Of him who, in the twinkling of a star,
Built the high pillar'd halls of Chilminar,1
Had conjured up, far as the eye can see,
This world of tents and domes and sun-bright armoury
Princely pavilions, screen'd by many a fold
Of crimson cloth, and topp'd with balls of gold ;—
Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun,
Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun;
And camels, tufted o'er with Yemen's shells,
Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells !2
But yester-eve, so motionless around,
So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound
But the far torrent, or the locust-bird3
Hunting among the thickets, could be heard;
Yet hark! what discords now, of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams, are revelling in the wind!
The neigh of cavalry ;-the tinkling throngs
Of laden camels and their drivers' songs ;4-
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies ;-
War-music, bursting out from time to time
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime ;—
Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute,
That far-off, broken by the eagle note
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet,5 swell and float!
Who leads this mighty army?-ask ye' who?'
And mark ye not those banners of dark hue
like a regular town, into squares, alleys, and streets, and, from a rising ground, furnishes one of the most agreeable prospects in the world. Starting up in a few hours in an uninhabited plain, it raises the idea of a city built by enchantment. Even those who leave their houses in cities to follow the prince in his progress are frequently so charmed with the Lescar, when situated in a beautiful and convenient place, that they cannot prevail with themselves to remove. To prevent this inconvenience to the court, the Emperor, after sufficient time is allowed to the tradesmen to follow, orders them to be burnt out of their tents.'-Dow's Hindostan.
Colonel Wilks gives a lively picture of an Eastern encampment :
His camp, like those of most Indian armies, exhibited a motley collection of covers from the scorching sun and dews of the night, variegated according to the taste or means of each individual, by extensive enclosures of coloured calico surrounding superb suites of tents; by ragged cloths or blankets stretched over sticks or branches; palm leaves hastily spread over similar supports; handsome tents and splendid canopies; horses, oxen, elephants, and camels; all intermixed without any exterior mark of order or design, except the flags of the chiefs, which usually mark the centres of a congeries of these
masses; the only regular part of the encamp. ment being the streets of shops, each of which is constructed nearly in the manner of a booth at an English fair.'-Historical Sketches of the South of India.
The edifices of Chilminar and Balbec are supposed to have been built by the Genii, acting under the orders of Jan ben Jan, who governed the world long before the time of Adam.
2A superb camel, ornamented with strings and tufts of small shells.'-Ali Bey.
3 A native of Khorassan, and allured southward by means of the water of a fountain be tween Shiraz and Ispahan, called the Fountain of Birds, of which it is so fond that it will fol low wherever that water is carried.
4'Some of the camels have bells about their necks, and some about their legs, like those which our carriers put about their fore-horses' necks.'-Pitt's Account of the Mohammedans.
'The camel-driver follows the camels singing, and sometimes playing upon his pipe; the louder he sings and pipes, the faster the camels go. Nay, they will stand still when he gives over his music.'-Tavernier.
5 This trumpet is often called in Abyssinia nesser cano, which signifies the Note of the Eagle.'-Note of Bruce's Editor.
The Night and Shadow,1 over yonder tent !--
It is the Caliph's glorious armament.
Roused in his palace by the dread alarms,
That hourly came, of the false Prophet's arms,
And of his host of infidels, who hurl'd
Defiance fierce at Islam" and the world ;-
Though worn with Grecian warfare, and behind
The veils of his bright palace calm reclined,
Yet brook'd he not such blasphemy should stain,
Thus unrevenged, the evening of his reign,
But, having sworn upon the Holy Grave,"
To conquer or to perish, once more gave
His shadowy banners proudly to the breeze,
And with an army, nursed in victories,
Here stands to crush the rebels that o'errun
His blest and beauteous province of the sun.
Ne'er did the march of Mahadi display
Such pomp before :-not e'en when on his way
To Mecca's temple, when both land and sea
Were spoil'd to feed the pilgrim's luxury;4
When round him, 'mid the burning sands, he saw
Fruits of the north in icy freshness thaw,
And cool'd his thirsty lip, beneath the glow
Of Mecca's sun, with urns of Persian snow :5-
Nor e'er did armament more grand than that
Pour from the kingdoms of the Caliphat.
