by Thomas Moore
Their road all the morning had lain through a very dreary country; — through valleys, covered with a low bushy jungle, where in more than one place the awful signal of the bamboo staff213 with the white flag at its top reminded the traveller that in that very spot the tiger had made some human creature his victim. It was therefore with much pleasure that they arrived at sunset in a safe and lovely glen and encamped under one of those holy trees whose smooth columns and spreading roofs seem to destine them for natural temples of religion. Beneath this spacious shade some pious hands had erected a row of pillars ornamented with the most beautiful porcelain214 which now supplied the use of mirrors to the young maidens as they adjusted their hair in descending from the palankeens. Here while as usual the Princess sat listening anxiously with FADLADEEN in one of his loftiest moods of criticism by her side the young Poet leaning against a branch of the tree thus continued his story: —
The morn hath risen clear and calm
And o’er the Green Sea215 palely shines,
Revealing BAHREIN’S groves of palm
And lighting KISHMA’S amber vines.
Fresh smell the shores of ARABY,
While breezes from the Indian sea
Blow round SELAMA’S216 sainted cape
And curl the shining flood beneath, —
Whose waves are rich with many a grape
And cocoa-nut and flowery wreath
Which pious seamen as they past
Had toward that holy headland cast —
Oblations to the Genii there
For gentle skies and breezes fair!
The nightingale now bends her flight217
From the high trees where all the night
She sung so sweet with none to listen;
And hides her from the morning star
Where thickets of pomegranate glisten
In the clear dawn, — bespangled o’er
With dew whose night-drops would not stain
The best and brightest scimitar218
That ever youthful Sultan wore
On the first morning of his reign.
And see — the Sun himself! — on wings
Of glory up the East he springs.
Angel of Light! who from the time
Those heavens began their march sublime,
Hath first of all the starry choir
Trod in his Maker’s steps of fire!
Where are the days, thou wondrous sphere,
When IRAN, like a sun-flower, turned
To meet that eye where’er it burned? —
When from the banks of BENDEMEER
To the nut-groves of SAMARCAND
Thy temples flamed o’er all the land?
Where are they? ask the shades of them
Who, on CADESSIA’S219 bloody plains,
Saw fierce invaders pluck the gem
From IRAN’S broken diadem,
And bind her ancient faith in chains: —
Ask the poor exile cast alone
On foreign shores, unloved, unknown,
Beyond the Caspian’s Iron Gates,
Or on the snowy Mossian mountains,
Far from his beauteous land of dates,
Her jasmine bowers and sunny fountains:
Yet happier so than if he trod
His own beloved but blighted sod
Beneath a despot stranger’s nod! —
Oh, he would rather houseless roam
Where Freedom and his God may lead,
Than be the sleekest slave at home
That crouches to the conqueror’s creed!
Is IRAN’S pride then gone for ever,
Quenched with the flame in MITHRA’S caves?
No — she has sons that never — never —
Will stoop to be the Moslem’s slaves
While heaven has light or earth has graves; —
Spirits of fire that brood not long
But flash resentment back for wrong;
And hearts where, slow but deep, the seeds
Of vengeance ripen into deeds,
Till in some treacherous hour of calm
They burst like ZEILAN’S giant palm220
Whose buds fly open with a sound
That shakes the pigmy forests round!
Yes, EMIR! he, who scaled that tower,
And had he reached thy slumbering breast
Had taught thee in a Gheber’s power
How safe even tyrant heads may rest —
Is one of many, brave as he,
Who loathe thy haughty race and thee;
Who tho’ they knew the strife is vain,
Who tho’ they know the riven chain
Snaps but to enter in the heart
Of him who rends its links apart,
Yet dare the issue, — blest to be
Even for one bleeding moment free
And die in pangs of liberty!
Thou knowest them well— ’tis some moons since
Thy turbaned troops and blood-red flags,
Thou satrap of a bigot Prince,
Have swarmed among these Green Sea crags;
Yet here, even here, a sacred band
Ay, in the portal of that land
Thou, Arab, darest to call thy own,
Their spears across thy path have thrown;
Here — ere the winds half winged thee o’er —
Rebellion braved thee from the shore.
Rebellion! foul, dishonoring word,
Whose wrongful blight so oft has stained
The holiest cause that tongue or sword
Of mortal ever lost or gained.
How many a spirit born to bless
Hath sunk beneath that withering name,
Whom but a day’s, an hour’s success
Had wafted to eternal fame!
As exhalations when they burst
From the warm earth if chilled at first,
If checkt in soaring from the plain
Darken to fogs and sink again; —
But if they once triumphant spread
Their wings above the mountain-head,
Become enthroned in upper air,
And turn to sun-bright glories there!
