"So gently back to its first innocence, A choir of dancing girls succeed. These in vain try the power of their blandishments. Azim remains invincible. But to escape from scenes, on which he cannot look with indifference, he retreats to the casement, through which the moon sheds her mild rays, and in gazing on the sleeping landscape, falls into a train of sombre contemplations. The image of Zelica, and the painful remembrance of past joys, take possession of his soul. In this pensive mood he turns, -and sees a female form, close veil'd, We should do injustice to our readers, as well as to our author, were we to attempt to give a scene, of such surpassing interest, in any other than his own powerful language. A strange emotion stirs within him-more But, ah, so pale, so chang'd, none but a lover Stood for some moments mute, and doubtingly "Look up, my Zelica-one moment show "Hath brought thee here, oh! 'twas a blessed one! SEPT. "I should have singled out thee, only thee, Upon her eyes that chas'd their short eclipse, But, when she heard him call her good and pure, That sin and sorrow leave where'er they light-- As death itself; it needs not to be told- sever, 'Tis done to heav'n and him she's lost for ever. "Oh! curse me not," she cried, as wild he toss'd His desperate hand tow'rds heav'n—“ though I am lost, "Think not that guilt, that falsehood made me fall, "No, no-'twas grief, 'twas madness did it all! ceas'd "I know it hath—yet, yet believe at least, thee! "They told me thou wert dead-why, Azim, why "With what a deep devotedness of wo pain, "And memory, like a drop that night and day, "Falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away! "Didst thou but know how pale i sat at home, My eyes still turn'd the way thou wert to come, "And, all the long, long night of hope and fear, "Thy voice and step still sounding in my ear; "Oh God! thou would'st not wonder that, at last,"When every hope was all at once o'ercast, "When I heard frightful voices round me say "Azim is dead! this wretched brain gave way, "And I became a wreck, at random driven, "Without one glimpse of reason or of heaven"All wild-and e'en this quenchless love within "Turn'd to foul fires to light me into sin! "Thou pitiest ine-I knew thou would'st-that sky "Hath nought beneath it half so lorn as I. "The fiend, who lur'd me hither-hist! come near, "Or thou too, thou art lost, if he should hear"Told me such things--oh! with such devilish art, "As would have ruin'd e'en a holier heart"Of thee, and of that ever-radiant sphere, "Where bless'd at length, if I but serv'd him here, "I should for ever live in thy dear sight, "And drink from those pure eyes eternal light! Think, think how lost, how madden'd I must be, "To hope that guilt could lead to God or thee! Thou weep'st for me-do, weep-oh! that I durst, "The one sweet drop, in all this waste of wo, My heart has treasur'd from affection's spring, "To soothe and cool its deadly withering! "But thou-yes, thou must go-for ever go! This place is not for thee-for thee! oh no, Did I but tell thee half, thy tortur'd brain Would burn like mine, and mine go wild again! 'Enough, that Guilt reigns here--that hearts, once good, Now tainted, chill'd and broken, are his food. Enough, that we are parted-that there rolls "A flood of headlong fate between our souls, "Whose darkness severs me as wide from thee "As hell from heav'n to all eternity!" "Zelica! Zelica !" the youth exclaim'd, In all the tortures of a mind inflam'd Almost to madness--" by that sacred Heaven, Where yet, if pray'rs can move, thou'lt be forgiven, "As thou art here--here, in this writhing heart, “All sinful wild and ruin'd as thou art ! By the remembrance of our once pure love, Which, like a church-yard light, still burns above "The grave of our lost souls-which guilt in thee "Cannot extinguish, nor despair in me! I do conjure, implore thee to fly hence"If thou hast yet one spark of innocence, Fly with me from this place "With thee! oh bliss, "Tis worth whole years of torment to hear this. "What! take the lost one with thee? let her rove "By thy dear side, as in those days of love, "When we were both so happy, both so pure-"Too heavenly dream! if there's on earth a cure "For the sunk heart, 'tis this-day after day "To be the blest companion of thy way;"To hear thy angel eloquence-to see "Those virtuous eyes for ever turn'd on me; And in their light re-chasten'd silently, "Like the stain'd web that whitens in the sun, "Grow pure by being purely shone upon ! "And thou wilt pray for me--I know thou wilt "At the dim vesper hour, when thoughts of guilt "Come beaviest o'er the heart, thou it lift thine "And plead for me with Heav'n till I can dare "To fix my own weak, sinful glances there; "Till the good angels, when they see me cling "For ever near thee, pale and sorrowing, "Shall for thy sake pronounce my soul forgiven, "And bid thee take thy weeping slave to heav'n! "Oh yes, I'll fly with thee Scarce had she said These breathless words, when a voice, deep and dread As that of Monker, waking up the Dead, At this dreadful voice, and still more dreadful recollection, Zelica is chilled in a moment to the heart. She implores Azim to provide for his safety, whilst she resigns herself to her uncontrollable destiny, and bursting from his embrace, darts into the recesses of the Haram. The third Canto opens with the note of warlike preparation. The Khalif approaches with an army, to repress the imThe pious assumptions of Mokanna. Prophet is not slow in preparing to sustain them. A battle ensues, and at the instant that fortune is inclining towards the side of the impostor, Azim dashes into the field and turns the scale against him. Mokanna flies to the fortress of Neksheb, and of all his Haram, takes with him only the faded Zelica, but Not for love-the deepest Damn'd must be Touch'd with heav'n's glory, ere such fiends as he Can feel one glimpse of love's divinity! But no, she is his victim: there lie all Her charms for him--charms that can never pall, As long as hell within his heart can stir, Or one faint trace of heaven is left in her. To work an angel's ruin, to behold Blacken beneath his touch, into a scroll As white a page as Virtue e'er enroll'd Of damning sins, seal'd with a burning soulThis is his triumph; this is the joy accurst, That ranks him among demons all but first! Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes, This gives the victim, that before him lies A light like that with which hell-fire illumes, The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes! Here he awaits the attack of the conqueror, and continues to practise his sorceries in making mock moons rise out of a well. By this means, he keeps alive the faith and hopes of his followers, notwithstanding they are besieged by innumerable foes, and are reduced to the last extremity. But finding, at length, that he must succumb to fate, he determines to make a memorable exit. He, accordingly, reproaches his comrades for their little faith, and invites them to a banquet, at which he promises to reveal to them the ineffable glories of his brow! At the close of this banquet, Zelica is summoned to appear by a menial, who turns black in the face and falls dead as he is delivering his message. She enters; Holy Alla, what a sight She saw the board, in splendid mockery spread, All gold and gems, but-what had been the draught? Oh! who need ask, that saw those livid guests, With their swoll'n heads sunk blackening on their breasts, Or looking pale to heav'n with glassy glare, strain, And clench'd the slackening hand at him in vain. Was to come forth, all conquering, all redeeming, Of the bless'd sun, e'er blasted human sight Star; "Ye would be dupes and victims and ye are, "Is it enough? or must 1, while a thrill "Lives in your sapient bosoms, cheat you still ? "Swear that the burtung death ye feel within, "Is but the trance, with which heav'n's joys be gin; "That this foul visage, foul as e'er disgrac'd "E'en monstrous man, is—after God's own taste, “And that—but see! ere I have half-way said "My greetings through, th' uncourteous souls are fled. Quick clos'd the burning waters o'er his head, The beleaguerers now effect a breach in the wall, and as they are pausing, apprehensive of some stratagem from the solitude and silence that reign within, Zelica appears wrapt in the Silver Veil. At the sight of this hateful badge, Azim springs forward, and Zelica throws herself upon his spear, happy in this disguise, to have obtained death at his hand. Time fleeted-years on years had pass'd away, Of death hung darkening over him, there play'd Of intense glory on the horizon's brim, We have now despatched the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan.' But before we take up the three remaining poems in this volume, we will offer a few remarks on the one just concluded. In the very cursory notice of Lalla Rookh in our last number, we observed of the poems which it contains, that they present great and glaring faults, and fewer, but not less obvious beauties.' The extracts which we have already made afford a fair proportion of both. All the defects of the story are justly chargeable upon Mr. Moore, since he had no restriction in his range, through the records of fact, or the fields of fancy. It was his own folly that prompted him to rake up the foul deeds of a detestable monster, from the obscurity to which they had been deservedly consigned. Nor can we discover for what object he has dragged this 'misbegotten knave' into the light of day. He does not appear to intend the inculcation of any moral lesson, and surely, he cannot believe that a picture, of such diabolical depravity and bug-bear deformity, will awaken in the beholder any pleasurable emotion. We have never heard before of such an instance of gratuitous malignity, as is imputed to Al Mokanna. Born in an humble station of life, personal beauty was in no degree essential to enable him fully to participate in all its enjoyments. The accidents of war, if they had diminished his original comeliness, had marked him with honourable scars, which a true soldier would never exchange for the limbs or features of an Apollo. He had nothing with which to reproach fortune. He lived in her smiles to the very close of his career. In the lineage and circumstances of Richard the Third, we find equally a motive for his ambition and his envy. The turbulence of the times had accustomed men to regard the crown as a prize, which it was lawful to covet, and for which it might become politic to contend. The chivalrous spirit of the age rendered personal accomplishments, and the address and prowess, that qualified for the ball and the tournament, not merely feathers in the cap of youth,' but indispensable requisites to popularity and power. Richard could not enter these lists. When we hear him VOL. I. NO. v. And therefore-since I cannot be a lover, It was injuries, which none but a feeling heart would have treasured up, that curdled the milk of human kindness,' in the breast of Bethlem Gabor. The little misanthropical Dwarf, in the Tales of my Landlord,' did not imbibe his implacable hatred of mankind from the survey of his own dimensions. His moroseness and distrust were but the retraction of the bruised fibres of a sympathy, that would have encircled his species with its tendrils. But in the odious impostor of Khorassan, we read only the naked lineaments of a fiend. It is in vain to say that Mr. Moore is sufficiently fortified by history. If this were the case, it would not extenuate the radical absurdity of rendering such a demon, if not the hero, at least the most prominent character in his piece. No man, in his senses, would think of making the enormities of Nero, Caligula, or