First, in the van, the People of the Rock,"
On their light mountain steeds, of royal stock :7
Then, chieftains of Damascus, proud to see
The flashing of their swords' rich marquetry;8-
Men, from the regions near the Volga's mouth,
Mix'd with the rude, black archers of the south:
And Indian lancers, in white-turban'd ranks
From the far Sinde, or Attock's sacred banks,
With dusky legions from the Land of Myrrh,9
And many a mace-arm'd Moor and Mid-Sea islander.
Nor less in number, though more new and rude
In warfare's school, was the vast multitude
That, fired by zeal, or by oppression wrong'd,
Round the white standard of th' impostor throng'd.
'The two black standards borne before the caliphs of the House of Abbas were called allegorically, the Night and the Shadow.'-Gibbon, 2 The Mahometan religion.
3The Persians swear by the tomb of Shah Besade, who is buried at Casbin; and when one desires another to asseverate a matter, he will ask him if he dare swear by the Holy Grave.'Struy.
Mahadi, in a single pilgrimage to Mecca, expended six millions of dinars of gold.
swords are wrought in gold or silver, or in mar8Many of the figures on the blades of their Nivem Meccam apportavit, rem ibi aut nun-quetry with small gems.'-Asiat. Misc, vol. i. quam aut raro visam.-Abulfeda.
Beside his thousands of believers,-blind,
Burning and headlong as the Samiel wind,
Many who felt, and more who fear'd to feel
The bloody Islamite's converting steel,
Flock'd to his banner;-chiefs of th' Uzbek race,
Waving their heron crests with martial grace;1
Turkomans, countless as their flocks, led forth
From th' aromatic pastures of the north;
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills,2-and those
Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows
Of Hindoo Kosh,3 in stormy freedom bred,
Their fort the rock, their camp the torrent's bed.
But none, of all who own'd the Chief's command,
Rush'd to that battle-field with bolder hand
Or sterner hate than Iran's outlaw'd men,
Her Worshippers of Fire1-all panting then
For vengeance on th' accursed Saracen ;
Vengeance at last for their dear country spurn'd,
Her throne usurp'd, and her bright shrines o'erturn'd,
From Yezd's eternal Mansion of the Fire,
Where aged saints in dreams of heaven expire ;
From Badku, and those fountains of blue flame
That burn into the Caspian, fierce they came,
Careless for what or whom the blow was sped,
So vengeance triumph'd, and their tyrants bled!
Such was the wild and miscellaneous host,
That high in air their motley banners toss'd
Around the Prophet-Chief—all eyes still bent
Upon that glittering Veil, where'er it went,
That beacon through the battle's stormy flood,
That rainbow of the field, whose showers were blood!
Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set,
And ris'n again, and found them grappling yet;
While streams of carnage, in his noon-tide blaze,
Smoke up to heaven-hot as that crimson haze,7
By which the prostrate caravan is awed,
In the red Desert, when the wind's abroad!
The chiefs of the Uzbek Tartars wear a plume of white heron's feathers in their turbans. -Account of Independent Tartary.
2In the mountains of Nishapour and Tous (in Khorassan) they find turquoises.'- -Ebn Haukal.
3 For a description of these stupendous ranges of mountains, vide Elphinstone's Caubul.
The Ghebers, or Guebres, those original natives of Persia, who adhered to their ancient faith, the religion of Zoroaster, and who, after the conquest of their country by the Arabs, were either persecuted at home or forced to become wanderers abroad.
5 Yezd, the chief residence of those ancient natives who worship the Sun and the Fire, which latter they have carefully kept lighted, without
being once extinguished for a moment, abore 3000 years, on a mountain near Yezd, called Ater Quedah, signifying the House or Mansion of the Fire. He is reckoned very unfortunate who dies off that mountain.'-Stephen's Persia.
6When the weather is hazy, the springs of naphtha (on an island near Baku) boil up the higher, and the naphtha often takes fire on the sur face of the earth, and runs in a flame into the sea to a distance almost incredible.'- Hanway on the Everlasting Fire at Baku.
7 Hot as that crimson haze.-Savary says 'Torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firmament is enveloped in a thick veil, and the sun appears of the colour of blood. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in it.'
On, Swords of God!' the panting Caliph calls,-
'Thrones for the living-heaven for him who falls!'-
'Ou, brave avengers, on,' Mokanna cries,
'And Eblis blast the recreant slave that flies!'
