First, in the van, the people of the Rock,*
On their light mountain steeds, of royal stock :+
Then, chieftains of Damascus, proud to see
The flashing of their swords' rich marquetry;—
Men, from the regions near the Volga's mouth,
Mixed with the rude, black archers of the South;
And Indian lancers, in white-turbaned ranks,
From the far Sinde, or Attock's sacred banks,
With dusky legions from the Land of Myrrh,‡
And many a mace-armed Moor and Mid-sea islander.
Nor less in number, though more new and rude
In warfare's school, was the vast multitude
That, fired by zeal, or by oppression wronged,
Round the white standard of the impostor thronged.
Beside his thousands of Believers-blind,
Burning, and headlong, as the Samiel wind-
Many who felt and more who feared to feel
The bloody Islamite's converting steel,
Flocked to his banner ;-Chiefs of the Uzbek race,
Waving their heron crests with martial grace;
Turkomans, countless as their flocks, led forth
From the aromatic pastures of the North;
Wild warriors of the turquoise hills,§-and those
Who dwell beyond the everlasting snows
Of Hindoo Kosh, in stormy freedom bred,
Their fort the rock, their camp the torrent's bed.
But none, of all who owned the Chief's command,
Rushed to that battle-field with bolder hand,
Or sterner hate, than Iran's outlawed men,
Her Worshippers of Fire ||-all panting then
For vengeance on the accursed Saracen;
Vengeance at last for their dear country spurned,
Her throne usurped, and her bright shrines o'erturned.
From Yezd's¶ eternal Mansion of the Fire,
Where aged saints in dreams of Heaven expire:
From Badku, and those fountains of blue flame
* The inhabitants of Hejaz or Arabia Petræa, called by an Eastern writer, "The People of the Rock."-Ebn Haukal.
"Those horses, called by the Arabians Kochlani, of whom a written genealogy has been kept for 2000 years. They are said to derive their origin from King Solomon's steeds."-Niebuhr.
In the mountains of Nishapour and Tous (in Khorassan) they find turquoises.-Ebn Haukal.
The Ghebers or Guebres, those original natives of Persia who adhered to their ancient faith, the religion of Zoroaster, and who, after the conquest of their country by the Arabs, were either persecuted at home, or forced to become wanderers abroad.
"Yezd, the chief residence of those ancient natives who worship the Sun and the Fire, which latter they have carefully kept lighted, without being once extinguished for a moment, about 3000 years, on a mountain near Yezd, called Ater Quedah, signifying the House or Mansion of the Fire. He is reckoned very unfortunate who dies off that mountain."-Stephen's Persia.
That burn into the Caspian,* fierce they came,
Careless for what or whom the blow was sped,
So vengeance triumphed, and their tyrants bled.
Such was the wild and miscellaneous host,
That high in air their motley banners tost
Around the Prophet-Chief-all eyes still bent
Upon that glittering Veil, where'er it went,
That beacon through the battle's stormy flood,
That rainbow of the field whose showers were blood!
Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set,
And risen again, and found them grappling yet;
While streams of carnage in his noontide blaze
Smoke up to Heaven-hot as that crimson haze
By which the prostrate Caravan is awed,
In the red Desert, when the wind's abroad.
"On, Swords of God!" the panting Caliph calls,-
"Thrones for the living-Heaven for him who falls !"-
"On, brave avengers, on," Mokanna cries,
"And Eblis blast the recreant slave that flies!"
Now comes the brunt, the crisis of the day-
They clash-they strive-the Caliph's troops give way!
Mokanna's self plucks the black Banner down,
And now the Orient World's Imperial crown
Is just within his grasp-when, hark, that shout!
Some hand hath checked the flying Moslem's rout;
And now they turn, they rally-at their head
A warrior, (like those angel youths who led,
In glorious panoply of Heaven's own mail,
The Champions of the Faith through Beder's vale,)+
Bold as if gifted with ten thousand lives,
Turns on the fierce pursuers' blades, and drives
At once the multitudinous torrent back-
While hope and courage kindle in his track;
And, at each step, his bloody falchion makes
Terrible vistas through which victory breaks!
In vain Mokanna, midst the general flight,
Stands, like the red moon, on some stormy night,
Among the fugitive clouds that, hurrying by,
Leave only her unshaken in the sky-
In vain he yells his desperate curses out,
Deals death promiscuously to all about,
To foes that charge and coward friends that fly,
And seems of all the Great Arch-enemy.
The panic spreads-"A miracle!" throughout
"When the weather is hazy, the springs of Naphtha (on an island near Baku) boil up the higher, and the Naphtha often takes fire on the surface of the earth, and runs in a flame into the sea to a distance almost incredible."-Hanway on the Everlasting Fire at Baku.
In the great victory gained by Mahomed at Beder, he was assisted, say the Mussulmans, by three thousand angels, led by Gabriel, mounted on his horse Hiazum.-See The Koran and its Commentators.
The Moslem ranks," a miracle !" they shout,
All gazing on that youth, whose coming seems
A light, a glory, such as breaks in dreams;
And every sword, true as o'er billows dim
The needle tracks the load-star, following him!
Right tow'rds Mokanna now he cleaves his path
Impatient cleaves, as though the bolt of wrath
He bears from Heaven withheld its awful burst
From weaker heads, and souls but half way curst,
To break o'er Him, the mightiest and the worst!
But vain his speed-though, in that hour of blood
Had all God's seraphs round Mokanna stood,
With swords of fire, ready like fate to fall,
Mokanna's soul would have defied them all ;
Yet now, the rush of fugitives, too strong
For human force, hurries even him along:
In vain he struggles 'mid the wedged array
Of flying thousands-he is borne away;
And the sole joy his baffled spirit knows,
In this forced flight, is—murdering as he goes
As a grim tiger, whom the torrent's might
Surprises in some parched ravine at night,
Turns, even in drowning, on the wretched flocks.