And who is he that wields the might
Of Freedom on the Green Sea brink,
Before whose sabre’s dazzling light221
The eyes of YEMEN’S warriors wink?
Who comes embowered in the spears
Of KERMAN’S hardy mountaineers?
Those mountaineers that truest, last,
Cling to their country’s ancient rites,
As if that God whose eyelids cast
Their closing gleam on IRAN’S heights,
Among her snowy mountains threw
The last light of his worship too!
’Tis HAFED — name of fear, whose sound
Chills like the muttering of a charm! —
Shout but that awful name around,
And palsy shakes the manliest arm.
’Tis HAFED, most accurst and dire
(So rankt by Moslem hate and ire)
Of all the rebel Sons of Fire;
Of whose malign, tremendous power
The Arabs at their mid-watch hour
Such tales of fearful wonder tell
That each affrighted sentinel
Pulls down his cowl upon his eyes,
Lest HAFED in the midst should rise!
A man, they say, of monstrous birth,
A mingled race of flame and earth,
Sprung from those old, enchanted kings222
Who in their fairy helms of yore
A feather from the mystic wings
Of the Simoorgh resistless wore;
And gifted by the Fiends of Fire,
Who groaned to see their shrines expire
With charms that all in vain withstood
Would drown the Koran’s light in blood!
Such were the tales that won belief,
And such the coloring Fancy gave
One who, no more than mortal brave,
Fought for the land his soul adored,
For happy homes and altars free, —
His only talisman, the sword,
His only spell-word, Liberty!
One of that ancient hero line,
Along whose glorious current shine
Names that have sanctified their blood:
As LEBANON’S small mountain-flood
Is rendered holy by the ranks
Of sainted cedars on its banks.223
’Twas not for him to crouch the knee
Tamely to Moslem tyranny;
’Twas not for him whose soul was cast
In the bright mould of ages past,
Whose melancholy spirit fed
With all the glories of the dead
Tho’ framed for IRAN’S happiest years.
Was born among her chains and tears! —
’Twas not for him to swell the crowd
Of slavish heads, that shrinking bowed
Before the Moslem as he past
Like shrubs beneath the poison-blast —
No — far he fled — indignant fled
The pageant of his country’s shame;
While every tear her children shed
Fell on his soul like drops of flame;
And as a lover hails the dawn
Of a first smile, so welcomed he
The sparkle of the first sword drawn
For vengeance and for liberty!
But vain was valor — vain the flower
Of KERMAN, in that deathful hour,
Against AL HASSAN’S whelming power. —
In vain they met him helm to helm
Upon the threshold of that realm
He came in bigot pomp to sway,
And with their corpses blockt his way —
In vain — for every lance they raised
Thousands around the conqueror blazed;
For every arm that lined their shore
Myriads of slaves were wafted o’er, —
A bloody, bold, and countless crowd,
Before whose swarm as fast they bowed
As dates beneath the locust cloud.
There stood — but one short league away
From old HARMOZIA’S sultry bay —
A rocky mountain o’er the Sea —
Of OMAN beetling awfully;224
A last and solitary link
Of those stupendous chains that reach
From the broad Caspian’s reedy brink
Down winding to the Green Sea beach.
Around its base the bare rocks stood
Like naked giants, in the flood
As if to guard the Gulf across;
While on its peak that braved the sky
A ruined Temple towered so high
That oft the sleeping albatross225
Struck the wild ruins with her wing,
And from her cloud-rockt slumbering
Started — to find man’s dwelling there
In her own silent fields of air!
Beneath, terrific caverns gave
Dark welcome to each stormy wave
That dasht like midnight revellers in; —
And such the strange, mysterious din
At times throughout those caverns rolled, —
And such the fearful wonders told
Of restless sprites imprisoned there,
That bold were Moslem who would dare
At twilight hour to steer his skiff
Beneath the Gheber’s lonely cliff.226
On the land side those towers sublime,
That seemed above the grasp of Time,
Were severed from the haunts of men
By a wide, deep, and wizard glen,
So fathomless, so full of gloom,
No eye could pierce the void between:
It seemed a place where Ghouls might come
With their foul banquets from the tomb
And in its caverns feed unseen.
Like distant thunder, from below
The sound of many torrents came,
Too deep for eye or ear to know
If ‘twere the sea’s imprisoned flow,
Or floods of ever-restless flame.
For each ravine, each rocky spire
Of that vast mountain stood on fire;227
And tho’ for ever past the days
When God was worshipt in the blaze —
That from its lofty altar shone, —
Tho’ fled the priests, the votaries gone,
Still did the mighty flame burn on,228
Thro’ chance and change, thro’ good and ill,
Like its own God’s eternal will,
Deep, constant, bright, unquenchable!
