But the cool Caliph, fearful of some wile In this blank stillness, checks the troops awhile. The well-known Silver Veil !--'Tis he, 'tis he, Young Azim from his steed springs to the ground- 'I meant not, Azim,' soothingly she said, As on his trembling arm she lean'd her head, And, looking in his face, saw anguish there Beyond all wounds the quivering flesh can bear'I meant not thou shouldst have the pain of this ;Though death, with thee thus tasted, is a bliss Thou wouldst not rob me of, didst thou but know How oft I've pray'd to God I might die so! But the fiend's venom was too scant and slow ;To linger on were maddening-and I thought If once that Veil-nay, look not on it-caught The eyes of your fierce soldiery, I should be Struck by a thousand death-darts instantly. But this is sweeter-oh! believe me, yesI would not change this sad, but dear caress, This death within thy arms I would not give For the most smiling life the happiest live! All, that stood dark and drear before the eye Of my stray'd soul, is passing swiftly by; A light comes o'er me from those looks of love, Like the first dawn of mercy from above; And if thy lips but tell me I'm forgiven, Angels will echo the blest words in heaven! But live, my Azim ;-oh! to call thee mine Thus once again! my Azim-dream divine! Live, if thou ever lovedst me, if to meet Thy Zelica hereafter would be sweet,Oh, live to pray for her-to bend the knee Morning and night before that Deity, To whom pure lips and hearts without a stain, As thine are, Azim, never breathed in vain,And pray that He may pardon her,―may take Compassion on her soul for thy dear sake, And nought remembering but her love to thee, Make her all thine, all His, eternally! Go to those happy fields where first we twined Our youthful hearts together-every wind That meets thee there, fresh from the well-known flowers, Will bring the sweetness of those innocent hours Back to thy soul, and thou mayst feel again That brighten'd even death-like the last streak When night o'er all the rest hangs chill and dim,— She for whose spirit he had pray'd and wept In angel smiles, and told him she was blest! For this the old man breathed his thanks, and died- THE story of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan being ended, they were now doomed to hear Fadladeen's criticisms upon it. A series of disappointments and accidents had occurred to this learned Chamberlain during the journey In the first place, those couriers stationed, as in the reign of Shah Jehan, between Delhi and the western coast of India, to secure a constant supply of mangoes for the Royal Table, had, by some cruel irregularity, failed in their duty; and to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong, was, of course, impossible. In the next place the elephant, laden with his fine antique porcelain,2 had in an unusual fit of liveliness, shattered the whole set to pieces :-an irreparable loss, as many 1 'The celebrity of Mazagong is owing to its mangoes, which are certainly the best fruit I ever tasted. The parent-tree, from which all those of this species have been grafted, is honoured during the fruit-season by a guard of sepoys; and, in the reign of Shah Jehan, couriers were stationed between Delhi and the Mahratta coast, to secure an abundant and fresh supply of mangoes for the royal table.'-Mrs. Graham's Journal of a Residence in India. This old porcelain is found in digging, and if it is esteemed, it is not because it has acquired of the vessels were so exquisitely old as to have been used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang. His Koran too, supposed to be the identical copy between the leaves of which Mahomet's favourite pigeon used to nestle, had been mislaid by his Koran-bearer three whole days; not without much spiritual alarm to Fadladeen, who, though professing to hold with other loyal and orthodox Mussulmans, that salvation could only be found in the Koran, was strongly suspected of believing in his heart that it could only be found in his own particular copy of it. When to all these grievances is added the obstinacy of the cooks, in putting the pepper of Canara into his dishes instead of the cinnamon of Serendib, we may easily suppose that he came to the task of criticism with, at least, a sufficient degree of irritability for the purpose. In order,' said he, importantly swinging about his chaplet of pearls, to convey with clearness my opinion of the story this young man has related, it is necessary to take a review of all the stories that have ever 'My good Fadladeen exclaimed the Princess, interrupting him, we really do not deserve that you should give yourself so much trouble. Your opinion of the poem we have just heard will, I have no doubt, be abundantly edifying, without any further waste of your valuable erudition.' If that be all,' replied the critic, evidently mortified at not being allowed to show how much he knew about everything but the