The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore

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'Tis I that mingle in one sweet measure
The past, the present and future of pleasure;
When Memory links the tone that is gone
With the blissful tone that's still in the ear;
And Hope from a heavenly note flies on
To a note more heavenly still that is near.

The warrior's heart when touched by me,
Can as downy soft and as yielding be
As his own white plume that high amid death
Thro' the field has shone--yet moves with a breath!
And oh, how the eyes of Beauty glisten.
When Music has reached her inward soul,
Like the silent stars that wink and listen
While Heaven's eternal melodies roll.
So hither I come
From my fairy home,
And if there's a magic in Music's strain,
I swear by the breath
Of that moonlight wreath
Thy Lover shall sigh at thy feet again.

'Tis dawn--at least that earlier dawn
Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,[312]
As if the morn had waked, and then
Shut close her lids of light again.
And NOURMAHAL is up and trying
The wonders of her lute whose strings--
Oh, bliss!--now murmur like the sighing
From that ambrosial Spirit's wings.
And then her voice--'tis more than human--
Never till now had it been given
To lips of any mortal woman
To utter notes so fresh from heaven;
Sweet as the breath of angel sighs
When angel sighs are most divine.--
"Oh! let it last till night," she cries,
"And he is more than ever mine."

And hourly she renews the lay,
So fearful lest its heavenly sweetness
Should ere the evening fade away,--
For things so heavenly have such fleetness!
But far from fading it but grows
Richer, diviner as it flows;
Till rapt she dwells on every string
And pours again each sound along,
Like echo, lost and languishing,
In love with her own wondrous song.

That evening, (trusting that his soul
Might be from haunting love released
By mirth, by music and the bowl,)
The Imperial SELIM held a feast
In his magnificent Shalimar:[313]--
In whose Saloons, when the first star
Of evening o'er the waters trembled,
The Valley's loveliest all assembled;
All the bright creatures that like dreams
Glide thro' its foliage and drink beams
Of beauty from its founts and streams;[314]
And all those wandering minstrel-maids,
Who leave--how _can_ they leave?--the shades
Of that dear Valley and are found
Singing in gardens of the South[315]
Those songs that ne'er so sweetly sound
As from a young Cashmerian's mouth.

There too the Haram's inmates smile;--
Maids from the West, with sun-bright hair,
And from the Garden of the NILE,
Delicate as the roses there;[316]--
Daughters of Love from CYPRUS rocks,
With Paphian diamonds in their locks;[317]--
Light PERI forms such as there are
On the gold Meads of CANDAHAR;[318]
And they before whose sleepy eyes
In their own bright Kathaian bowers
Sparkle such rainbow butterflies
That they might fancy the rich flowers
That round them in the sun lay sighing
Had been by magic all set flying.[319]

Every thing young, every thing fair
From East and West is blushing there,
Except--except--oh, NOURMAHAL!
Thou loveliest, dearest of them all,
The one whose smile shone out alone,
Amidst a world the only one;
Whose light among so many lights
Was like that star on starry nights,
The seaman singles from the sky,
To steer his bark for ever by!
Thou wert not there--so SELIM thought,
And every thing seemed drear without thee;
But, ah! thou wert, thou wert,--and brought
Thy charm of song all fresh about thee,
Mingling unnoticed with a band
Of lutanists from many a land,
And veiled by such a mask as shades
The features of young Arab maids,[320]--
A mask that leaves but one eye free,
To do its best in witchery,--
She roved with beating heart around
And waited trembling for the minute
When she might try if still the sound
Of her loved lute had magic in it.

The board was spread with fruits and wine,
With grapes of gold, like those that shine
On CASBIN hills;[321]--pomegranates full
Of melting sweetness, and the pears,
And sunniest apples[322] that CAUBUL
In all its thousand gardens[323] bears;--
Plantains, the golden and the green,
MALAYA'S nectared mangusteen;[324]
Prunes of BOCKHARA, and sweet nuts
From the far groves of SAMARCAND,
And BASRA dates, and apricots,
Seed of the Sun,[325] from IRAN'S land;--
With rich conserve of Visna cherries,[326]
Of orange flowers, and of those berries
That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles
Feed on in ERAC's rocky dells.[327]
All these in richest vases smile,
In baskets of pure santal-wood,
And urns of porcelain from that isle[328]
Sunk underneath the Indian flood,
Whence oft the lucky diver brings
Vases to grace the halls of kings.
Wines too of every clime and hue
Around their liquid lustre threw;
Amber Rosolli,[329]--the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green-Sea gushing;[330]
And SHIRAZ wine that richly ran
As if that jewel large and rare,
The ruby for which KUBLAI-KHAN
Offered a city's wealth,[331] was blushing
Melted within the goblets there!

