret stands; where ebon locks,
As glossy as a heron's wing-
Upon the turban of a King,*
Hang from the lattice, long and wild,→
'Tis she, that EMIR's blooming child,
All truth aud tenderness and grace,
Though born of such ungentle race;
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain !†
Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is beauty, curtain'd from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining
One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye,—
The flower, that blooms beneath the sea
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity!
So HINDA, have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrin'd.
And oh what transport for a lover
To lift the veil that shades them o'er!-
Like those who, all at once discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore,
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breath'd but theirs!
Beautiful are the maids that glide
On summer aves, through YEMEN's‡ dales;
Their kings wear plumes of black herons's feathers upon the right side, as a badge of sovereignty."---Hanway.
"The Fountain of Youth, by a Mahometan tradition, is situated in some dark region of the east.--Richardson
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils ;-
And brides, as delicate and fair
As the white jasinin'd flowers they wear,
Hath YEMEN in her blissful clime,
Who, lull'd in cool kiosk or bower,
Before their mirrors count the time,
And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In ARABY'S gay Harams smil'd,
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before AL HASSAN'S blooming child.
Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infants dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness;-
With eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abash'd away,
Blinded like serpents when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze !*-
Yet, fill'd with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingle the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this!
A soul, too, more than half divine,
Where, through some shades of earthly feeling, Religion's soften'd glories shine,
Like light through summer foliage stealing, Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm and yet so shadowy too,
*They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of those stones [emeralds,] he immediately become Blind, Ahmed ben Abdalaziz, Treatise on Jewels.
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