Chapter 4

"Shall I not stop?" exclaimed the impatient cloud. "Seek!" trembling Tabor heard the voice of God.

V.

Sand, sand, and still more sand! The desert! Fearful land! Teeming with monsters dread And plagues on every hand! Here in an endless flow, Sandhills of golden glow, Where'er the tempests blow, Like a great flood are spread. Sometimes the sacred spot Hears human sounds profane, when As from Ophir or from Memphre Stretches the caravan. From far the eyes, its trail Along the burning shale Bending its wavering tail, Like a mottled serpent scan. These deserts are of God! His are the bounds alone, Here, where no feet have trod, To Him its centre known! And from this smoking sea Veiled in obscurity, The foam one seems to see In fiery ashes thrown.

"Shall desert change to lake?" cried out the cloud. "Still further!" from heaven's depths sounded that Voice aloud.

VI.

Like tumbled waves, which a huge rock surround; Like heaps of ruined towers which strew the ground, See Babel now deserted and dismayed! Huge witness to the folly of mankind; Four distant mountains when the moonlight shined Seem covered with its shade.

O'er miles and miles the shattered ruins spread Beneath its base, from captive tempests bred, The air seemed filled with harmony strange and dire; While swarmed around the entire human race A future Babel, on the world's whole space Fixed its eternal spire.

Up to the zenith rose its lengthening stair, While each great granite mountain lent a share To form a stepping base; Height upon height repeated seemed to rise, For pyramid on pyramid the strainèd eyes Saw take their ceaseless place.

Through yawning walls huge elephants stalked by; Under dark pillars rose a forestry, Pillars by madness multiplied; As round some giant hive, all day and night, Huge vultures, and red eagles' wheeling flight Was through each porch descried.

"Must I complete it?" said the angered cloud. "On still!" "Lord, whither?" groaned it, deep not loud.

VII.

Two cities, strange, unknown in history's page, Up to the clouds seemed scaling, stage by stage, Noiseless their streets; their sleeping inmates lie, Their gods, their chariots, in obscurity! Like sisters sleeping 'neath the same moonlight, O'er their twin towers crept the shades of night, Whilst scarce distinguished in the black profound, Stairs, aqueducts, great pillars, gleamed around, And ruined capitals: then was seen a group Of granite elephants 'neath a dome to stoop, Shapeless, giant forms to view arise, Monsters around, the spawn of hideous ties! Then hanging gardens, with flowers and galleries: O'er vast fountains bending grew ebon-trees; Temples, where seated on their rich tiled thrones, Bull-headed idols shone in jasper stones; Vast halls, spanned by one block, where watch and stare Each upon each, with straight and moveless glare, Colossal heads in circles; the eye sees Great gods of bronze, their hands upon their knees. Sight seemed confounded, and to have lost its powers, 'Midst bridges, aqueducts, arches, and round towers, Whilst unknown shapes fill up the devious views Formed by these palaces and avenues. Like capes, the lengthening shadows seem to rise Of these dark buildings, pointed to the skies, Immense entanglement in shroud of gloom! The stars which gleamed in the empyrean dome, Under the thousand arches in heaven's space Shone as through meshes of the blackest lace. Cities of hell, with foul desires demented, And monstrous pleasures, hour by hour invented! Each roof and home some monstrous mystery bore! Which through the world spread like a twofold sore! Yet all things slept, and scarce some pale late light Flitted along the streets through the still night, Lamps of debauch, forgotten and alone, The feast's lost fires left there to flicker on; The walls' large angles clove the light-lengthening shades 'Neath the white moon, or on some pool's face played. Perchance one heard, faint in the plain beneath, The kiss suppressed, the mingling of the breath; And the two sister cities, tired of heat, In love's embrace lay down in murmurs sweet! Whilst sighing winds the scent of sycamore From Sodom to Gomorrah softly bore! Then over all spread out the blackened cloud, "'Tis here!" the Voice on high exclaimed aloud.

VIII.

From a cavern wide In the rent cloud's side, In sulphurous showers The red flame pours. The palaces fall In the lurid light, Which casts a red pall O'er their facades white!

Oh, Sodom! Gomorrah! What a dome of horror Rests now on your walls! On you the cloud falls, Nation perverse! On your fated heads, From its fell jaws, a curse Its lightning fierce spreads!

The people awaken Which godlessly slept; Their palaces shaken, Their offences unwept! Their rolling cars all Meet and crash in the street; And the crowds, for a pall, Find flames round their feet!

Numberless dead, Round these high towers spread, Still sleep in the shade By their rugged heights made; Colossi of rocks In ill-steadied blocks! So hang on a wall Black ants, like a pall!

To escape is in vain From this horrible rain! Alas! all things die; In the lightning's red flash The bridges all crash; 'Neath the tiles the flame creeps; From the fire-struck steeps Falls on the pavements below, All lurid in glow, Rolling down from on high!

Beneath every spark, The red, tyrannous fire Mounts up in the dark Ever redder and higher; More swiftly than steed Uncontrolled, see it pass! Horrid idols all twist, By the crumbling flame kissed In their infamous dread, Shrivelled members of brass!

