The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

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Cheered by this hope she bends her thither;--
Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven,
Nor have the golden bowers of Even
In the rich West begun to wither;--
When o'er the vale of BALBEC winging
Slowly she sees a child at play,
Among the rosy wild flowers singing,
As rosy and as wild as they;
Chasing with eager hands and eyes
The beautiful blue damsel-flies,[173]
That fluttered round the jasmine stems
Like winged flowers or flying gems:--
And near the boy, who tired with play
Now nestling mid the roses lay.
She saw a wearied man dismount
From his hot steed and on the brink
Of a small imaret's rustic fount
Impatient fling him down to drink.
Then swift his haggard brow he turned
To the fair child who fearless sat,
Tho' never yet hath day-beam burned
Upon a brow more fierce than that,--
Sullenly fierce--a mixture dire
Like thunder-clouds of gloom and fire;
In which the PERI'S eye could read
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed;
The ruined maid--the shrine profaned--
Oaths broken--and the threshold stained
With blood of guests!--_there_ written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel's pen,
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.
Yet tranquil now that man of crime
(As if the balmy evening time
Softened his spirit) looked and lay,
Watching the rosy infant's play:--
Tho' still whene'er his eye by chance
Fell on the boy's, its lucid glance
Met that unclouded, joyous gaze,
As torches that have burnt all night
Tho' some impure and godless rite,
Encounter morning's glorious rays.

But, hark! the vesper call to prayer,
As slow the orb of daylight sets,
Is rising sweetly on the air.
From SYRIA'S thousand minarets!
The boy has started from the bed
Of flowers where he had laid his head.
And down upon the fragrant sod
Kneels[174] with his forehead to the south
Lisping the eternal name of God
From Purity's own cherub mouth,
And looking while his hands and eyes
Are lifted to the glowing skies
Like a stray babe of Paradise
Just lighted on that flowery plain
And seeking for its home again.
Oh! 'twas a sight--that Heaven--that child--
A scene, which might have well beguiled
Even haughty EBLIS of a sigh
For glories lost and peace gone by!
And how felt _he_, the wretched Man
Reclining there--while memory ran
O'er many a year of guilt and strife,
Flew o'er the dark flood of his life,
Nor found one sunny resting-place.
Nor brought him back one branch of grace.
"There _was_ a time," he said, in mild,
Heart-humbled tones--"thou blessed child!
"When young and haply pure as thou
"I looked and prayed like thee--but now"--
He hung his head--each nobler aim
And hope and feeling which had slept
From boyhood's hour that instant came
Fresh o'er him and he wept--he wept!

Blest tears of soul-felt penitence!
In whose benign, redeeming flow
Is felt the first, the only sense
Of guiltless joy that guilt can know.
"There's a drop," said the PERI, "that down from the moon
"Falls thro' the withering airs of June
"Upon EGYPT'S land,[175] of so healing a power,
"So balmy a virtue, that even in the hour
"That drop descends contagion dies
"And health reanimates earth and skies!--
"Oh, is it not thus, thou man of sin,
"The precious tears of repentance fall?
"Tho' foul thy fiery plagues within
"One heavenly drop hath dispelled them all!"
And now--behold him kneeling there
By the child's side, in humble prayer,
While the same sunbeam shines upon
The guilty and the guiltless one.
And hymns of joy proclaim thro' Heaven
The triumph of a Soul Forgiven!

'Twas when the golden orb had set,
While on their knees they lingered yet,
There fell a light more lovely far
Than ever came from sun or star,
Upon the tear that, warm and meek,
Dewed that repentant sinner's cheek.
To mortal eye this light might seem
A northern flash or meteor beam--
But well the enraptured PERI knew
'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw
From Heaven's gate to hail that tear
Her harbinger of glory near!

"Joy, joy for ever! my task is done--
"The Gates are past and Heaven is won!
"Oh! am I not happy? I am, I am--
"To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad
"Are the diamond turrets of SHADUKIAM,[176]
"And the fragrant bowers of AMBERABAD!

