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 To paint thy pangs in that dread hour ---- As those who feel could paint too well, Of a lorn spirit, crush'd by fate, When, though the inmate Hope be dead, The wretch may bear, and yet live on, Alive, when all's congeal'd around. To the keen, burning, harrowing pain, Now felt through all thy breast and brain- From whose hot throb, whose deadly aching Calm is the wave- heav'n's brilliant lights Time was when, on such lovely nights, And ask no happier joy than seeing 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 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 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 "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 — 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, 4 And still, when the merry date-season is burning, 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. |