And amply SELIM quaffs of each,
And seems resolved the flood shall reach
His inward heart,--shedding around
A genial deluge, as they run,
That soon shall leave no spot undrowned
For Love to rest his wings upon.
He little knew how well the boy
Can float upon a goblet's streams,
Lighting them with his smile of joy;--
As bards have seen him in their dreams,
Down the blue GANGES laughing glide
Upon a rosy lotus wreath,[332]
Catching new lustre from the tide
That with his image shone beneath.

But what are cups without the aid
Of song to speed them as they flow?
And see--a lovely Georgian maid
With all the bloom, the freshened glow
Of her own country maidens' looks,
When warm they rise from Teflis' brooks;[333]
And with an eye whose restless ray
Full, floating, dark--oh, he, who knows
His heart is weak, of Heaven should pray
To guard him from such eyes as those!--
With a voluptuous wildness flings
Her snowy hand across the strings
Of a syrinda[334] and thus sings:--

Come hither, come hither--by night and by day,
We linger in pleasures that never are gone;
Like the waves of the summer as one dies away
Another as sweet and as shining comes on.
And the love that is o'er, in expiring gives birth
To a new one as warm, as unequalled in bliss;
And, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.[335]

Here maidens are sighing, and fragrant their sigh
As the flower of the Amra just oped by a bee;[336]
And precious their tears as that rain from the sky,[337]
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.
Oh! think what the kiss and the smile must be worth
When the sigh and the tear are so perfect in bliss,
And own if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

Here sparkles the nectar that hallowed by love
Could draw down those angels of old from their sphere,
Who for wine of this earth[338] left the fountains above,
And forgot heaven's stars for the eyes we have here.
And, blest with the odor our goblet gives forth,
What Spirit the sweets of his Eden would miss?
For, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

The Georgian's song was scarcely mute,
When the same measure, sound for sound,
Was caught up by another lute
And so divinely breathed around
That all stood husht and wondering,
And turned and lookt into the air,
As if they thought to see the wing
Of ISRAFIL[339] the Angel there;--
So powerfully on every soul
That new, enchanted measure stole.
While now a voice sweet as the note
Of the charmed lute was heard to float
Along its chords and so entwine
Its sounds with theirs that none knew whether
The voice or lute was most divine,
So wondrously they went together:--

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linkt in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on thro' all ills and love on till they die!
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

'Twas not the air, 'twas not the words,
But that deep magic in the chords
And in the lips that gave such power
As music knew not till that hour.
At once a hundred voices said,
"It is the maskt Arabian maid!"
While SELIM who had felt the strain
Deepest of any and had lain
Some minutes rapt as in a trance
After the fairy sounds were o'er.
Too inly touched for utterance,
Now motioned with his hand for more:--

Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab's tents are rude for thee;
But oh! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love or thrones without?
Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
The acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.

Our sands are bare, but down their slope
The silvery-footed antelope
As gracefully and gayly springs
As o'er the marble courts of kings.

Then come--thy Arab maid will be
The loved and lone acacia-tree.
The antelope whose feet shall bless
With their light sound thy loneliness.

Oh! there are looks and tones that dart
An instant sunshine thro' the heart,--
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure it thro' life had sought;

As if the very lips and eyes,
Predestined to have all our sighs
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled and spoke before us then!

So came thy every glance and tone,
When first on me they breathed and shone,
New as if brought from other spheres
Yet welcome as if loved for years.

Then fly with me,--if thou hast known
No other flame nor falsely thrown
A gem away, that thou hadst sworn
Should ever in thy heart be worn.

Come if the love thou hast for me
Is pure and fresh as mine for thee,--
Fresh as the fountain under ground,
When first 'tis by the lapwing found.[340]

But if for me thou dost forsake
Some other maid and rudely break
Her worshipt image from its base,
To give to me the ruined place;--

Then fare thee well--I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake
When thawing suns begin to shine
Than trust to love so false as thine.

