ventured upon so much prose before FADLADEEN, and it may easily be conceived what effect such prose as this must have produced upon that most orthodox and most pagan-hating personage. He sat for some minutes aghast, ejaculating only at intervals, "Bigoted conquerors!-sympathy with Fire-worshippers!"* —while FERAMORZ, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those struggles of the brave Fire-worshippers against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for LALLA Rookн to refuse; - he had never before looked half so animated; and when he spoke of the Holy Valley his eyes had sparkled, she thought,

I

Voltaire tells us that in his Tragedy, "Les Guebres," he was generally supposed to have alluded to the Jansenists. should not be surprised if this story of the Fire-worshippers were found capable of a similar doubleness of application.

like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted; and while FADLADEEN sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story of the Fire-worshippers:

THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

'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'S + 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.

*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.

If zephyrs come, so light they come,
Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven;-
The wind-tower on the EMIR'S dome
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 sheaths
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,

"At Gombaroon and other places in Persia, they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses." Le Bruyn.

"Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia." - Asiat. Res. Disc. 5.

1

To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword *;—
Nay, who can coclly 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-stain'd 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. †

Never did fierce ARABIA send

A satrap forth more direly great;

"On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually inscribed."

Russel.

+ "There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad."— Tournefort.