subject immediately before him ;-'if that be all that is required, the matter is easily dispatched.' He then proceeded to analyse the poem, in that strain (so well known to the unfortunate bards of Delhi) whose censures were an infliction from which few recovered, and whose very praises were like the honey extracted from the bitter flowers of the aloe. The chief personages of the story were, if he rightly understood them, an illfavoured gentleman, with a veil over his face ;-a young lady, whose reason went and came according as it suited the poet's convenience to be sensible or otherwise ;--and a youth in one of those hideous Bucharian bonnets, who took the aforesaid gentleman in a veil for a Divinity. From such materials,' said he, 'what can be expected?-After rivalling each other in long speeches and absurdities, through some thousands of lines as indigestible as the filberds of Berdaa, our friend in the veil jumps into a tub of aqua-fortis; the young lady dies in a set speech, whose only recommendation is that it is her last; and the lover lives on to a good old age, for the laudable purpose of seeing her ghost, which he at last happily accomplishes and expires. This, you will allow, is a fair summary of the story; and if Nasser, the Arabian merchant, told no better, our Holy Prophet (to whom be all honour and glory!) had no need to be jealous of his abilities for story-telling." With respect to the style, it was worthy of the matter;-it had not even those politic contrivances of structure, which make up for the commonness of the thoughts by the peculiarity of the manner, nor that stately poetical phraseology by which sentiments mean in themselves, like the blacksmith's' apron any new degree of beauty in the earth, but because it has retained its ancient beauty; and this alone is of great importance in China, where they give large sums for the smallest vessels which were used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang, at which time porcelain began to be used by the Emperors' (about the year 412).Dun's Collection of Curious Observations, &c.; a bad translation of some parts of the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses of the Missionary Jesuits. 1 'La lecture de ces Fables plaisoit si fort aux Arabes, que, quand Mahomet les entretenoit de l'Histoire de l'Ancien Testament, ils les méprisoient, lui disant que celles que Nasser leur racontoient étoient beaucoup plus belles. Cette préference attira à Nasser la malediction de Mahomet et de tous ses disciples.'-D'Herbelot. 2 The blacksmith Gao, who successfully resisted the tyrant Zohak, and whose apron became the Royal Standard of Persia. converted into a banner, are so easily gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then, as to the versification, it was, to say no worse of it, execrable: it had neither the copious flow of Ferdosi, the sweetness of Hafez, nor the sententious march of Sadi; but appeared to him, in the uneasy heaviness of its movements, to have been modelled upon the gait of a very tired dromedary. The licences too in which it indulged were unpardonable; for instance this line, and the poem abounded with such :- Like the faint exquisite music of a dream. 'What critic that can count,' said Fadladeen, and has his full complement of fingers to count withal, would tolerate for an instant such syllabic superfluities?" –He here looked round and discovered that most of his audience were asleep; while the glimmering lamps seemed inclined to follow their example. It became necessary, therefore, however painful to himself, to put an end to his valuable animadversions for the present, and he accordingly concluded, with an air of dignified candour, thus: notwithstanding the observations which I have thought it my duty to make, it is by no means my wish to discourage the young man so far from it, indeed, that if he will but totally alter his style of writing and thinking, I have very little doubt that I shall be vastly pleased with him.' Some days elapsed, after this harangue of the Great Chamberlain, before Lalla Rookh could venture to ask for another story. The youth was still a welcome guest in the pavilion ;-to one heart, perhaps, too dangerously wel come-but all mention of poetry was, as if by common consent, avoided. Though none of the party had much respect for Fadladeen, yet his censures, thus magisterially delivered, evidently made an impression on them all. The Poet himself, to whom criticism was quite a new operation (being wholly unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashmere), felt the shock as it is generally felt at first, till use has made it more tolerable to the patient;-the ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased, and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what Fadladeen said, from its having set them all so soundly to sleep; while the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having, for the hundred and fiftieth time in his life, extinguished a Poet. Lalla Rookh alone-and Love knew whypersisted in being delighted with all she had heard, and in resolving to hear more as speedily as possible. Her manner, however, of first returning to the subject was unlucky. It was while they rested during the heat of noon near a fountain, on which some hand had rudely traced those well known words from the Garden of Sadi,- Many, like me, have viewed this fountain, but they are gone, and their eyes are closed for ever!'