There was a pathos in this lay,
That, even without enchantment's art,
Would instantly have found its way
Deep in to SELIM'S burning heart;
But breathing as it did a tone
To earthly lutes and lips unknown;
With every chord fresh from the touch
Of Music's Spirit,--'twas too much!
Starting he dasht away the cup,--
Which all the time of this sweet air
His hand had held, untasted, up,
As if 'twere fixt by magic there--
And naming her, so long unnamed,
So long unseen, wildly exclaimed,
"Oh NOURMAHAL! oh NOURMAHAL!
"Hadst thou but sung this witching strain,
"I could forget--forgive thee all
"And never leave those eyes again."

The mask is off--the charm is wrought--
And SELIM to his heart has caught,
In blushes, more than ever bright,
His NOURMAHAL, his Haram's Light!
And well do vanisht frowns enhance
The charm of every brightened glance;
And dearer seems each dawning smile
For having lost its light awhile:
And happier now for all her sighs
As on his arm her head reposes
She whispers him, with laughing eyes,
"Remember, love, the Feast of Roses!"

FADLADEEN, at the conclusion of this light rhapsody, took occasion to sum
up his opinion of the young Cashmerian's poetry,--of which, he trusted,
they had that evening heard the last. Having recapitulated the epithets,
"frivolous"--"inharmonious"--"nonsensical," he proceeded to say that,
viewed in the most favorable light it resembled one of those Maldivian
boats, to which the Princess had alluded in the relation of her dream,--
a slight, gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with
nothing but vapid sweets and faded flowers on board. The profusion,
indeed, of flowers and birds, which this poet had ready on all occasions,
--not to mention dews, gems, etc.--was a most oppressive kind of opulence
to his hearers; and had the unlucky effect of giving to his style all the
glitter of the flower garden without its method, and all the flutter of
the aviary without its song. In addition to this, he chose his subjects
badly, and was always most inspired by the worst parts of them. The
charms of paganism, the merits of rebellion,--these were the themes
honored with his particular enthusiasm; and, in the poem just recited, one
of his most palatable passages was in praise of that beverage of the
Unfaithful, wine;--"being, perhaps," said he, relaxing into a smile, as
conscious of his own character in the Haram on this point, "one of those
bards, whose fancy owes all its illumination to the grape, like that
painted porcelain,[341] so curious and so rare, whose images are only
visible when liquor is poured into it." Upon the whole, it was his
opinion, from the specimens which they had heard, and which, he begged to
say, were the most tiresome part of the journey, that--whatever other
merits this well-dressed young gentleman might possess--poetry was by no
means his proper avocation; "and indeed," concluded the critic, "from his
fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a
florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than a
poet."

They had now begun to ascend those barren mountains, which separate
Cashmere from the rest of India; and, as the heats were intolerable, and
the time of their encampments limited to the few hours necessary for
refreshment and repose, there was an end to all their delightful evenings,
and LALLA ROOKH saw no more of FERAMORZ. She now felt that her short dream
of happiness was over, and that she had nothing but the recollection of
its few blissful hours, like the one draught of sweet water that serves
the camel across the wilderness, to be her heart's refreshment during the
dreary waste of life that was before her. The blight that had fallen upon
her spirits soon found its way to her cheek, and her ladies saw with
regret--though not without some suspicion of the cause--that the beauty of
their mistress, of which they were almost as proud as of their own, was
fast vanishing away at the very moment of all when she had most need of
it. What must the King of Bucharia feel, when, instead of the lively and
beautiful LALLA ROOKH, whom the poets of Delhi had described as more
perfect than the divinest images in the house of AZOR,[342] he should
receive a pale and inanimate victim, upon whose cheek neither health nor
pleasure bloomed, and from whose eyes Love had fled,--to hide himself in
her heart?

If any thing could have charmed away the melancholy of her spirits, it
would have been the fresh airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley,
which the Persians so justly called the Unequalled.[343] But neither the
coolness of its atmosphere, so luxurious after toiling up those bare and
burning mountains,--neither the splendor of the minarets and pagodas, that
shone put from the depth of its woods, nor the grottoes, hermitages, and
miraculous fountains,[344] which make every spot of that region holy
ground,--neither the countless waterfalls, that rush into the Valley from
all those high and romantic mountains that encircle it, nor the fair city
on the Lake, whose houses, roofed with flowers,[345] appeared at a
distance like one vast and variegated parterre;--not all these wonders and
glories of the most lovely country under the sun could steal her heart for
a minute from those sad thoughts which but darkened and grew bitterer
every step she advanced.

