While the wrong'd Spirit of our Land Lived, look'd, and spoke her wrongs through thee, God! who could then this sword withstand Its very flash were victory! But now-estranged, divorced for ever Far as the grasp of fate can sever; Our only ties what love has wove, Faith, friends, and country, sunder'd wide ; And then, then only, true to love, When false to all that's dear beside ! All but that bleeding land for thee! Her widows mourn, her warriors fall, Thou'lt think how well one Gheber loved, And for his sake thou'lt weep for all! But look With sudden start he turn'd And pointed to the distant wave, Flew up all sparkling from the main, As if each star that nightly falls, Were shooting back to heaven again. "My signal-lights !-I must away— Down mid the pointed crags beneath, Startled her from her trance of woe ;- "I come-I come-if in that tide Than the chill wave my love lies under ;— Far sweeter, than to live asunder!" Where'er that ill-starr'd home may lie; Nor left one breaking heart behind! The Princess, whose heart was sad enough already, could have wished that Feramorz had chosen a less melancholy story, as it is only to the happy that tears are a luxury. Her ladies, however, were by no means sorry that love was once more the Poet's theme; for when he spoke of love, they said, his voice was as sweet as if he had chewed the leaves of that enchanted tree, which grows over the tomb of the musician, Tan-Sein. 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 staff, 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 the shade some pious hands had erected pillars ornamented with the most beautiful porcelain, 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 the branch of the tree, thus continued his story : The morn hath risen clear and calm, And lighting Kishma's amber vines. And curl the shining flood beneath, With dew, whose night-drops would not stain That ever youthful Sultan wore On the first morning of his reign! And see the San himself!-on wings Trod in his Maker's steps of fire! Where are the days, thou wondrous sphere, When Iran, like a sun-dower, turn'd To meet that eye, where'er it burn'd? 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's bloody plains, Saw fierce invaders pluck the gem From Iran's broken diadem, And bind her ancient faith in chains: On foreign shores, unloved, unknown, Or on the snowy Mossian mountains, His own beloved but blighted sod, That crouches to the conqueror's creed ! Quench'd with the flame in Mithra's caves ? Spirits of fire, that brood not long, And hearts where, slow but deep, the seeds Till, in some treacherous hour of calm, Yes, Emir! he who scaled that tower, How safe even tyrant heads may rest- Who loathe thy haughty race and thee; Of him who rends its links apart, And die in pangs of liberty! Thou know'st them well-'tis some moons since Thy turban'd troops and blood-red flags, Thou satrap of a bigot prince! Have swarm'd among these Green Sea crags: Yet here, even here, a sacred band, Ay, in the portal of that land Thou, Arab, dar'st to call thy own, Their spears across thy path have thrown ; Rebellion! foul, dishonouring word, How many a spirit, born to bless, Hath sunk beneath that withering name |