Heliogabalus, the subject of an epopee. Besides, Mr. Moore was under no obligation to found his plot on any historical incident. It is, to be sure, required that an epic should relate to known characters and events, but these metrical romances do not come under that honourable denomination. They are a very humble kind of compositions-in our estimation, much below the novel both in dignity and utility, and equally licensed to indulge in fiction. Novels, if not a new class of works of fancy, are a wonderful improvement upon the ancient romances. These last were, though not absolutely the invention, the chief ornament of the dark ages, and appeared first in verse. The metrical romances preceded even the legends of Arthur, and the Knights of the Round Table, and of Charlemagne and his Paladins. The Scandinavian nations had their scalds, the British their bards, and the French their troubadours and trouveurs. Their legerdary rhymes were afterwards reduced to prose, and formed the famous romans, which Cervantes so liberally consigned to the flames. It were a pleasant speculation to imagine the fate of most of the 2 X productions of our cotemporary poets, were a modern library submitted to the tribunal that held an inquisition on that of Don Quixotte. It appears to us that in reviving the exploded taste of the middle ages we are relapsing into barbarism. Those prodigies which were adapted to rouse the curiosity and excite the astonishment of the ignorant of that period, are ill suited to please refined and discriminating readers. Paintings may delight children merely by the vividness of their colours; connoisseurs mark the design, and observe the distribution and the shading. English poetry has been heretofore celebrated for its philosophical character. It has abounded more in profound moral reflections than in surprising incident,-more in natural touches than in factitious sentiment. It has had generally a cast of thoughtfulness, and frequently of melancholy. Madame de Stael considers Homer and Ossian as the models of two different styles of poetry. The Eastern is addressed to the imagination, the Northern comes home to the understanding and the heart. She avows her preference for the latter. How ill do the quotidian productions of our presses warrant this commendation. They have indeed their full proportion of sadness, but we shall in vain search for moral truth or purpose. Extravagance of plot, language, and passion, is, at this moment, the only passport to circulation. Milton is no longer read, it may be because he has adorned Lucifer with too many good qualities for a fashionable hero. It is a long time since some wiseacre discovered that Pope was no poet, and one Mr. Leigh Hunt has lately found out that he knew nothing of versification. Young, Cowper, Thomson, Gray, Collins, &c. are laid on the shelf; and the rising generation are not likely to know that we have any thing better in our literature than the verses of Scott, Byron, Hunt, Coleridge and Moore. Even the best of our living bards have fallen into neglect. Campbell, Southey, (we mean the author of Roderick,) and Rogers are thrown into the shade. We are sorry that the last of these gentlemen should lend his name so freely to literary works which his good sense must condemn. It were better to leave Lord Byron and his friends to the benefits of their system of mutual dedication. Still we do not mean to deny to some of these writers an extraordinary degree of merit, in their way. Scott first brought into view a train of corroded passions, compounded of opposite moral elements, and stimulated by the operation of powerful external causes, the developement of which produces a feeling of awe approaching to sublimity. Byron has given a wider scope to these mysterious metaphysics, and has drawn out delineations of the human heart that present it in an aspect of the highest interest, though of the most painful contemplation. From their very nature, however, it is as impossible as it is undesirable, long to keep up the tone of these unnatural energies. The gradual corruption of taste is equally seen in the degradation of the drama. Shakespeare, Otway, Congreve, Rowe, Farquhar, Goldsmith, Sheridan, and Cumberland, have been driven off the boards by the Titanian progeny of the melo-drame. The stage has been converted into a circus, or an arena. Wit, sentiment, and song, have been supplanted by necromancy, fustian, and fanfaronnade. Mr. Moore has, indeed, only suffered himself to be borne along by the downward current. He has been persuaded to barter his reversionary reputation for three thousand guineas, and a balance of ephemeral notoriety. It was a pitiful compromise. Those who know how to value the meed of 'immortal fame,' will - never choose, Gold for the object of a generous muse.' If he has been dazzled by the splendid errors of a great but erratie genius, it is an excusable weakness, though not a less fatal mistake. It is a debasement of mind to become the implicit disciple of any school; and all who are emulous of lasting renown will avoid Byronism in poetry, as they would Pyrrhonism in ethics. But as Mr. Moore is a neophyte, we hope he may yet be reclaimed. It is no more than just, however, as we have charged on Mr. Moore all the faults of the story which he has copied, to give him full credit for the characters and passages which he has invented or embellished. Azim is of his own creation; and though the concubine of history suggested his Zelica, he has contrived to attach a powerful interest to their unhapPy fate. The description of their youthful loves, the cruel anxiety his absence caused to Zelica, the blasting influence of the rumour of his death upon her peace and reason,-his fond hopes and unsuspecting faith, and the exquisite misery of their interview in the palace of the Prophet,all these circumstances of cumulative |