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.

Nor shadow of earth eclipse ;-before whose gems
The paly pomp of this world's diadems,
The crown of Gerashid, the pillared throne
Of Parviz,* and the heron crest that shone,+
Magnificent, o'er Ali's beauteous eyes,+

Fade like the stars when morn is in the skies :
Warriors, rejoice-the port to which we've passed
O'er Destiny's dark wave beams out at last!
Victory's our own-'tis written in that Book
Upon whose leaves none but the angels look,
That Islam's sceptre shall beneath the power
Of her great foe fall broken in that hour
When the moon's mighty orb, before all eyes,
From Neksheb's Holy Well portentously shall rise!
Now turn and see!"-

They turned, and, as he spoke,

A sudden splendor all around them broke,
And they beheld an orb, ample and bright,
Rise from the Holy Well, § and cast its light
Round the rich city and the plain for miles, ||-
Flinging such radiance o'er the gilded tiles
Of many a dome and fair-roofed imaret

As autumn suns shed round them when they set.
Instant from all who saw the illusive sign
A murmur broke-" Miraculous! divine!"
The Gheber bowed, thinking his idol star
Had waked, and burst impatient through the bar
Of midnight, to inflame him to the war;
While he of Moussa's creed saw, in that ray,
The glorious Light which, in his freedom's day,
Had rested on the Ark, and now again
Shone out to bless the breaking of his chain.

"To victory!" is at once the cry of all—
Nor stands Mokanna loitering at that call;
But instant the huge gates are flung aside,
And forth, like a diminutive mountain-tide

* Chosroes. D'Herbelot.

For the description of his Throne or Palace, see Gibbon and "The crown of Gerashid is cloudy and tarnished before the heron tuft of thy turban."-From one of the elegies or songs in praise of Ali, written in characters of gold round the gallery of Abbas's tomb.-See Chardin.

The beauty of Ali's eyes was so remarkable that, whenever the Persians would describe anything as very lovely, they say it is Ayn Hali, or the Eyes of Ali.-Chardin.

§ We are not told more of this trick of the Impostor, than that it was "une machine, qu'il disoit être la Lune." According to Richardson, the miracle is perpetuated in Nekscheb.-"Nakshab, the name of a city in Transoxiana, where they say there is a well, in which the appearance of the moon is to be scen night and day."

"Il amusa pendant deux mois le peuple de la ville de Nekhscheb, en faisant sortir toutes les nuits du fond d'un puits un corps lumineux semblable à la Lune, qui portoit sa lumière jusqu'à la distance de plusieurs milles."-D'Herbelot. Hence he was called Sazendéhmah, or the Moon

maker.

They clash-they strive-the Caliph's troops give way."

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