The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

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At length, exploring darkly round
The Pyramid's smooth sides, I found
An iron portal--opening high
'Twixt peak and base--and, with a prayer
To the bliss-loving Moon whose eye
Alone beheld me sprung in there.
Downward the narrow stairway led
Thro' many a duct obscure and dread,
A labyrinth for mystery made,
With wanderings onward, backward, round,
And gathering still, where'er it wound.
But deeper density of shade.

Scarce had I asked myself, "Can aught
"That man delights in sojourn here?"--
When, suddenly, far off, I caught
A glimpse of light, remote, but clear--
Whose welcome glimmer seemed to pour
From some alcove or cell that ended
The long, steep, marble corridor,
Thro' which I now, all hope, descended.
Never did Spartan to his bride
With warier foot at midnight glide.
It seemed as echo's self were dead
In this dark place, so mute my tread.
Reaching at length that light, I saw--
Oh! listen to the scene now raised
Before my eyes--then guess the awe,
The still, rapt awe with which I gazed.

'Twas a small chapel, lined around
With the fair, spangling marble found
In many a ruined shrine that stands
Half seen above the Libyan sands.
The walls were richly sculptured o'er,
And charactered with that dark lore
Of times before the Flood, whose key
Was lost in the "Universal Sea."--
While on the roof was pictured bright
The Theban beetle as he shines,
When the Nile's mighty flow declines
And forth the creature springs to light,
With life regenerate in his wings:--
Emblem of vain imaginings!
Of a new world, when this is gone,
In which the spirit still lives on!

Direct beneath this type, reclined
On a black granite altar, lay
A female form, in crystal shrined,
And looking fresh as if the ray
Of soul had fled but yesterday,
While in relief of silvery hue
Graved on the altar's front were seen
A branch of lotus, broken in two,
As that fair creature's life had been,
And a small bird that from its spray
Was winging like her soul away.

But brief the glimpse I now could spare
To the wild, mystic wonders round;
For there was yet one wonder there
That held me as by witchery bound.
The lamp that thro' the chamber shed
Its vivid beam was at the head
Of her who on that altar slept;
And near it stood when first I came--
Bending her brow, as if she kept
Sad watch upon its silent flame--
A female form as yet so placed
Between the lamp's strong glow and me,
That I but saw, in outline traced,
The shadow of her symmetry.
Yet did my heart--I scarce knew why--
Even at that shadowed shape beat high.
Nor was it long ere full in sight
The figure turned; and by the light
That touched her features as she bent
Over the crystal monument,
I saw 'twas she--the same--the same--
That lately stood before me, brightening
The holy spot where she but came
And went again like summer lightning!

Upon the crystal o'er the breast
Of her who took that silent rest,
There was a cross of silver lying--
Another type of that blest home,
Which hope and pride and fear of dying
Build for us in a world to come:--
This silver cross the maiden raised
To her pure lips:--then, having gazed
Some minutes on that tranquil face,
Sleeping in all death's mournful grace,
Upward she turned her brow serene,
As if intent on heaven those eyes
Saw them nor roof nor cloud between
Their own pure orbits and the skies,
And, tho' her lips no motion made,
And that fixt look was all her speech,
I saw that the rapt spirit prayed
Deeper within than words could reach.

Strange power of Innocence, to turn
To its own hue whate'er comes near,
And make even vagrant Passion burn
With purer warmth within its sphere!
She who but one short hour before
Had come like sudden wild-fire o'er
My heart and brain--whom gladly even
From that bright Temple in the face
Of those proud ministers of heaven,
I would have borne in wild embrace,
And risked all punishment, divine
And human, but to make her mine;--
She, she was now before me, thrown
By fate itself into my arms--
There standing, beautiful, alone,
With naught to guard her but her charms.
Yet did I, then--did even a breath
From my parched lips, too parched to move,
Disturb a scene where thus, beneath
Earth's silent covering, Youth and Death
Held converse thro' undying love?
No--smile and taunt me as thou wilt--
Tho' but to gaze thus was delight,
Yet seemed it like a wrong, a guilt,
To win by stealth so pure a sight:
And rather than a look profane
Should then have met those thoughtful eyes,
Or voice or whisper broke the chain
That linked her spirit with the skies,
I would have gladly in that place
From which I watched her heavenward face,
Let my heart break, without one beat
That could disturb a prayer so sweet.
Gently, as if on every tread.
My life, my more than life depended,
Back thro' the corridor that led
To this blest scene I now ascended,
And with slow seeking and some pain
And many a winding tried in vain
Emerged to upper earth again.