"Farewell ye odors of Earth that die
"Passing away like a lover's sigh;--
"My feast is now of the Tooba Tree[177]
"Whose scent is the breath of Eternity!

"Farewell, ye vanishing flowers that shone
"In my fairy wreath so bright an' brief;--
"Oh! what are the brightest that e'er have blown
"To the lote-tree springing by ALLA'S throne[178]
"Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf.
"Joy, joy for ever.--my task is done--
"The Gates are past and Heaven is won!"

"And this," said the Great Chamberlain, "is poetry! this flimsy
manufacture of the brain, which in comparison with the lofty and durable
monuments of genius is as the gold filigree-work of Zamara beside the
eternal architecture of Egypt!" After this gorgeous sentence, which, with
a few more of the same kind, FADLADEEN kept by him for rare and important
occasions, he proceeded to the anatomy of the short poem just recited. The
lax and easy kind of metre in which it was written ought to be denounced,
he said, as one of the leading causes of the alarming growth of poetry in
our times. If some check were not given to this lawless facility we should
soon be overrun by a race of bards as numerous and as shallow as the
hundred and twenty thousand Streams of Basra.[179] They who succeeded in
this style deserved chastisement for their very success;--as warriors have
been punished even after gaining a victory because they had taken the
liberty of gaining it in an irregular or unestablished manner. What then
was to be said to those who failed? to those who presumed as in the
present lamentable instance to imitate the licence and ease of the bolder
sons of song without any of that grace or vigor which gave a dignity even
to negligence;--who like them flung the jereed[180] carelessly, but not,
like them, to the mark;--"and who," said he, raising his voice to excite a
proper degree of wakefulness in his hearers, "contrive to appear heavy and
constrained in the midst of all the latitude they allow themselves, like
one of those young pagans that dance before the Princess, who is ingenious
enough to move as if her limbs were fettered, in a pair of the lightest
and loosest drawers of Masulipatam!"

It was but little suitable, he continued, to the grave march of criticism
to follow this fantastical Peri of whom they had just heard, through all
her flights and adventures between earth and heaven, but he could not help
adverting to the puerile conceitedness of the Three Gifts which she is
supposed to carry to the skies,--a drop of blood, forsooth, a sigh, and a
tear! How the first of these articles was delivered into the Angel's
"radiant hand" he professed himself at a loss to discover; and as to the
safe carriage of the sigh and the tear, such Peris and such poets were
beings by far too incomprehensible for him even to guess how they managed
such matters. "But, in short," said he, "it is a waste of time and
patience to dwell longer upon a thing so incurably frivolous,--puny even
among its own puny race, and such as only the Banyan Hospital[181] for
Sick Insects should undertake."

In vain did LALLA ROOKH try to soften this inexorable critic; in vain did
she resort to her most eloquent commonplaces, reminding him that poets
were a timid and sensitive race whose sweetness was not to be drawn forth
like that of the fragrant grass near the Ganges by crushing and trampling
upon them,[182] that severity often extinguished every chance of the
perfection which it demanded, and that after all perfection was like the
Mountain of the Talisman,--no one had ever yet reached its summit.[183]
Neither these gentle axioms nor the still gentler looks with which they
were inculcated could lower for one instant the elevation of FADLADEEN'S
eyebrows or charm him into anything like encouragement or even toleration
of her poet. Toleration, indeed, was not among the weaknesses of
FADLADEEN:--he carried the same spirit into matters of poetry and of
religion, and though little versed in the beauties or sublimities of
either was a perfect master of the art of persecution in both. His zeal
was the same too in either pursuit, whether the game before him was pagans
or poetasters, worshippers of cows, or writers of epics.