Now comes the brunt, the crisis of the day-
They clash-they strive-the Caliph's troops give way!
Mokanna's self plucks the black Banner down,
And now the Orient World's imperial crown
Is just within his grasp when, hark, that shout!
Some hand hath check'd the flying Moslems' rout,
And now they turn-they rally—at their head
A warrior, (like those angel youths, who led,
In glorious panoply of heaven's own mail,
The Champions of the Faith through Beder's vale,1)
Bold as if gifted with ten thousand lives,
Turns on the fierce pursuers' blades, and drives
At once the multitudinous torrent back,
While hope and courage kindle in his track,
And, at each step, his bloody falchion makes
Terrible vistas through which victory breaks!
In vain Mokanna, 'midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon, on some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds that, hurrying by,
Leave only her unshaken in the sky!—
In vain he yells his desperate curses out,
Deals death promiscuously to all about,
To foes that charge and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the great Arch-enemy!
The panic spreads- a miracle!' throughout,
The Moslem ranks, a miracle!' they shout,
All gazing on that youth, whose coming seems
A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams;
And every sword, true as o'er billows dim'
The needle tracks the loadstar, following him!
Right tow'rds Mokanna now he cleaves his path,
Impatient cleaves, as though the bolt of wrath
He bears from heaven withheld its awful burst
From weaker heads, and souls but half-way curst,
To break o'er him, the mightiest and the worst!
But vain his speed-though, in that hour of blood,
Had all God's seraphs round Mokanna stood,
With swords of fire, ready like fate to fall,
Mokanna's soul would have defied them all ;
Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong
For human force, hurries even him along;
In vain he struggles 'mid the wedged array
Of flying thousands, he is borne away;
And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows
In this forced flight is-murdering as he goes!
1 In the great victory gained by Mahomed at Beder he was assisted, say the Mussulmans, by three thousand angels, led by Gabriel mounted on his horse Hiazum.-The Koran and its Con
As a grim tiger, whom the torrent's might
Surprises in some parch'd ravine at night,
Turns, even in drowning, on the wretched flocks
Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks,
And, to the last, devouring on his way,
Bloodies the stream he hath not power to stay!
Alla illa Alla !'-the glad shout renew-
'Alla Akbar!"1-the Caliph's in Merou.
Hang out your gilded tapestry in the streets,
And light your shrines and chant your ziraleets;2
The Swords of God have triumph'd-
-on his throne
Your Caliph sits, and the Veil'd Chief hath flown.
Who does not envy that young warrior now,
To whom the Lord of Islam bends his brow,
In all the graceful gratitude of power,
For his throne's safety in that perilous hour?
Who doth not wonder, when, amidst th' acclaim
Of thousands, heralding to heaven his name-
'Mid all those holier harmonies of fame,
Which sound along the path of virtuous souls,
Like music round a planet as it rolls!—
He turns away, coldly as if some gloom
Hung o'er his heart no triumphs can illume ;-
Some sightless grief, upon whose blasted gaze
Though glory's light may play, in vain it plays!
Yes, wretched Azim ! thine is such a grief,
Beyond all hope, all terror, all relief;
A dark, cold calm, which nothing now can break,
Or warm or brighten,-like that Syrian Lake,3
Upon whose surface morn and summer shed
Their smiles in vain, for all beneath is dead!—
Hearts there have been, o'er which this weight of woe
Came, by long use of suffering, tame and slow;
But thine, lost youth! was sudden-over thee
It broke at once, when all seem'd ecstasy;
When Hope look'd up, and saw the gloomy past
Melt into splendour, and Bliss dawn at last--
'Twas then, even then, o'er joys so freshly blown,
This mortal blight of misery came down ;
Even then, the full, warm gushings of thy heart
Were check'd-like fount-drops, frozen as they start!
And there, like them, cold, sunless relics hang,
Each fix'd and chill'd into a lasting pang?
One sole desire, one passion now remains,
To keep life's fever still within his veins,
Vengeance!-dire vengeance on the wretch who cast
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast.
The Tecbir, or cry of the Arabs. 'Alla Acbar!' says Ockley, 'means God is most mighty.'
women of the East sing upon joyful occasions.Russel.
3 The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal
2 The ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the nor vegetable life.
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