"True as the worm in this cold heart it is

"I am MOKANNA's bride

his, Azim, his

"The Dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow, "Their blue lips echoed it - I hear them now! "Their eyes glared on me, while I pledged that bowl, ""T was burning blood I feel it in

my

soul!

"And the Veiled Bridegroom-hist! I've seen to

night

"What angels know not of

so foul a sight,

"So horrible oh! never may'st thou see

"What there lies hid from all but hell and me!

"But I must hence off, off- I am not thine, Love's, nor aught that is

"Nor Heaven's, nor

divine

"Hold me not

66

sever

ha! think'st thou the fiends that

Hearts, cannot sunder hands? - thus, then-for

ever!"

With all that strength, which madness lends the

weak,

She flung away his arm; and, with a shriek,

Whose sound, though he should linger out more

years

Than wretch e'er told, can never leave his ears

Flew up through that long avenue of light,
Fleetly as some dark, ominous bird of night,
Across the sun, and soon was out of sight!

LALLA ROOKH could think of nothing all day but the misery of these two young lovers. Her gayety was gone, and she looked pensively even upon FADLADEEN. She felt, too, without knowing why, a sort of uneasy pleasure in imagining that AZIM must have been just such a youth as FERAMORZ; just as worthy to enjoy all the blessings, without any of the pangs, of that illusive passion, which too often, like the sunny apples of Istkahar," is all sweetness on the one side, and all bitterness on the other.

97

As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, they saw a young Hindoo girl upon the bank, whose employment seemed to them so strange, that they stopped their palankeens to observe her. She had lighted a small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthen dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to the stream; and was now anxiously watching its progress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. LALLA ROOKH was all curiosity; - when one of her attendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges, (where this ceremony is so frequent, that often, in the dusk of the evening, the river is seen

glittering all over with lights, like the Oton-tala or Sea of Stars,98) informed the Princess that it was the usual way, in which the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sunk immediately, the omen was disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream, and continued to burn till entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was considered as certain.

LALLA ROOKH, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo's lamp proceeded; and, while she saw with pleasure that it was still unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river. The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. She now, for the first time, felt that shade of melancholy, which comes over the youthful maiden's heart, as sweet and transient as her own breath upon a mirror; nor was it till she heard the lute of FERAMORZ, touched lightly at the door of her pavilion, that she waked from the reverie in which she had been wandering. Instantly her eyes were lighted up with pleasure; and, after a few unheard remarks: from FADLADEEN upon the indecorum of a poet seating himself in presence of a Princess, everything was arranged as on the preceding evening, and all listened with eagerness, while the story was thus continued: :

WHOSE are the gilded tents that crowd the way,
Where all was waste and silent yesterday?

This City of War which, in a few short hours,
Hath sprung up here," as if the magic powers
Of Him who, in the twinkling of a star,
Built the high pillared halls of CHILMINAR,100
Had conjured up, far as the eye can see,

This world of tents, and domes, and sun-bright

armory;

Princely pavilions, screened by many a fold

Of crimson cloth, and topped with balls of gold;
Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun,
Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun;
And camels, tufted o'er with Yemen's shells,101
Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells!

But yester-eve, so motionless around,

So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound
But the far torrent, or the locust-bird 102
Hunting among the thickets, could be heard ;-
Yet hark! what discords now, of every kind,

Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies;
War-music, bursting out from time to time,
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime;
Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute,
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of th' Abyssinian trumpet,104 swell and float.

Who leads this mighty army ? - ask ye "who?" And mark ye not those banners of dark hue, The Night and Shadow,105 over yonder tent? It is the CALIPH's glorious armament.

Roused in his Palace by the dread alarms,
That hourly came, of the false Prophet's arms,
And of his host of infidels, who hurled
Defiance fierce at Islam 106 and the world,
Though worn with Grecian warfare, and behind
The veils of his bright Palace calm reclined,
Yet brooked he not such blasphemy should stain,
Thus unrevenged, the evening of his reign;
But, having sworn upon the Holy Grave,107
To conquer or to perish, once more gave
His shadowy banners proudly to the breeze,
And with an army, nursed in victories,
Here stands to crush the rebels that o'errun
His blest and beauteous Province of the Sun,

Ne'er did the march of MAHADI display

Such pomp before; - not even when on his way