The gay pomps and processions that met her upon her entrance into the
Valley, and the magnificence with which the roads all along were
decorated, did honor to the taste and gallantry of the young King. It was
night when they approached the city, and, for the last two miles, they had
passed under arches, thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with only those
rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is
distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the
triple-colored tortoise-shell of Pegu.[346] Sometimes, from a dark wood
by the side of the road, a display of fireworks would break out, so sudden
and so brilliant, that a Brahmin might fancy he beheld that grove, in
whose purple shade the God of Battles was born, bursting into a flame at
the moment of his birth;--while, at other times, a quick and playful
irradiation continued to brighten all the fields and gardens by which they
passed, forming a line of dancing lights along the horizon; like the
meteors of the north as they are seen by those hunters who pursue the
white and blue foxes on the confines of the Icy Sea.

These arches and fireworks delighted the Ladies of the Princess
exceedingly; and, with their usual good logic, they deduced from his taste
for illuminations, that the King of Bucharia would make the most exemplary
husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could LALLA ROOKH herself help feeling
the kindness and splendor with which the young bridegroom welcomed
her;--but she also felt how painful is the gratitude which kindness from
those we cannot love excites; and that their best blandishments come over
the heart with all that chilling and deadly sweetness which we can fancy
in the cold, odoriferous wind[347] that is to blow over this earth in the
last days.

The marriage was fixed for the morning after her arrival, when she was,
for the first time, to be presented to the monarch in that Imperial Palace
beyond the lake, called the Shalimar. Though never before had a night of
more wakeful and anxious thought been passed in the Happy Valley, yet,
when she rose in the morning, and her Ladies came around her, to assist in
the adjustment of the bridal ornaments, they thought they had never seen
her look half so beautiful. What she had lost of the bloom and radiancy
of her charms was more than made up by that intellectual expression, that
soul beaming forth from the eyes, which is worth all the rest of
loveliness. When they had tinged her fingers with the Henna leaf, and
placed upon her brow a small coronet of jewels, of the shape worn by the
ancient Queens of Bucharia, they flung over her head the rose-colored
bridal veil, and she proceeded to the barge that was to convey her across
the lake;--first kissing, with a mournful look, the little amulet of
cornelian, which her father at parting had hung about her neck.

The morning was as fresh and fair as the maid on whose nuptials it rose,
and the shining lake, all covered with boats, the minstrels playing upon
the shores of the islands, and the crowded summer-houses on the green
hills around, with shawls and banners waving from their roofs, presented
such a picture of animated rejoicing, as only she, who was the object of
it all, did not feel with transport. To LALLA ROOKH alone it was a
melancholy pageant; nor could she have even borne to look upon the scene,
were it not for a hope that among the crowds around, she might once more
perhaps catch a glimpse of FERAMORZ. So much was her imagination haunted
by this thought that there was scarcely an islet or boat she passed on the
way at which her heart did not flutter with the momentary fancy that he
was there. Happy, in her eyes, the humblest slave upon whom the light of
his dear looks fell!--In the barge immediately after the Princess sat
FADLADEEN, with his silken curtains thrown widely apart, that all might
have the benefit of his august presence, and with his head full of the
speech he was to deliver to the King, "concerning FERAMORZ and literature
and the Chabuk as connected therewith."

They now had entered the canal which leads from the Lake to the splendid
domes and saloons of the Shalimar and went gliding on through the gardens
that ascended from each bank, full of flowering shrubs that made the air
all perfume; while from the middle of the canal rose jets of water, smooth
and unbroken, to such a dazzling height that they stood like tall pillars
of diamond in the sunshine. After sailing under the arches of various
saloons they at length arrived at the last and most magnificent, where the
monarch awaited the coming of his bride; and such was the agitation of her
heart and frame that it was with difficulty she could walk up the marble
steps which were covered with cloth of gold for her ascent from the barge.
At the end of the hall stood two thrones, as precious as the Cerulean
Throne of Koolburga,[348] on one of which sat ALIRIS, the youthful King
of Bucharia, and on the other was in a few minutes to be placed the most
beautiful Princess in the world. Immediately upon the entrance of LALLA
ROOKH into the saloon the monarch descended from his throne to meet her;
but scarcely had he time to take her hand in his when she screamed with
surprise and fainted at his feet. It was FERAMORZ, himself, who stood
before her! FERAMORZ, was, himself, the Sovereign of Bucharia, who in this
disguise had accompanied his young bride from Delhi, and having won her
love as an humble minstrel now amply deserved to enjoy it as a King.