Swept with him in that snow-flood from the rocks,
And, to the last, devouring on his way,
Bloodies the stream he hath not power to stay.
"Alla illa Alla !"-the glad shout renew-
"Allah Akbar!"*-the Caliph's in Merou.
Hang out your gilded tapestry in the streets,
And light your shrines and chaunt your ziraleets.+
The Swords of God have triumphed-on his throne
Your Caliph sits, and the veiled Chief hath flown.
Who does not envy that young warrior now,
To whom the Lord of Islam bends his brow,
In all the graceful gratitude of power,
For his throne's safety in that perilous hour?
Who doth not wonder, when, amidst the acclaim
Of thousands, heralding to heaven his name--
'Mid all those holier harmonies of fame
Which sound along the path of virtuous souls,
Like music round a planet as it rolls,-
He turns away-coldly, as if some gloom
Hung o'er his heart no triumphs can illume;
Some sightless grief, upon whose blasted gaze
Though glory's light may play, in vain it plays.
Yes, wretched Azim! thine is such a grief,
Beyond all hope, all terror, all relief;
The Tecbir, or cry of the Arabs. "Alla Acbar!" says Ockley, means, "God is most mighty."
The Ziraleet is a kind of chorus, which the women of the East sing upon joyful occasions. -Russel,
A dark, cold calm, which nothing now can break
Or warm or brighten,-like that Syrian Lake*
Upon whose surface morn and summer shed
Their smiles in vain, for all beneath is dead!—
Hearts there have been o'er which this weight of woe
Came by long use of suffering, tame and slow;
But thine, lost youth! was sudden-over thee
It broke at once, when all seemed ecstasy;
When Hope looked up, and saw the gloomy Past
Melt into splendour, and Bliss dawn at last-
'Twas then, even then, o'er joys so, freshly blown,
This mortal blight of misery came down ;
Even then, the full, warm gushings of thy heart
Were checked-like fount-drops, frozen as they start-
And there, like them, cold, sunless relics hang,
Each fixed and chilled into a lasting pang.
One sole desire, one passion now remains
To keep life's fever still within his veins,
Vengeance !-dire vengeance on the wretch who cast
O'er him and all he loved that ruinous blast.
For this, when rumours reached him in his flight
Far, far away, after that fatal night,-
Rumours of armies, thronging to the attack
Of the Veiled Chief,-for this be winged him back,
Fleet as the vulture speeds to flags unfurled,
And, when all hope seemed desperate, wildly hurled
Himself into the scale, and saved a world.
For this he still lives on, careless of all
The wreaths that Glory on his path lets fall;
For this alone exists-like lightning-fire,
To speed one bolt of vengeance, and expire!
But safe as yet that Spirit of Evil lives;
With a small band of desperate fugitives,
The last sole stubborn fragment, left unriven,
Of the proud host that late stood fronting Heaven,
He gained Merou-breathed a short curse of blood
O'er his lost throne-then passed the Jihon's flood,
And gathering all whose madness of belief
Still saw a Saviour in their down-fallen Chief,
Raised the white banner within Neksheb's gates,+
And there, untamed, the approaching conqueror waits.
Of all his Haram, all that busy hive
With music and with sweets sparkling alive,
He took but one, the partner of his flight,
One-not for love-not for her beauty's light-
No, Zelica stood withering 'midst the gay,
Wan as the blossom that fell yesterday
From the Alma tree and dies, while overhead
* The Dead Sea, which contains neither animal nor vegetable life. A city of Transoxiana.
To-day's young flower is springing in its stead.
Oh, not for love-the deepest-Damned must be
Touched with Heaven'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
As white a page as Virtue e'er unrolled
Blacken, beneath his touch, into a scroll
Of damning sins, sealed with a burning soul-
This is his triumph; this the joy accurst,
That ranks him among demons all but first :
This gives the victim, that before him lies
Blighted and lost, a glory in his eyes,
A light like that with which hell-fire illumes
The ghastly, writhing wretch whom it consumes!
But other tasks now wait him-tasks that need
All the deep daringness of thought and deed
With which the Dives* have gifted him-for mark,
Over yon plains, which night had else made dark,
Those lanterns, countless as the winged lights
That spangle India's fields on showery nights,-
Far as their formidable gleams they shed,
The mighty tents of the beleaguerer spread,
Glimmering along the horizon's dusky line,
And thence in nearer circles, till they shine
Among the founts and groves, o'er which the town
In all its armed magnificence looks down.
Yet, fearless, from his lofty battlements
Mokanna views that multitude of tents;
Nay, smiles to think that, though entoiled, beset,
Not less than myriads dare to front him yet ;-
That friendless, throneless, he thus stands at bay,
Even thus a match for myriads such as they.
"Oh, for a sweep of that dark Angel's wing
Who brushed the thousands of the Assyrian King
To darkness in a moment, that I might
People Hell's chambers with yon host to-night!
But, come what may, let who will grasp the throne,
Caliph or Prophet, Man alike shall groan;
Let who will torture him, Priest-Caliph-King-
Alike this loathsome world of his shall ring
With victims' shrieks and howlings of the slave,—
Sounds that shall glad me even within my grave!"
Thus, to himself but to the scanty train
Still left around him, a far different strain :-
"Glorious Defenders of the sacred Crown
I bear from Heaven, whose light nor blood shall drown
The Demons of the Persian mythology.
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