They planted the pole of their tent,
And they laid them down to repose.
At midnight Thalaba started up,
For he felt that the ring on his finger was moved.
He called on Allah aloud,
And he called on the Prophet’s name.
Moath arose in alarm,
“What ails thee Thalaba?” he cried,
“Is the Robber of night at hand?”
“Dost thou not see,” the youth exclaimed,
“A Spirit in the Tent?”
Moath looked round and said,
“The moon beam shines in the Tent,
“I see thee stand in the light,
“And thy shadow is black on the ground.”
Thalaba answered not.
“Spirit!” he cried, “what brings thee here?
“In the name of the Prophet, speak,
“In the name of Allah, obey!”
He ceased, and there was silence in the Tent.
“Dost thou not hear?” quoth Thalaba.
The listening man replied,
“I hear the wind, that flaps
“The curtain of the Tent.
“The Ring! the Ring!” the youth exclaimed.
“For that the Spirit of Evil comes,
“By that I see, by that I hear.
“In the name of God, I ask thee
“Who was he that slew my Father?”
DEMON.
Master of the powerful Ring!
Okba, the wise Magician, did the deed.
THALABA.
Where does the Murderer dwell?
DEMON.
In the Domdaniel caverns
Under the Roots of the Ocean.
THALABA.
Why were my Father and my brethren slain?
DEMON.
We knew from the race of Hodeirah
The destined destroyer would come.
THALABA.
Bring me my father’s sword.
DEMON.
A fire surrounds the fated-sword,
No Spirit or Magician’s hand
Can pierce that guardian flame.
THALABA.
Bring me his bow and his arrows.
Distinctly Moath heard his voice, and She
Who thro’ the Veil of Separation, watched
All sounds in listening terror, whose suspense
Forbade the aid of prayer.
They heard the voice of Thalaba;
But when the Spirit spake, the motionless air
Felt not the subtle sounds,
Too fine for mortal sense.
On a sudden the rattle of arrows was heard,
And the quiver was laid at the feet of the youth,
And in his hand they saw Hodeirah’s Bow.
He eyed the Bow, he twanged the string,
And his heart bounded to the joyous tone.
Anon he raised his voice, and cried
“Go thy way, and never more,
“Evil Spirit, haunt our tent!
“By the virtue of the Ring,
“By Mohammed’s holier might,
“By the holiest name of God,
“Thee and all the Powers of Hell
“I adjure and I command
“Never more to trouble us!”
Nor ever from that hour
Did rebel Spirit on the Tent intrude,
Such virtue had the Spell.
And peacefully the vernal years
Of Thalaba past on.
Till now without an effort he could bend
Hodeirah’s stubborn Bow.
Black were his eyes and bright,
The sunny hue of health
Glowed on his tawny cheek,
His lip was darkened by maturing life;
Strong were his shapely limbs, his stature tall;
He was a comely youth.
Compassion for the child
Had first old Moath’s kindly heart possessed,
An orphan, wailing in the wilderness.
But when he heard his tale, his wonderous tale,
Told by the Boy with such eye-speaking truth,
Now with sudden bursts of anger,
Now in the agony of tears,
And now in flashes of prophetic joy.
What had been pity became reverence,
And like a sacred trust from Heaven
The old man cherished him.
Now with a father’s love,
Child of his choice, he loved the Boy,
And like a father to the Boy was dear.
Oneiza called him brother, and the youth,
More fondly than a brother, loved the maid,
The loveliest of Arabian maidens she.
How happily the years
Of Thalaba went by!
It was the wisdom and the will of Heaven
That in a lonely tent had cast
The lot of Thalaba.
There might his soul develope best
Its strengthening energies;
There might he from the world
Keep his heart pure and uncontaminate,
Till at the written hour he should be found
Fit servant of the Lord, without a spot.
Years of his youth, how rapidly ye fled
In that beloved solitude!
Is the morn fair, and does the freshening breeze
Flow with cool current o’er his cheek?
Lo! underneath the broad-leaved sycamore
With lids half closed he lies,
Dreaming of days to come.
His dog beside him, in mute blandishment,
Now licks his listless hand,
Now lifts an anxious and expectant eye
Courting the wonted caress.
Or comes the Father of the Rains
From his Caves in the uttermost West,
Comes he in darkness and storms?
When the blast is loud,
When the waters fill
The Travellers tread in the sands,
When the pouring shower
Streams adown the roof,
When the door-curtain hangs in heavier folds,
When the outstrained tent flags loosely,
Comfort is within,
The embers chearful glow,
The sound of the familiar voice,
The song that lightens toil.