The sun had freshly risen, and down
The marble hills of Araby,
Scattered as from a conqueror's crown
His beams into that living sea.
There seemed a glory in his light,
Newly put on--as if for pride.
Of the high homage paid this night
To his own Isis, his young bride.,
Now fading feminine away
In her proud Lord's superior ray.

My mind's first impulse was to fly
At once from this entangling net--
New scenes to range, new loves to try,
Or in mirth, wine and luxury
Of every sense that might forget.
But vain the effort--spell-bound still,
I lingered, without power or will
To turn my eyes from that dark door,
Which now enclosed her 'mong the dead;
Oft fancying, thro' the boughs that o'er
The sunny pile their flickering shed.
'Twas her light form again I saw
Starting to earth--still pure and bright,
But wakening, as I hoped, less awe,
Thus seen by morning's natural light,
Than in that strange, dim cell at night.

But no, alas--she ne'er returned:
Nor yet--tho' still I watch--nor yet,
Tho' the red sun for hours hath burned,
And now in his mid course hath met
The peak of that eternal pile
He pauses still at noon to bless,
Standing beneath his downward smile,
Like a great Spirit shadowless!--
Nor yet she comes--while here, alone,
Sauntering thro' this death-peopled place,
Where no heart beats except my own,
Or 'neath a palm-tree's shelter thrown,
By turns I watch and rest and trace
These lines that are to waft to thee
My last night's wondrous history.

Dost thou remember, in that Isle
Of our own Sea where thou and I
Lingered so long, so happy a while,
Till all the summer flowers went by--
How gay it was when sunset brought
To the cool Well our favorite maids--
Some we had won, and some we sought--
To dance within the fragrant shades,
And till the stars went down attune
Their Fountain Hymns[3] to the young moon?

That time, too--oh, 'tis like a dream--
When from Scamander's holy tide
I sprung as Genius of the Stream,
And bore away that blooming bride,
Who thither came, to yield her charms
(As Phrygian maids are wont ere wed)
Into the cold Scamander's arms,
But met and welcomed mine, instead--
Wondering as on my neck she fell,
How river-gods could love so well!
Who would have thought that he who roved
Like the first bees of summer then,
Rifling each sweet nor ever loved
But the free hearts that loved again,
Readily as the reed replies
To the least breath that round it sighs--
Is the same dreamer who last night
Stood awed and breathless at the sight
Of one Egyptian girl; and now
Wanders among these tombs with brow
Pale, watchful, sad, as tho' he just,
Himself, had risen from out their dust!

Yet so it is--and the same thirst
For something high and pure, above
This withering world, which from the first
Made me drink deep of woman's love--
As the one joy, to heaven most near
Of all our hearts can meet with here--
Still burns me up, still keeps awake
A fever naught but death can slake.

Farewell; whatever may befall--
Or bright, or dark--thou'lt know it all.

[1] The Ibis.

[2] Necropolis, or the City of the Dead, to the south of Memphis.

[3] These Songs of the Well, as they were called by the ancients, are
still common in the Greek isles.

LETTER IV.

FROM ORCUS, HIGH PRIEST OF MEMPHIS, TO
DECIUS, THE PRAETORIAN PREFECT.