They had now arrived at the splendid city of Lahore whose mausoleums and
shrines, magnificent and numberless where Death appeared to share equal
honors with Heaven would have powerfully affected the heart and
imagination of LALLA ROOKH, if feelings more of this earth had not taken
entire possession of her already. She was here met by messengers
despatched from Cashmere who informed her that the King had arrived in the
Valley and was himself superintending the sumptuous preparations that were
then making in the Saloons of the Shalimar for her reception. The chill
she felt on receiving this intelligence,--which to a bride whose heart was
free and light would have brought only images of affection and
pleasure,--convinced her that her peace was gone for ever and that she was
in love, irretrievably in love, with young FERAMORZ. The veil had fallen
off in which this passion at first disguises itself, and to know that she
loved was now as painful as to love without knowing it had been delicious.
FERAMORZ, too,--what misery would be his, if the sweet hours of
intercourse so imprudently allowed them should have stolen into his heart
the same fatal fascination as into hers;--if, notwithstanding her rank and
the modest homage he always paid to it, even _he_ should have yielded to
the influence of those long and happy interviews where music, poetry, the
delightful scenes of nature,--all had tended to bring their hearts close
together and to waken by every means that too ready passion which often
like the young of the desert-bird is warmed into life by the eyes alone!
[184] She saw but one way to preserve herself from being culpable as well
as unhappy, and this however painful she was resolved to adopt. FERAMORZ
must no more be admitted to her presence. To have strayed so far into the
dangerous labyrinth was wrong, but to linger in it while the clew was yet
in her hand would be criminal. Though the heart she had to offer to the
King of Bucharia might be cold and broken, it should at least be pure, and
she must only endeavor to forget the short dream of happiness she had
enjoyed,--like that Arabian shepherd who in wandering into the wilderness
caught a glimpse of the Gardens of Irim and then lost them again for ever!

The arrival of the young Bride at Lahore was celebrated in the most
enthusiastic manner. The Rajas and Omras in her train, who had kept at a
certain distance during the journey and never encamped nearer to the
Princess than was strictly necessary for her safeguard here rode in
splendid cavalcade through the city and distributed the most costly
presents to the crowd. Engines were erected in all the squares which cast
forth showers of confectionery among the people, while the artisans in
chariots[185] adorned with tinsel and flying streamers exhibited the
badges of their respective trades through the streets. Such brilliant
displays of life and pageantry among the palaces and domes and gilded
minarets of Lahore made the city altogether like a place of
enchantment;--particularly on the day when LALLA ROOKH set out again upon
her journey, when she was accompanied to the gate by all the fairest and
richest of the nobility and rode along between ranks of beautiful boys and
girls who kept waving over their heads plates of gold and silver
flowers,[186] and then threw them around to be gathered by the populace.

For many days after their departure from Lahore a considerable degree of
gloom hung over the whole party. LALLA ROOKH, who had intended to make
illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel, as usual, to the
pavilion, soon found that to feign indisposition was unnecessary;--
FADLADEEN felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled and
was very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) for not having
continued his delectable alley of trees[187] a least as far as the
mountains of Cashmere;--while the Ladies who had nothing now to do all day
but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to FADLADEEN seemed
heartily weary of the life they led and in spite of all the Great
Chamberlain's criticisms were so tasteless as to wish for the poet again.
One evening as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night
the Princess who for the freer enjoyment of the air had mounted her
favorite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove heard the notes of a
lute from within its leaves and a voice which she but too well knew
singing the following words:--

Tell me not of joys above,
If that world can give no bliss,
Truer, happier than the Love
Which enslaves our souls in this.

Tell me not of Houris' eyes;--
Far from me their dangerous glow.
If those looks that light the skies
Wound like some that burn below.

Who that feels what Love is here,
All its falsehood--all its pain--
Would, for even Elysium's sphere,
Risk the fatal dream again?

Who that midst a desert's heat
Sees the waters fade away
Would not rather die than meet
Streams again as false as they?

The tone of melancholy defiance in which these words were uttered went to
LALLA ROOKH'S heart;--and as she reluctantly rode on she could not help
feeling it to be a sad but still sweet certainty that FERAMORZ was to the
full as enamored and miserable as herself.