The consternation of FADLADEEN at this discovery was, for the moment,
almost pitiable. But change of opinion is a resource too convenient in
courts for this experienced courtier not to have learned to avail himself
of it. His criticisms were all, of course, recanted instantly: he was
seized with an admiration of the King's verses, as unbounded as, he begged
him to believe, it was disinterested; and the following week saw him in
possession of an additional place, swearing by all the Saints of Islam
that never had there existed so great a poet as the Monarch ALIRIS, and
moreover ready to prescribe his favorite regimen of the Chabuk for every
man, woman and child that dared to think otherwise.

Of the happiness of the King and Queen of Bucharia, after such a
beginning, there can be but little doubt; and among the lesser symptoms it
is recorded of LALLA ROOKH that to the day of her death in memory of their
delightful journey she never called the King by any other name than
FERAMORZ.

[1] These particulars of the visit of the King of Bucharia to Aurungzebe
are found in _Dow's "History of Hindostan_," vol. iii. p. 392.

[2] Tulip cheek.

[3] The mistress of Mejnoun, upon whose story so many Romances in all the
languages of the East are founded.

[4] For the loves of this celebrated beauty with Khosrou and with Ferhad,
see _D'Herbelot, Gibbon, Oriental Collections_, etc.

[5] "The history of the loves of Dewilde and Chizer, the son of the
Emperor Alla, is written in an elegant poem, by the noble Chusero."---
_Ferishta_.

[6] Gul Reazee.

[7] "One mark of honor or knighthood bestowed by the Emperor is the
permission to wear a small kettle-drum at the bows of their saddles, which
at first was invented for the training of hawks, and to call them to the
lure, and is worn in the field by all sportsmen to that end."--_Fryer's_
Travels. "Those on whom the King has conferred the privilege must wear an
ornament of jewels on the right side of the turban, surmounted by a high
plume of the feathers of a kind of egret. This bird is found only in
Cashmere, and the feathers are carefully collected for the King, who
bestows them on his nobles."--_Elphinstone's_ Account of Cabul.

[8] "Khedar Khan, the Khakan, or King of Turquestan beyond the Gibon (at
the end of the eleventh century), whenever he appeared abroad was preceded
by seven hundred horsemen with silver battle-axes, and was followed by an
equal number bearing maces of gold. He was a great patron of poetry, and
it was he who used to preside at public exercises of genius, with four
basins of gold and silver by him to distribute among the poets who
excelled."--_Richardson's_ Dissertation prefixed to his Dictionary.

[9] "The kubdeh, a large golden knob, generally in the shape of a pine-
apple, on the top of the canopy over the litter or palanquin."--_Scott's_
Notes on the Bahardanush.

[10] In the Poem of Zohair, in the Moallakat, there is the following
lively description of "a company of maidens seated on camels." "They are
mounted in carriages covered with costly awnings, and with rose-colored
veils, the linings of which have the hue of crimson Andem-wood. "When they
ascend from the bosom of the vale, they sit forward on the saddlecloth,
with every mark of a voluptuous gayety. "Now, When they have reached the
brink of yon blue-gushing rivulet, they fix the poles of their tents like
the Arab with a settled mansion."

[11] See _Bernier's_ description of the attendants on Rauchanara Begum, in
her progress to Cashmere.

[12] This hypocritical Emperor would have made a worthy associate of
certain Holy Leagues.--"He held the cloak of religion [says Dow] between
his actions and the vulgar; and impiously thanked the Divinity for a
success which he owed to his own wickedness. When he was murdering and
persecuting his brothers and their families, he was building a magnificent
mosque at Delhi, as an offering to God for his assistance to him in the
civil wars. He acted as high priest at the consecration of this temple;
and made a practice of attending divine service there, in the humble dress
of a Fakeer. But when he lifted one hand to the Divinity, he, with the
other, signed warrants for the assassination of his relations."--"_History
of Hindostan_,". vol. iii. p.335. See also the curious letter of
Aurungzebe, given in the _Oriental Collections_, vol. i. p.320.