Rejoice, my friend, rejoice;--the youthful Chief
Of that light Sect which mocks at all belief,
And gay and godless makes the present hour
Its only heaven, is now within our power.
Smooth, impious school!--not all the weapons aimed,
At priestly creeds, since first a creed was framed,
E'er struck so deep as that sly dart they wield,
The Bacchant's pointed spear in laughing flowers concealed.
And oh, 'twere victory to this heart, as sweet
As any _thou _canst boast--even when the feet
Of thy proud war-steed wade thro' Christian blood,
To wrap this scoffer in Faith's blinding hood,
And bring him tamed and prostrate to implore
The vilest gods even Egypt's saints adore.
What!--do these sages think, to _them_ alone
The key of this world's happiness is known?
That none but they who make such proud parade
Of Pleasure's smiling favors win the maid,
Or that Religion keeps no secret place,
No niche in her dark fanes for Love to grace?

Fools!--did they know how keen the zest that's given
To earthly joy when seasoned well with heaven;
How Piety's grave mask improves the hue
Of Pleasure's laughing features, half seen thro',
And how the Priest set aptly within reach
Of two rich worlds, traffics for bliss with each,
Would they not, Decius--thou, whom the ancient tie
'Twixt Sword and Altar makes our best ally--
Would they not change their creed, their craft, for ours?
Leave the gross daylight joys that in their bowers
Languish with too much sun, like o'er-blown flowers,
For the veiled loves, the blisses undisplayed
That slyly lurk within the Temple's shade?
And, 'stead of haunting the trim Garden's school--
Where cold Philosophy usurps a rule,
Like the pale moon's, o'er passion's heaving tide,
Till Pleasure's self is chilled by Wisdom's pride--
Be taught by _us_, quit shadows for the true,
Substantial joys we sager Priests pursue,
Who far too wise to theorize on bliss
Or pleasure's substance for its shade to miss.
Preach _other_ worlds but live for only _this_:-
Thanks to the well-paid Mystery round us flung,
Which, like its type the golden cloud that hung
O'er Jupiter's love-couch its shade benign,
Round human frailty wraps a veil divine.

Still less should they presume, weak wits, that they
Alone despise the craft of us who pray;--
Still less their creedless vanity deceive
With the fond thought that we who pray believe.
Believe!--Apis forbid--forbid it, all
Ye monster Gods before whose shrines we fall--
Deities framed in jest as if to try
How far gross Man can vulgarize the sky;
How far the same low fancy that combines
Into a drove of brutes yon zodiac's signs,
And turns that Heaven itself into a place
Of sainted sin and deified disgrace,
Can bring Olympus even to shame more deep,
Stock it with things that earth itself holds cheap.
Fish, flesh, and fowl, the kitchen's sacred brood,
Which Egypt keeps for worship, not for food--
All, worthy idols of a Faith that sees
In dogs, cats, owls, and apes, divinities!

Believe!--oh, Decius, thou, who feel'st no care
For things divine beyond the soldier's share,
Who takes on trust the faith for which he bleeds,
A good, fierce God to swear by, all he needs--
Little canst thou, whose creed around thee hangs
Loose as thy summer war-cloak guess the pangs
Of loathing and self-scorn with which a heart
Stubborn as mine is acts the zealot's part--
The deep and dire disgust with which I wade
Thro' the foul juggling of this holy trade--
This mud profound of mystery where the feet
At every step sink deeper in deceit.
Oh! many a time, when, mid the Temple's blaze,
O'er prostrate fools the sacred cist I raise,
Did I not keep still proudly in my mind
The power this priestcraft gives me o'er mankind--
A lever, of more might, in skilful hand,
To move this world, than Archimede e'er planned--
I should in vengeance of the shame I feel
At my own mockery crush the slaves that kneel
Besotted round; and--like that kindred breed
Of reverend, well-drest crocodiles they feed,
At famed Arsinoe[1]--make my keepers bless,
With their last throb, my sharp-fanged Holiness.