The place where they encamped that evening was the first delightful spot
they had come to since they left Lahore. On one side of them was a grove
full of small Hindoo temples and planted with the most graceful trees of
the East, where the tamarind, the cassia, and the silken plantains of
Ceylon were mingled in rich contrast with the high fan-like foliage of the
Palmyra,--that favorite tree of the luxurious bird that lights up the
chambers of its nest with fire-flies.[188]. In the middle of the lawn
where the pavilion stood there was a tank surrounded by small mango-trees
on the clear cold waters of which floated multitudes of the beautiful red
lotus,[189] while at a distance stood the ruins of a strange and awful-
looking tower which seemed old enough to have been the temple of some
religion no longer known and which spoke the voice of desolation in the
midst of all that bloom and loveliness. This singular ruin excited the
wonder and conjectures of all. LALLA ROOKH guessed in vain, and the all-
pretending FADLADEEN who had never till this journey been beyond the
precincts of Delhi was proceeding most learnedly to show that he knew
nothing whatever about the matter, when one of the Ladies suggested that
perhaps FERAMORZ could satisfy their curiosity. They were now approaching
his native mountains and this tower might perhaps be a relic of some of
those dark superstitions which had prevailed in that country before the
light of Islam dawned upon it. The Chamberlain who usually preferred his
own ignorance to the best knowledge that any one else could give him was
by no means pleased with this officious reference, and the Princess too
was about to interpose a faint word of objection, but before either of
them could speak a slave was despatched for FERAMORZ, who in a very few
minutes made his appearance before them--looking so pale and unhappy in
LALLA ROOKH'S eyes that she repented already of her cruelty in having so
long excluded him.

That venerable tower he told them was the remains of an ancient Fire-
Temple, built by those Ghebers or Persians of the old religion, who many
hundred years since had fled hither from the Arab conquerors, preferring
liberty and their altars in a foreign land to the alternative of apostasy
or persecution in their own. It was impossible, he added, not to feel
interested in the many glorious but unsuccessful struggles which had been
made by these original natives of Persia to cast off the yoke of their
bigoted conquerors. Like their own Fire in the Burning Field at Bakou when
suppressed in one place they had but broken out with fresh flame in
another; and as a native of Cashmere, of that fair and Holy Valley which
had in the same manner become the prey of strangers[190] and seen her
ancient shrines and native princes swept away before the march of her
intolerant invaders he felt a sympathy, he owned, with the sufferings of
the persecuted Ghebers which every monument like this before them but
tended more powerfully to awaken.

It was the first time that FERAMORZ had ever 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!"[191]--
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 ROOKH to refuse;--he had never before looked
half so animated, and when he spoke of the Holy Valley his eyes had
sparkled she thought 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;[192]
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[193] walls,
And through her EMIR'S porphyry halls
Where some hours since was heard the swell
Of trumpets and the clash of zel[194]
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 husht--there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.
If zephyrs come, so light they come.
Nor leaf is stirred nor wave is driven;--
The wind-tower on the EMIR'S dome[195]
Can hardly win a breath from heaven.

Even he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps,
While curses load the air he breathes
And falchions from unnumbered sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame
His race hath brought on IRAN'S[196]name.
Hard, heartless Chief, unmoved alike
Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike;
One of that saintly, murderous brood,
To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think thro' unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to heaven,--
One who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath poured,
To mutter o'er some text of God
Engraven on his reeking sword;[197]
Nay, who can coolly 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 bloodstained hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust and hate and crime;--
Even 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.[198]
Never did fierce Arabia send
A satrap forth more direly great;
Never was IRAN doomed to bend
Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.
Her throne had fallen--her pride was crusht--
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blusht,
In their own land,--no more their own,--
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers where MITHRA once had burned.
To Moslem shrines--oh shame!--were turned,
Where slaves converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship poured,
And curst the faith their sires adored.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance;--hearts that yet--
Like gems, in darkness, issuing rays
They've treasured from the sun that's set,--
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare:
As he shall know, well, dearly know.
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay
Becalmed in Heaven's approving ray.
Sleep on--for purer eyes than thine
Those waves are husht, those planets shine;
Sleep on and be thy rest unmoved
By the white moonbeam's dazzling power;--
None but the loving and the loved
Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see--where high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling.
Yon turret stands;--where ebon locks,
As glossy as the heron's wing
Upon the turban of a king,[199]
Hang from the lattice, long and wild,--
'Tis she, that EMIR'S blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Tho' born of such ungentle race;--
An image of Youth's radiant Fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain![200]

Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is Beauty curtained from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining
One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye,--
The flower that blooms beneath the sea,
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity.
So, HINDA. have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrined.
And oh! what transport for a lover
To lift the veil that shades them o'er!--
Like those who all at once discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breathed but theirs.

