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;

lie;

All's o'er in rust your blades may
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.

But see

what moves upon

the height?

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!

Farewel-farewel 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.

Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,

How light was thy heart 'till love's witchery came, Like the wind of the south' o'er a summer lute blowing, And hush'd all its music and wither'd its frame!

But long, upon ARABY's green sunny highlands,
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom
Of her, who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands,
With nought but the sea-star to light up her tomb.

4

And still, when the merry date-season is burning,
And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old,
The happiest there, from their pastime returning,
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told.

The young village maid, when with flowers she dresses Her dark flowing hair for some festival day,

3 "This wind (the Samoor) so softens the strings of lutes, that they can never be tuned while it lasts.". Stephen's Persia.

4" One of the greatest curiosities found in the Persian Gulf is a' fish which the English call Star-fish. It is circular, and at night very luminous, resembling the full moon surrounded by rays.” — Mirza Abu Taleb.

5 For a description of the merriment of the date-time, of their work, their dances, and their return home from the palm-groves at the end of autumn with the fruits, v. Kempfer, Amanitat. Erot.