Say, _is_ it to be borne, that scoffers, vain
Of their own freedom from the altar's chain,
Should mock thus all that thou thy blood hast sold.
And I my truth, pride, freedom, to uphold?
It must not be:--think'st thou that Christian sect,
Whose followers quick as broken waves, erect
Their crests anew and swell into a tide,
That threats to sweep away our shrines of pride--
Think'st thou with all their wondrous spells even they
Would triumph thus, had not the constant play
Of Wit's resistless archery cleared their way?--
That mocking spirit, worst of all the foes,
Our solemn fraud, our mystic mummery knows,
Whose wounding flash thus ever 'mong the signs
Of a fast-falling creed, prelusive shines,
Threatening such change as do the awful freaks
Of summer lightning ere the tempest breaks.

But, to my point--a youth of this vain school,
But one, whom Doubt itself hath failed to cool
Down to that freezing point where Priests despair
Of any spark from the altar catching there--
Hath, some nights since--it was, me thinks, the night
That followed the full Moon's great annual rite--
Thro' the dark, winding ducts that downward stray
To these earth--hidden temples, tracked his way,
Just at that hour when, round the Shrine, and me,
The choir of blooming nymphs thou long'st to see,
Sing their last night-hymn in the Sanctuary.
The clangor of the marvellous Gate that stands
At the Well's lowest depth--which none but hands
Of new, untaught adventurers, from above,
Who know not the safe path, e'er dare to move--
Gave signal that a foot profane was nigh:--
'Twas the Greek youth, who, by that morning's sky,
Had been observed, curiously wandering round
The mighty fanes of our sepulchral ground.

Instant, the Initiate's Trials were prepared,--
The Fire, Air, Water; all that Orpheus dared,
That Plato, that the bright-haired Samian[2] past,
With trembling hope, to come to--_what_, at last?
Go, ask the dupes of Priestcraft; question him
Who mid terrific sounds and spectres dim
Walks at Eleusis; ask of those who brave
The dazzling miracles of Mithra's Cave
With its seven starry gates; ask all who keep
Those terrible night-mysteries where they weep
And howl sad dirges to the answering breeze.
O'er their dead Gods, their mortal Deities--
Amphibious, hybrid things that died as men,
Drowned, hanged, empaled, to rise as gods again;--
Ask _them_, what mighty secret lurks below
This seven-fold mystery--can they tell thee? No;
Gravely they keep that only secret, well
And fairly kept--that they have none to tell;
And duped themselves console their humbled pride
By duping thenceforth all mankind beside.

And such the advance in fraud since Orpheus' time--
That earliest master of our craft sublime--
So many minor Mysteries, imps of fraud,
From the great Orphic Egg have winged abroad,
That, still to uphold our Temple's ancient boast,
And seem most holy, we must cheat the most;
Work the best miracles, wrap nonsense round
In pomp and darkness till it seems profound;
Play on the hopes, the terrors of mankind,
With changeful skill; and make the human mind
Like our own Sanctuary, where no ray
But by the Priest's permission wins its way--
Where thro' the gloom as wave our wizard rods.
Monsters at will are conjured into Gods;
While Reason like a grave-faced mummy stands
With her arms swathed in hieroglyphic bands.
But chiefly in that skill with which we use
Man's wildest passions for Religion's views,
Yoking them to her car like fiery steeds,
Lies the main art in which our craft succeeds.
And oh be blest, ye men of yore, whose toil
Hath, for our use, scooped out from Egypt's soil
This hidden Paradise, this mine of fanes,
Gardens and palaces where Pleasure reigns
In a rich, sunless empire of her own,
With all earth's luxuries lighting up her throne:--
A realm for mystery made, which undermines
The Nile itself and, 'neath the Twelve Great Shrines
That keep Initiation's holy rite,
Spreads its long labyrinths of unearthly light.
A light that knows no change--its brooks that run
Too deep for day, its gardens without sun,
Where soul and sense, by turns, are charmed, surprised.
And all that bard or prophet e'er devised
For man's Elysium, priests have realized.

