Bigoted conquerors!-sympathy with Fire-Worshippers!"while Feramorz, happy to take advantage of this almost speechless horror of the Chamberlain, proceeded to say that he knew a melancholy story, connected with the events of one of those brave struggles of the Fire-Worshippers of Persia against their Arab masters, which, if the evening was not too far advanced, he should have much pleasure in being allowed to relate to the Princess. It was impossible for Lalla Rookh to refuse ;-he had never before looked half so animated, and when he spoke of the Holy Valley his eyes had sparkled, she thought, like the talismanic characters on the scimitar of Solomon. Her consent was therefore most readily granted, and while Fadladeen sat in unspeakable dismay, expecting treason and abomination in every line, the poet thus began his story of the Fire-Worshippers.

THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.

Tis moonlight over Oman's sea ;*

Her banks of pearl and palmy isles
Bask in the night-beam beauteously,

And her blue waters sleep in smiles.
"l'is moonlight in Harmozia'st walls,
And through her Emir's porphyry halls,

Where, some hours since, was heard the swell
Of trumpet and the clash of zel,t

Bidding the bright-eyed sun farewell;-
The peaceful sun, whom better suits

The music of the bulbul's nest,

Or the light touch of lovers' lutes,

To sing him to his golden rest!

All hush'd-there's not a breeze in motion;
The shore is silent as the ocean.

If zephyrs come, so light they come,
Nor leaf is stirr'd nor wave is driven ;--
The wind-tower on the Emir's domes

Can hardly win a breath from heaven.

The Persian Gulf.

↑ Gombaroon, a town on the Persian side of the Gulf.

A Moorish instrument of music.

"At Gombaroon and other places in Persia they have towers for the purpose of catching the wind, and cooling the houses."

Ev'n he, that tyrant Arab, sleeps
Calm, while a nation round him weeps ;
While curses load the air he breathes,
And falchions from unnumber'd sheaths
Are starting to avenge the shame
His race hath brought on Iran's* name,
Hard, heartless Chief, unmov'd alike
Mid eyes that weep and swords that strike;-
One of that saintly, murderous brood,

To carnage and the Koran given,
Who think through unbelievers' blood
Lies their directest path to Heaven.
One, who will pause and kneel unshod
In the warm blood his hand hath pour'd,
To mutter o'er some text of God

Engraven on his reeking sword ;†—
Nay, who can coolly point the line,
The letter of those words divine,
To which his blade, with searching art,
Had sunk into its victim's heart!

Just Alla! what must be thy look,

When such a wretch before thee stands
Unblushing, with thy sacred book,-

Turning the leaves with blood-stain'd hands,
And wresting from its page sublime
His creed of lust and hate and crime?

Ev'n as those bees of Trebizond,

Which from the sunniest flowers that glad
With their pure smile the gardens round,
Draw venom forth that drives men mad!‡
Never did fierce Arabia send

A satrap forth more direly great;
Never was Iran doom'd to bend

Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.

Her throne had fall'n-her pride was crush'd-
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blush'd,
In their own land,- -no more their own,-
To crouch beneath a stranger's throne.
Her towers, where Mithra once had burn'd,
To Moslem shrines-oh shame!-were turn'd,
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship pour'd,

"Iran is the true general name for the empire of Persia."

"On the blades of their scimitars some verse from the Koran is usually inscribed."

"There is a kind of Rhododendros about Trebizond, whose flowers the bee feeds upon, and the honey thence drives people mad."

And curs'd the faith their sires ador'd.
Yet has she hearts, mid all this ill,
O'er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance ;-hearts that yet,
Like gems, in darkness issuing rays
They've treasur'd from the sun that's set,-
Beam all the light of long-lost days!
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there,
Tranquil as if his spirit lay

Becalm'd in Heaven's approving ray!
Sleep on-for purer eyes than thine

Those waves are hush'd, those planets shine.
Sleep on, and be thy rest unmov'd

By the white moonlight's dazzling power;

None but the loving and the lov'd

Should be awake at this sweet hour.

And see where, high above those rocks
That o'er the deep their shadows fling,
Yon turret stands ;-where ebon locks,
As glossy as a heron's wing
Upon the turban of a king,*
Hang from the lattice, long and wild,-
"Tis she, that Emir's blooming child,
All truth and tenderness and grace,
Though born of such ungentle race ;-
An image of youth's fairy fountain
Springing in a desolate mountain !t
Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is Beauty, curtain'd from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining

One only mansion with her light!
Unseen by man's disturbing eye,—

The flower, that blooms beneath the sea
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity!

So, Hinda, have thy face and mind,
Like holy mysteries, lain enshrin'd.
And oh, what transport for a lover

To lift the veil that shades them o'er!-

"Their kings wear plumes of black herons' feathers upon the right

side, as a badge of sovereignty."

"The Fountain of Youth, by a Mohammedan tradition, is situated in some dark region of the East."

Like those who, all at once, discover
In the lone deep some fairy shore,
Where mortal never trod before,
And sleep and wake in scented airs
No lip had ever breath'd but theirs!
Beautiful are the maids that glide,

On summer-eves, through Yemen's* dales,
And bright the glancing looks they hide
Behind their litters' roseate veils ;-
And brides, as delicate and fair

As the white jasmine flowers they wear,
Hath Yemen in her blissful clime,

Who, lull'd in cool kiosk or bower,
Before their mirrors count the time,
And grow still lovelier every hour.
But never yet hath bride or maid
In Araby's gay Harams smil'd,
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before Al Hassan's blooming child.
Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness;-
With eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abash'd away,
Blinded like serpents, when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze!t-
Yet, fill'd with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this!
A soul, too, more than half divine,

Where, through some shades of earthly feeling,
Religion's soften'd glories shine,

Like light through summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm, and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautful than light elsewhere!

Such is the maid who, at this hour,

Hath risen from her restless sleep,

And sits alone in that high bower,

Watching the still and moonlight deep.

Ah! 'twas not thus,-with tearful eyes

Arabia Felix.

"They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of

e neralds he immediately becomes blind."

And beating heart, she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,
In her own land, in happier days.
Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks, whose rugged frown
Blackens the mirror of the deep?
Whom waits she all this lonely night?

Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height !—

So deem'd at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night-air,
After the day-beam's withering fire*

He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it deck'd with costliest skill,

And fondly thought it safe as fair :—
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,
Nor wake to learn what Love can dare-
Love, all-defying Love, who sees
No charm in trophies won with ease;-
Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss
Are pluck'd on danger's precipice!
Bolder than they, who dare not dive
For pearls, but when the sea's at rest,
Love, in the tempest most alive,

Hath ever held that pearl the best
He finds beneath the stormiest water!
Yes-Araby's unrivall'd daughter,

Though high that tower, that rock-way rude,
There's one who, but to kiss thy cheek,
Would climb th' untrodden solitude

Of Ararat's tremendous peak,

And think its steeps, though dark and dread,
Heaven's path-ways, if to thee they led!
Ev'n now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way;-
Ev'n now thou hear'st the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,
And stretchest down thy arms of snow,
As if to lift him from below!
Like her to whom, at dead of night,
The bridegroom, with his locks of light,
Came, in the flush of love and pride,
And scal'd the terrace of his bride ;-
When, as she saw him rashly spring,

* At Gombaroon and the Isle of Ormus it is sometimes so hot that the people are obliged to lie all day in the water.-Marco Polo.