Under the common shelter on dry sand
The quiet Camels ruminate their food;
From Moath falls the lengthening cord,
As patiently the old Man
Intwines the strong palm-fibers; by the hearth
The Damsel shakes the coffee-grains,
That with warm fragrance fill the tent;
And while with dextrous fingers, Thalaba
Shapes the green basket, haply at his feet
Her favourite kidling gnaws the twig,
Forgiven plunderer, for Oneiza’s sake!
Or when the winter torrent rolls
Down the deep-channelled rain-course, foamingly,
Dark with its mountain spoils,
With bare feet pressing the wet sand
There wanders Thalaba,
The rushing flow, the flowing roar,
Filling his yielded faculties;
A vague, a dizzy, a tumultuous joy.
... Or lingers it a vernal brook
Gleaming o’er yellow sands?
Beneath the lofty bank reclined,
With idle eye he views its little waves,
Quietly listening to the quiet flow;
While in the breathings of the stirring gale
The tall canes bend above,
Floating like streamers on the wind
Their lank uplifted leaves.
Nor rich, nor poor, was Moath; God had given
Enough, and blest him with a mind content.
No hoarded gold disquieted his dreams;
But ever round his station he beheld
Camels that knew his voice,
And home
-birds, grouping at Oneiza’s call,
And goats that, morn and eve,
Came with full udders to the Damsel’s hand.
Dear child! the Tent beneath whose shade they dwelt
That was her work; and she had twined
His girdle’s many-hues;
And he had seen his robe
Grow in Oneiza’s loom.
How often with a memory-mingled joy
That made her Mother live before his sight,
He watched her nimble finders thread the woof!
Or at the hand-mill when she knelt and toiled,
Tost the thin cake on spreading palm,
Or fixed it on the glowing oven’s side
With bare wet arm, in safe dexterity.
’Tis the cool evening hour:
The Tamarind from the dew
Sheaths its young fruit, yet green.
Before their Tent the mat is spread,
The old man’s aweful voice
Intones the holy Book.
What if beneath no lamp-illumined dome,
Its marble walls bedecked with flourished truth,
Azure and gold adornment? sinks the Word
With deeper influence from the Imam’s voice,
Where in the day of congregation, crowds
Perform the duty task?
Their Father is their Priest,
The Stars of Heaven their point of prayer,
And the blue Firmament
The glorious Temple, where they feel
The present Deity.
Yet thro’ the purple glow of eve
Shines dimly the white moon.
The slackened bow, the quiver, the long lance,
Rest on the pillar of the Tent.
Knitting light palm-leaves for her brother’s brow
The dark-eyed damsel sits;
The Old Man tranquilly
Up his curled pipe inhales
The tranquillizing herb.
So listen they the reed of Thalaba,
While his skilled fingers modulate
The low, sweet, soothing, melancholy tones,
Or if he strung the pearls of Poetry
Singing with agitated face
And eloquent arms, and sobs that reach the heart,
A tale of love and woe;
Then, if the brightening Moon that lit his face
In darkness favoured her’s,
Oh! even with such a look, as, fables say,
The mother Ostrich fixes on her egg,
Till that intense affection
Kindle its light of life,
Even in such deep and breathless tenderness
Oneiza’s soul is centered on the youth,
So motionless with such an ardent gaze,
Save when from her full eyes
Quickly she wipes away the gushing tears
That dim his image there.
She called him brother: was it sister-love
That made the silver rings
Round her smooth ankles and her twany arms,
Shine daily brightened? for a brother’s eye
Were her long fingers tinged,
As when she trimmed the lamp,
And thro’ the veins and delicate skin
The light shone rosy? that the darkened lids
Gave yet a softer lustre to her eye?
That with such pride she tricked
Her glossy tresses, and on holy day
Wreathed the red flower-crown round their jetty waves?
How happily the years
Of Thalaba went by!
Yet was the heart of Thalaba
Impatient of repose;
Restless he pondered still
The task for him decreed,
The mighty and mysterious work announced.
Day by day with youthful ardour
He the call of Heaven awaits,
And oft in visions o’er the Murderer’s head
He lifts the avenging arm,
And oft in dreams he sees
The Sword that is circled with fire.
One morn as was their wont, in sportive mood
The youth and damsel bent Hodeirah’s bow,
For with no feeble hand nor erring aim
Oneiza could let loose the obedient shaft.
With head back-bending, Thalaba
Shot up the aimless arrow high in air,
Whose line in vain the aching sight pursued
Lost in the depth of heaven.