Here, at this moment--all his trials past.
And heart and nerve unshrinking to the last--
Our new Initiate roves--as yet left free
To wander thro' this realm of mystery;
Feeding on such illusions as prepare
The soul, like mist o'er waterfalls, to wear
All shapes and lines at Fancy's varying will,
Thro' every shifting aspect, vapor still;--
Vague glimpses of the Future, vistas shown.
By scenic skill, into that world unknown.
Which saints and sinners claim alike their own;
And all those other witching, wildering arts,
Illusions, terrors, that make human hearts,
Ay, even the wisest and the hardiest quail
To _any_ goblin throned behind a veil.
Yes--such the spells shall haunt his eye, his ear,
Mix wild his night-dreams, form his atmosphere;
Till, if our Sage be not tamed down, at length,
His wit, his wisdom, shorn of all their strength,
Like Phrygian priests, in honor of the shrine--
If he become not absolutely mine,
Body and soul and like the tame decoy
Which wary hunters of wild doves employ
Draw converts also, lure his brother wits
To the dark cage where his own spirit flits.
And give us if not saints good hypocrites--
If I effect not this then be it said
The ancient spirit of our craft hath fled,
Gone with that serpent-god the Cross hath chased
To hiss its soul out in the Theban waste.

[1] For the trinkets with which the sacred Crocodiles were ornamented see
the "Epicurean" chap x.

[2] Pythagoras.

LALLA ROOKH

TO

SAMUEL ROGERS, ESQ.

THIS EASTERN ROMANCE

IS INSCRIBED

BY

HIS VERY GRATEFUL AND AFFECTIONATE FRIEND,

THOMAS MOORE.

LALLA ROOKH

In the eleventh year of the reign of Aurungzebe, Abdalla, King of the
Lesser Bucharia, a lineal descendant from the Great Zingis, having
abdicated the throne in favor of his son, set out on a pilgrimage to the
Shrine of the Prophet; and, passing into India through the delightful
valley of Cashmere, rested for a short time at Delhi on his way. He was
entertained by Aurungzebe in a style of magnificent hospitality, worthy
alike of the visitor and the host, and was afterwards escorted with the
same splendor to Surat, where he embarked for Arabia.[1] During the stay
of the Royal Pilgrim at Delhi, a marriage was agreed upon between the
Prince, his son, and the youngest daughter of the Emperor, LALLA ROOKH;
[2]--a Princess described by the poets of her time as more beautiful than
Leila,[3] Shirine,[4] Dewilde,[5] or any of those heroines whose names
and loves embellish the songs of Persia and Hindostan. It was intended
that the nuptials should be celebrated at Cashmere; where the young King,
as soon as the cares of the empire would permit, was to meet, for the
first time, his lovely bride, and, after a few months' repose in that
enchanting valley, conduct her over the snowy hills into Bucharia.

The day of LALLA ROOKH'S departure from Delhi was as splendid as sunshine
and pageantry could make it. The bazaars and baths were all covered with
the richest tapestry; hundreds of gilded barges upon the Jumna floated
with their banners shining in the water; while through the streets groups
of beautiful children went strewing the most delicious flowers around, as
in that Persian festival called the Scattering of the Roses;[6] till
every part of the city was as fragrant as if a caravan of musk from Khoten
had passed through it. The Princess, having taken leave of her kind
father, who at parting hung a cornelian of Yemen round her neck, on which
was inscribed a verse from the Koran, and having sent a considerable
present to the Fakirs, who kept up the Perpetual Lamp in her sister's
tomb, meekly ascended the palankeen prepared for her; and while Aurungzebe
stood to take a last look from his balcony, the procession moved slowly on
the road to Lahore.