-that she took occasion, from the melancholy beauty of this passage, to dwell upon the charms of poetry in general. 'It is true,' she said, 'few poets can imitate that sublime bird, which flies always in the air, and never touches the earth :-it is only once in many ages a Genius appears, whose words, like those on the Written Mountain, last 1 'The Huma, a bird peculiar to the East. It is supposed to fly constantly in the air, and never touch the ground; it is looked upon as a bird of happy omen; and that every head it overshades will in time wear a crown.'-Richardson. In the terms of alliance made by Fuzzel Oola Khan with Hyder in 1760, one of the stipulations was, 'that he should have the distinction of two honorary attendants standing behind him, holding fans composed of the feathers of the huma, 2 according to the practice of his family.'-Wilks's South of India. He adds in a note:-'The Huma is a fabulous bird. The head over which its shadow once passes will assuredly be circled with a crown.' 2 To the pilgrims to Mount Sinai we must attribute the inscriptions, figures, &c. on those rocks, which have from thence acquired the name of the Written Mountain.'-Volney. M. Gebelin and others have been at much pains to attach for ever :-but still there are some, as delightful, perhaps, though not so wonderful, who, if not stars over our head, are at least flowers along our path, and whose sweetness of the moment we ought gratefully to inhale, without calling upon them for a brightness and a durability beyond their nature. In short,' continued she, blushing, as if conscious of being caught in an oration, 'it is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment, without having a critic for ever, like the Old Man of the Sea, upon his back !' Fadladeen, it was plain, took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next criticism. A sudden silence ensued; and the Princess, glancing a look at Feramorz, saw plainly she must wait for a more courageous moment. 3 But the glories of Nature and her wild, fragrant airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an evening or two after, they came to the small Valley of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the Emperor for his favourite sister Rochinara, during their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and never was there a more sparkling assemblage of sweets, since the Gulzar-e-Irem, or Rose-bower of Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, that poetry, or love, or religion has ever consecrated; from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares his mistress's hair,2 to the Cámalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented. As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and Lalla Rookh remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay, or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost,-the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. 'It is,' said he, with an appealing look to Fadladeen, in a lighter and humbler strain than the other;' then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began: some mysterious and important meaning to these inscriptions; but Niebuhr, as well as Volney, thinks that they must have been executed at idle hours by the travellers to Mount Sinai, 'who were satisfied with cutting the unpolished rock with any pointed instrument; adding to their names and the date of their journeys some rude figures, which bespeak the hand of a people but little skilled in the arts.'-Niebuhr. 1 The Story of Sinbad the Sailor. 2 From the dark hyacinth to which Hafez compares his mistress's hair.-Vide Nott's Hafez, Ode V. 3 To the Camalatá, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented.-The Cámalatá (called by Linnæus, Ipomea) is the most beautiful of its order, both in the colour and form of its leaves and flowers; its elegant blossoms are "celestial rosy red, Love's proper hue," and have justly procured it the name of Cámalatá or Love's Creeper.'-Sir W. Jones. 'Cámalatá may also mean a mythological plant, by which all desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of Indra; and if ever flower was worthy of paradise, it is our charming Ipomea.' -Ibid. That flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay.-Kathay, I ought to have mentioned before, is a name for China. 'According to Father Premare in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself.'-Asiat. Res. |