Beautiful are the maids that glide
On summer-eves thro' YEMEN'S[201] dales,
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils;--
And brides as delicate and fair
As the white jasmine flowers they wear,
Hath YEMEN in her blissful clime,
Who lulled in cool kiosk or bower,[202]
Before their mirrors count the time[203]
And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In ARABY'S gay Haram smiled.
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before AL HASSAN'S blooming child.

Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness;--
With eyes so pure that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abasht away,
Blinded like serpents when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze;[204]--
Yet filled with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this:
A soul too more than half divine,
Where, thro' some shades of earthly feeling,
Religion's softened glories shine,
Like light thro' summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere.

Such is the maid who at this hour
Hath risen from her restless sleep
And sits alone in that high bower,
Watching the still and shining deep.
Ah! 'twas not thus,--with tearful eyes
And beating heart,--she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,
In her own land, in happier days.
Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks whose rugged frown
Blackens the mirror of the deep?
Whom waits she all this lonely night?
Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height!--

So deemed at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night-air
After the day-beam's withering fire,[205]
He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it deckt with costliest skill
And fondly thought it safe as fair:--
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,
Nor wake to learn what Love can dare;--
Love, all defying Love, who sees
No charm in trophies won with ease;--
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss
Are plucked on Danger's precipice!
Bolder than they who dare not dive
For pearls but when the sea's at rest,
Love, in the tempest most alive,
Hath ever held that pearl the best
He finds beneath the stormiest water.
Yes, ARABY'S unrivalled daughter,
Tho' high that tower, that rock-way rude,
There's one who but to kiss thy cheek
Would climb the untrodden solitude
Of ARARAT'S tremendous peak,[206]
And think its steeps, tho' dark and dread,
Heaven's pathways, if to thee they led!
Even now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way;--
Even now thou hearest the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,
And stretchest down thy arms of snow
As if to lift him from below!
Like her to whom at dead of night
The bridegroom with his locks of light[207]
Came in the flush of love and pride
And scaled the terrace of his bride;--
When as she saw him rashly spring,
And midway up in danger cling,
She flung him down her long black hair,
Exclaiming breathless, "There, love, there!"
And scarce did manlier nerve uphold
The hero ZAL in that fond hour,
Than wings the youth who, fleet and bold,
Now climbs the rocks to HINDA'S bower.
See-light as up their granite steeps
The rock-goats of ARABIA clamber,[208]
Fearless from crag to crag he leaps,
And now is in the maiden's chamber.
She loves--but knows not whom she loves,
Nor what his race, nor whence he came;--
Like one who meets in Indian groves
Some beauteous bird without a name;
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze
From isles in the undiscovered seas,
To show his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes and wing away!
Will he thus fly--her nameless lover?
ALLA forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over
Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,
Alone, at this same witching hour,
She first beheld his radiant eyes
Gleam thro' the lattice of the bower,
Where nightly now they mix their sighs;
And thought some spirit of the air
(For what could waft a mortal there?)
Was pausing on his moonlight way
To listen to her lonely lay!
This fancy ne'er hath left her mind:
And--tho', when terror's swoon had past,
She saw a youth of mortal kind
Before her in obeisance cast,--
Yet often since, when he hath spoken
Strange, awful words,--and gleams have broken
From his dark eyes, too bright to bear,
Oh! she hath feared her soul was given
To some unhallowed child of air,
Some erring spirit cast from heaven,
Like those angelic youths of old
Who burned for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered left the glorious skies
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes.
Fond girl! nor fiend nor angel he
Who woos thy young simplicity;
But one of earth's impassioned sons,
As warm in love, as fierce in ire
As the best heart whose current runs
Full of the Day-God's living fire.