FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion and government, had the spirit of martyrs in everything relating to such momentous matters as jewels and embroidery.

For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recitation by music, the young Cashmerian held in his hand a kitar, - such as, in old times, the Arab maids of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the gardens of the Alhambra; and having premised, with much humility, that the story he was about to relate was founded on the adventures of that Veiled Prophet of Khorassan,2+ who, in the year of the Hegira 163, created such alarm throughout the Eastern Empire, made an obeisance to the Princess, and thus began :

27

IN that delightful Province of the Sun,
The first of Persian lands he shines upon,
Where all the loveliest children of his beam,
Flow'rets and fruits, blush over every stream,26
And, fairest of all streams, the MURGA roves
Among MEROU's bright palaces and groves ;-
There on that throne, to which the blind belief
Of millions raised him, sat the Prophet-Chief,
The great MOKANNA. O'er his features hung
The Veil, the Silver Veil, which he had flung
In mercy there, to hide from mortal sight
His dazzling brow, till man could bear its light.
For, far less luminous, his votaries said,
Were even the gleams, miraculously shed

O'er MOUSSA's 28 cheek,29 when down the Mount he trod,

All glowing from the presence of his God!

His chosen guard of bold Believers stands;
Young fire-eyed disputants, who deem their swords,
On points of faith, more eloquent than words;
And such their zeal, there's not a youth with brand
Uplifted there, but, at the Chief's command,
Would make his own devoted heart its sheath,
And bless the lips that doomed so dear a death!
In hatred to the Caliph's hue of night,30

Their vesture, helms and all, is snowy white;
Their weapons various some equipped for speed,
With javelins of the light Kathaian reed; 31
Or bows of buffalo-horn and shining quivers
Filled with the stems 82 that bloom on IRAN's rivers; 3
While some, for war's more terrible attacks,
Wield the huge mace and ponderous battle-axe;
And as they wave aloft in morning's beam

34

The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem Like a chenar-tree grove 84 when winter throws O'er all its tufted heads his feathering snows.

Between the porphyry pillars, that uphold The rich moresque-work of the roof of gold, Aloft the Harem's curtained galleries rise, Where through the silken net-work, glancing eyes, From time to time, like sudden gleams that glow Through autumn clouds, shine o'er the pomp below. What impious tongue, ye blushing saints, would dare To hint that aught but Heaven hath placed you there? Or that the loves of this light world could bind, In their gross chain, your Prophet's soaring mind?

No-wrongful thought!-commissioned from above
To people Eden's bowers with shapes of love,
(Creatures so bright, that the same lips and eyes
They wear on earth will serve in Paradise,)
There to recline among Heaven's native maids,
And crown th' Elect with bliss that never fades -
Well hath the Prophet-Chief his bidding done;
And every beauteous race beneath the sun,
From those who kneel at BRAHMA's burning founts,85
To the fresh nymphs bounding o'er YEMEN's mounts;
From PERSIA's eyes of full and fawnlike ray,
To the small, half-shut glances of KATHAY;
And GEORGIA's bloom, and AZAB's darker smiles,
And the gold ringlets of the Western Isles ;
All, all are there ; each land its flower hath given,
To form that fair young Nursery for Heaven!

86

But why this pageant now? this armed array? What triumph crowds the rich Divan to-day With turbaned heads, of every hue and race, Bowing before that veiled and awful face, Like tulip-beds " of different shape and dyes, Bending beneath th' invisible West-wind's sighs! What new-made mystery now, for Faith to sign, And blood to seal, as genuine and divine, What dazzling mimicry of God's own power Hath the bold Prophet planned to grace this hour?

Not such the pageant now, though not less proud; Yon warrior youth, advancing from the crowd,

With silver bow, with belt of broidered crape,
And fur-bound bonnet of Bucharian shape,88
So fiercely beautiful in form and eye,
Like war's wild planet in a summer sky;
That youth to-day, - a proselyte, worth hordes
Of cooler spirits and less practised swords,-
Is come to join, all bravery and belief,

The creed and standard of the heaven-sent Chief.

Though few his years, the West already knows
Young AZIM's fame ;- beyond th' Olympian snows
Ere manhood darkened o'er his downy cheek,
O'erwhelmed in fight and captive to the Greek,89
He lingered there, till peace dissolved his chains;
Oh, who could, even in bondage, tread the plains
Of glorious GREECE, nor feel his spirit rise
Kindling within him? who, with heart and eyes,
Could walk where Liberty had been, nor see
The shining footprints of her Deity,

Nor feel those godlike breathings in the air,
Which mutely told her spirit had been there?
Not he, that youthful warrior,-no, too well
For his soul's quiet worked th' awakening spell;
And now, returning to his own dear land,

Full of those dreams of good that, vainly grand,
Haunt the young heart, proud views of human-

kind,

Of men to Gods exalted and refined,

False views, like that horizon's fair deceit,

Where earth and heaven but seem, alas, to meet!