What shriek was that on OMAN'S tide?

It came from yonder drifting bark, That just has caught upon her side

The death-light — and again is dark.

It is the boat

ah, why delay'd? –

That bears the wretched Moslem maid;
Confided to the watchful care

Of a small veteran band, with whom

Their

generous Chieftain would not share The secret of his final doom;

But hop'd when HINDA, safe and free,
Was render'd to her father's eyes,
Their pardon, full and prompt, would be
The ransom of so dear a prize.

Unconscious, thus, of HAFED's fate,

And proud to guard their beauteous freight,~
Scarce had they clear'd the surfy waves
That foam around those frightful caves,

When the curst war-whoops, known so well,

Came echoing from the distant dell ·

Sudden each oar, upheld and still,

Hung dripping o'er the vessel's side,

And, driving at the current's will,

They rock'd along the whispering tide,

While every eye, in mute dismay,

Was tow'rd that fatal mountain turn'd, Where the dim altar's quivering ray

As yet all lone and tranquil burn'd.

Oh! 'tis not, HINDA, in the power
Of fancy's most terrific touch

To paint thy pangs in that dread hour ----
Thy silent agony - 'twas such

As those who feel could paint too well,
But none e'er felt and liv'd to tell!

'Twas not alone the dreary state

Of a lorn spirit, crush'd by fate,

When, though no more remains to dread,
The panic chill will not depart ;-

When, though the inmate Hope be dead,
Her ghost still haunts the mouldering heart.

No

pleasures, hopes, affections gone,

The wretch may bear, and yet live on,
Like things, within the cold rock found
Alive, when all's congeal'd around.
But there's a blank repose in this,

A calm stagnation, that were bliss

To the keen, burning, harrowing pain,

Now felt through all thy breast and brain-
That spasm of terror, mute, intense,
That breathless, agoniz'd suspense,

From whose hot throb, whose deadly aching
The heart hath no relief but breaking!

Calm is the wave -- heav'n's brilliant lights
Reflected dance beneath the prow;-

Time was when, on such lovely nights,
She who is there, so desolate now,
Could sit all cheerful, though alone,

And ask no happier joy than seeing
That star-light o'er the waters thrown-
No joy but that to make her blest,

And the fresh, buoyant sense of Being That bounds in youth's yet careless breast, Itself a star, not borrowing light,

But in its own glad essence bright.

How different now ! - but, hark, again

The yell of havoc rings brave men!

In vain, with beating hearts, ye stand

On the bark's edge — in vain each hand

Half draws the falchion from its sheath;

All's o'er in rust your blades may lie; He, at whose word they've scatter'd death,

Ev'n now, this night, himself must die! Well may ye look to yon dim tower,

And ask, and wondering guess what means The battle-cry at this dead hour

Ah! she could tell you she, who leans Unheeded there, pale, sunk, aghast,

With brow against the dew-cold mast —

Too well she knows

her more than life,

Her soul's first idol and its last,

Lies bleeding in that murderous strife.

Some signal! 'tis a torch's light.

What bodes its solitary glare?

In gasping silence tow'rd the shrine

All eyes are turn'd thine, HINDA, thine、

Fix their last failing life-beams there. 'Twas but a moment fierce and high

The death-pile blaz'd into the sky,

And far away o'er rock and flood

Its melancholy radiance sent; While HAFED, like a vision, stood Reveal'd before the burning pyre,

Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of Fire

Shrin'd in its own grand element !

" "Tis he!" the shuddering maid exclaims,
But, while she speaks, he's seen no more;
High burst in air the funeral flames,..
And IRAN's hopes and hers are o'er!

One wild, heart-broken shriek she gave
Then sprung, as if to reach that blaze,
Where still she fix'd her dying gaze,

And, gazing, sunk into the wave, —

Deep, deep,

where never care or pain

Shall reach her innocent heart again!

Farewelfarewel to thee, ARABY's daughter!

(Thus warbled a PERI beneath the dark sea) No pearl ever lay, under OMAN's green water,

More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.