Seldom had the Eastern world seen a cavalcade so superb. From the gardens
in the suburbs to the Imperial palace, it was one unbroken line of
splendor. The gallant appearance of the Rajahs and Mogul lords,
distinguished by those insignia of the Emperor's favor,[7] the feathers
of the egret of Cashmere in their turbans, and the small silver-rimm'd
kettle-drums at the bows of their saddles;--the costly armor of their
cavaliers, who vied, on this occasion, with the guards of the great Keder
Khan,[8] in the brightness of their silver battle-axes and the massiness
of their maces of gold;--the glittering of the gilt pine-apple[9] on the
tops of the palankeens;--the embroidered trappings of the elephants,
bearing on their backs small turrets, in the shape of little antique
temples, within which the Ladies of LALLA ROOKH lay as it were enshrined;
--the rose-colored veils of the Princess's own sumptuous litter,[10] at
the front of which a fair young female slave sat fanning her through the
curtains, with feathers of the Argus pheasant's wing;[11]--and the lovely
troop of Tartarian and Cashmerian maids of honor, whom the young King had
sent to accompany his bride, and who rode on each side of the litter, upon
small Arabian horses;--all was brilliant, tasteful, and magnificent, and
pleased even the critical and fastidious FADLADEEN, Great Nazir or
Chamberlain of the Haram, who was borne in his palankeen immediately after
the Princess, and considered himself not the least important personage of
the pageant.

FADLADEEN was a judge of everything,--from the pencilling of a
Circassian's eyelids to the deepest questions of science and literature;
from the mixture of a conserve of rose-leaves to the composition of an
epic poem: and such influence had his opinion upon the various tastes of
the day, that all the cooks and poets of Delhi stood in awe of him. His
political conduct and opinions were founded upon that line of Sadi,--
"Should the Prince at noon-day say, It is night, declare that you behold
the moon and stars."--And his zeal for religion, of which Aurungzebe was a
munificent protector,[12] was about as disinterested as that of the
goldsmith who fell in love with the diamond eyes of the idol of
Jaghernaut.[13]

During the first days of their journey, LALLA ROOKH, who had passed all
her life within the shadow of the Royal Gardens of Delhi,[14] found
enough in the beauty of the scenery through which they passed to interest
her mind, and delight her imagination; and when at evening or in the heat
of the day they turned off from the high road to those retired and
romantic places which had been selected for her encampments,--sometimes,
on the banks of a small rivulet, as clear as the waters of the Lake of
Pearl;[15] sometimes under the sacred shade of a Banyan tree, from which
the view opened upon a glade covered with antelopes; and often in those
hidden, embowered spots, described by one from the Isles of the West,
[16]as "places of melancholy, delight, and safety, where all the company
around was wild peacocks and turtle-doves;"--she felt a charm in these
scenes, so lovely and so new to her, which, for a time, made her
indifferent to every other amusement. But LALLA ROOKH was young, and the
young love variety; nor could the conversation of her Ladies and the Great
Chamberlain, FADLADEEN,(the only persons, of course, admitted to her
pavilion.) sufficiently enliven those many vacant hours, which were
devoted neither to the pillow nor the palankeen. There was a little
Persian slave who sung sweetly to the Vina, and who, now and then, lulled
the Princess to sleep with the ancient ditties of her country, about the
loves of Wavnak and Ezra,[17] the fair-haired Zal and his mistress
Rodahver,[18] not forgetting the combat of Rustam with the terrible White
Demon.[19] At other times she was amused by those graceful dancing-girls
of Delhi, who had been permitted by the Bramins of the Great Pagoda to
attend her, much to the horror of the good Mussulman FADLADEEN, who could
see nothing graceful or agreeable in idolaters, and to whom the very
tinkling of their golden anklets[20] was an abomination.

But these and many other diversions were repeated till they lost all their
charm, and the nights and noon-days were beginning to move heavily, when,
at length, it was recollected that, among the attendants sent by the
bridegroom, was a young poet of Cashmere, much celebrated throughout the
Valley for his manner of reciting the Stories of the East, on whom his
Royal Master had conferred the privilege of being admitted to the pavilion
of the Princess, that he might help to beguile the tediousness of the
journey by some of his most agreeable recitals. At the mention of a poet,
FADLADEEN elevated his critical eyebrows, and, having refreshed his
faculties with a dose of that delicious opium which is distilled from the
black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders for the minstrel to be forthwith
introduced into the presence.