Thither the vanquisht HAFED led
His little army’s last remains; —
“Welcome, terrific glen!” he said,
“Thy gloom, that Eblis’ self might dread,
“Is Heaven to him who flies from chains!”
O’er a dark, narrow bridge-way known
To him and to his Chiefs alone
They crost the chasm and gained the towers; —
“This home,” he cried, “at least is ours;
“Here we may bleed, unmockt by hymns
“Of Moslem triumph o’er our head;
“Here we may fall nor leave our limbs
“To quiver to the Moslem’s tread.
“Stretched on this rock while vultures’ beaks
“Are whetted on our yet warm cheeks,
“Here — happy that no tyrant’s eye
“Gloats on our torments — we may die!” —
’Twas night when to those towers they came,
And gloomily the fitful flame
That from the ruined altar broke
Glared on his features as he spoke: —
“’Tis o’er — what men could do, we’ve done —
“If IRAN will look tamely on
“And see her priests, her warriors driven
“Before a sensual bigot’s nod,
“A wretch who shrines his lusts in heaven
“And makes a pander of his God;
“If her proud sons, her high-born souls,
“Men in whose veins — oh last disgrace!
“The blood of ZAL and RUSTAM229 rolls. —
“If they will court this upstart race
“And turn from MITHRA’S ancient ray
“To kneel at shrines of yesterday;
“If they will crouch to IRAN’S foes,
“Why, let them — till the land’s despair
“Cries out to Heaven, and bondage grows
“Too vile for even the vile to bear!
“Till shame at last, long hidden, burns
“Their inmost core, and conscience turns
“Each coward tear the slave lets fall
“Back on his heart in drops of gall.
“But here at least are arms unchained
“And souls that thraldom never stained; —
“This spot at least no foot of slave
“Or satrap ever yet profaned,
“And tho’ but few — tho’ fast the wave
“Of life is ebbing from our veins,
“Enough for vengeance still remains.
“As panthers after set of sun
“Rush from the roots of LEBANON
“Across the dark sea-robber’s way,230
“We’ll bound upon our startled prey.
“And when some hearts that proudest swell
“Have felt our falchion’s last farewell,
“When Hope’s expiring throb is o’er
“And even Despair can prompt no more,
“This spot shall be the sacred grave
“Of the last few who vainly brave
“Die for the land they cannot save!”
His Chiefs stood round — each shining blade
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br /> Upon the broken altar laid —
And tho’ so wild and desolate
Those courts where once the Mighty sate:
Nor longer on those mouldering towers
Was seen the feast of fruits and flowers
With which of old the Magi fed
The wandering Spirits of their Dead;231
Tho’ neither priest nor rites were there,
Nor charmed leaf of pure pomegranate,232
Nor hymn, nor censer’s fragrant air,
Nor symbol of their worshipt planet;233
Yet the same God that heard their sires
Heard them while on that altar’s fires
They swore the latest, holiest deed
Of the few hearts, still left to bleed,
Should be in IRAN’S injured name
To die upon that Mount of Flame —
The last of all her patriot line,
Before her last untrampled Shrine!
Brave, suffering souls! they little knew
How many a tear their injuries drew
From one meek maid, one gentle foe,
Whom love first touched with others’ woe —
Whose life, as free from thought as sin,
Slept like a lake till Love threw in
His talisman and woke the tide
And spread its trembling circles wide.
Once, EMIR! thy unheeding child
Mid all this havoc bloomed and smiled, —
Tranquil as on some battle plain
The Persian lily shines and towers234
Before the combat’s reddening stain
Hath fallen upon her golden flowers.
Light-hearted maid, unawed, unmoved,
While Heaven but spared the sire she loved,
Once at thy evening tales of blood
Unlistening and aloof she stood —
And oft when thou hast paced along
Thy Haram halls with furious heat,
Hast thou not curst her cheerful song,
That came across thee, calm and sweet,
Like lutes of angels touched so near
Hell’s confines that the damned can hear!
Far other feelings Love hath brought —
Her soul all flame, her brow all sadness,
She now has but the one dear thought,
And thinks that o’er, almost to madness!
Oft doth her sinking heart recall
His words— “for my sake weep for all;”
And bitterly as day on day
Of rebel carnage fast succeeds,
She weeps a lover snatched away
In every Gheber wretch that bleeds.
There’s not a sabre meets her eye
But with his life-blood seems to swim;
There’s not an arrow wings the sky
But fancy turns its point to him.
No more she brings with footsteps light
AL HASSAN’s falchion for the fight;
And — had he lookt with clearer sight,
Had not the mists that ever rise