“When will the hour arrive,” exclaimed the youth,
“That I shall aim these fated shafts
“To vengeance long delayed?
“Have I not strength, my father, for the deed?
“Or can the will of Providence
“Be mutable like man?
“Shall I never be called to the task?”
“Impatient boy!” quoth Moath, with a smile:
“Impatient Thalaba!” Oneiza cried,
And she too smiled, but in her smile
A mild reproachful melancholy mixed.
Then Moath pointed where a cloud
Of Locusts, from the desolated fields
Of Syria, winged their way.
“Lo! how created things
“Obey the written doom!”
Onward they came, a dark continuous cloud
Of congregated myriads numberless,
The rushing of whose wings was as the sound
Of a broad river, headlong in its course
Plunged from a mountain summit, or the roar
Of a wild ocean in the autumn storm,
Shattering its billows on a shore of rocks.
Onward they came, the winds impelled them on,
Their work was done, their path of ruin past,
Their graves were ready in the wilderness.
“Behold the mighty army!” Moath cried,
“Blindly they move, impelled
“By the blind Element.
“And yonder Birds our welcome visitants,
“Lo! where they soar above the embodied host,
“Pursue their way, and hang upon their rear,
“And thin their spreading flanks,
“Rejoicing o’er their banquet! deemest thou
“The scent of water, on the Syrian mosque
“Placed with priest-mummery, and the jargon-rites
“That fool the multitude, has led them here
“From far Khorasan? Allah who decreed
“Yon tribe the plague and punishment of man,
“These also hath he doomed to meet their way:
“Both passive instruments
“Of his all-acting will,
“Sole mover he, and only spring of all.”
While thus he spake, Oneiza’s eye looks up
Where one towards her flew,
Satiate, for so it seemed, with sport and food.
The Bird flew over her,
And as he past above,
From his relaxing grasp a Locust fell....
It fell upon the Maiden’s robe,
And feebly there it stood, recovering slow.
The admiring girl surveyed
His out-spread sails of green.
His gauzy underwings,
One closely to the grass green body furled,
One ruffled in the fall, and half unclosed.
She viewed his jet-orbed eyes
His glossy gorget bright
Green-glittering in the sun;
His plumy pliant horns
That, nearer as she gazed,
Bent tremblingly before her breath.
She viewed his yellow-circled front
With lines mysterious veined;
“And knowest thou what is written here,
“My father?” said the Maid.
“Look Thalaba! perchance these lines
“Are in the letters of the Ring,
“Nature’s own language written here.”
The youth bent down, and suddenly
He started, and his heart
Sprung, and his cheek grew red,
For the mysterious lines were legible,
WHEN THE SUN SHALL BE DARKENED AT NOON,
SON OF HODEIRAH, DEPART.
And Moath looked, and read the lines aloud;
The Locust shook his wings and fled,
And they were silent all.
Who then rejoiced but Thalaba?
Who then was troubled but the Arabian Maid?
And Moath sad of heart,
Tho’ with a grief supprest, beheld the youth
Sharpen his arrows now,
And now new-plume their shafts,
Now to beguile impatient hope
Feel every sharpened point.
“Why is that anxious look,” Oneiza cried,
“Still upwards cast at noon?
“Is Thalaba aweary of our tent?”
“I would be gone,” the youth replied,
“That I might do my task,
“And full of glory to the tent return
“Whence I should part no more.”
But on the noontide sun,
As anxious and as oft Oneiza’s eye
Was upward glanced in fear.
And now as Thalaba replied, her cheek
Lost its fresh and lively hue,
For in the Sun’s bright edge
She saw, or thought she saw, a little speck.
The sage Astronomer
Who with the love of science full
Trembled that day at every passing cloud,
He had not seen it, ’twas a speck so small.
Alas! Oneiza sees the spot increase!
And lo! the ready Youth
Over his shoulder the full quiver slings
And grasps the slackened bow.
It spreads, and spreads, and now
Has shaddowed half the Sun,
Whose crescent-pointed horns
Now momently decrease.
The day grows dark, the Birds retire to rest;
Forth from her shadowy haunt
Flies the large-headed Screamer of the night.
Far off the affrighted African,
Deeming his God deceased,
Falls on his knees in prayer,
And trembles as he sees
The fierce Hyena’s eyes
Glare in the darkness of that dreadful noon.
Then Thalaba exclaimed, “Farewell,
“My father! my Oneiza!” the Old Man
Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey Page 100