It grows angry, flows on, Silver towers fall down Unforeseen, like a dream In its green and red stream, Which lights up the walls Ere one crashes and falls, Like the changeable scale Of a lizard's bright mail. Agate, porphyry, cracks And is melted to wax! Bend low to their doom These stones of the tomb! E'en the great marble giant Called Nabo, sways pliant Like a tree; whilst the flare Seemed each column to scorch As it blazed like a torch Round and round in the air.

The magi, in vain, From the heights to the plain Their gods' images carry In white tunic: they quake-- No idol can make The blue sulphur tarry; The temple e'en where they meet, Swept under their feet In the folds of its sheet! Turns a palace to coal! Whence the straitened cries roll From its terrified flock; With incendiary grips It loosens a block, Which smokes and then slips From its place by the shock; To the surface first sheers, Then melts, disappears, Like the glacier, the rock! The high priest, full of years, On the burnt site appears, Whence the others have fled. Lo! his tiara's caught fire As the furnace burns higher, And pale, full of dread, See, the hand he would raise To tear his crown from the blaze Is flaming instead!

Men, women, in crowds Hurry on--the fire shrouds And blinds all their eyes As, besieging each gate Of these cities of fate To the conscience-struck crowd, In each fiery cloud, Hell appears in the skies!

IX.

Men say that _then_, to see his foe's sad fall As some old prisoner clings to his prison wall, Babel, accomplice of their guilt, was seen O'er the far hills to gaze with vision keen! And as was worked this dispensation strange, A wondrous noise filled the world's startled range; Reached the dull hearing that deep, direful sound Of their sad tribe who live below the ground.

X.

'Gainst this pitiless flame who condemned could prevail? Who these walls, burnt and calcined, could venture to scale? Yet their vile hands they sought to uplift, Yet they cared still to ask from what God, by what law? In their last sad embrace, 'midst their honor and awe, Of this mighty volcano the drift. 'Neath great slabs of marble they hid them in vain, 'Gainst this everliving fire, God's own flaming rain! 'Tis the rash whom God seeks out the first; They call on their gods, who were deaf to their cries, For the punishing flame caused their cold granite eyes In tears of hot lava to burst! Thus away in the whirlwind did everything pass, The man and the city, the soil and its grass! God burnt this sad, sterile champaign; Naught living was left of this people destroyed, And the unknown wind which blew over the void, Each mountain changed into a plain.

XI.

The palm-tree that grows on the rock to this day, Feels its leaf growing yellow, its slight stem decay, In the blasting and ponderous air; These towns are no more! but to mirror their past, O'er their embers a cold lake spread far and spread fast, With smoke like a furnace, lies there!

J.N. FAZAKERLEY

PIRATES' SONG.

_("Nous emmenions en esclavage.")_

[VIII., March, 1828.]

We're bearing fivescore Christian dogs To serve the cruel drivers: Some are fair beauties gently born, And some rough coral-divers. We hardy skimmers of the sea Are lucky in each sally, And, eighty strong, we send along The dreaded Pirate Galley.

A nunnery was spied ashore, We lowered away the cutter, And, landing, seized the youngest nun Ere she a cry could utter; Beside the creek, deaf to our oars, She slumbered in green alley, As, eighty strong, we sent along The dreaded Pirate Galley.

"Be silent, darling, you must come-- The wind is off shore blowing; You only change your prison dull For one that's splendid, glowing! His Highness doats on milky cheeks, So do not make us dally"-- We, eighty strong, who send along The dreaded Pirate Galley.

She sought to flee back to her cell, And called us each a devil! We dare do aught becomes Old Scratch, But like a treatment civil, So, spite of buffet, prayers, and calls-- Too late her friends to rally-- We, eighty strong, bore her along Unto the Pirate Galley.

The fairer for her tears profuse, As dews refresh the flower, She is well worth three purses full, And will adorn the bower-- For vain her vow to pine and die Thus torn from her dear valley: She reigns, and we still row along The dreaded Pirate Galley.

THE TURKISH CAPTIVE.

_("Si je n'était captive.")_

[IX., July, 1828.]

Oh! were I not a captive, I should love this fair countree; Those fields with maize abounding, This ever-plaintive sea: I'd love those stars unnumbered, If, passing in the shade, Beneath our walls I saw not The spahi's sparkling blade.

I am no Tartar maiden That a blackamoor of price Should tune my lute and hold to me My glass of sherbet-ice. Far from these haunts of vices, In my dear countree, we With sweethearts in the even May chat and wander free.

But still I love this climate, Where never wintry breeze Invades, with chilly murmur, These open lattices; Where rain is warm in summer, And the insect glossy green, Most like a living emerald, Shines 'mid the leafy screen.

With her chapelles fair Smyrna-- A gay princess is she! Still, at her summons, round her Unfading spring ye see. And, as in beauteous vases, Bright groups of flowers repose, So, in her gulfs are lying Her archipelagoes.

I love these tall red turrets; These standards brave unrolled; And, like an infant's playthings, These houses decked with gold. I love forsooth these reveries, Though sandstorms make me pant, Voluptuously swaying Upon an elephant.

Here in this fairy palace, Full of such melodies, Methinks I hear deep murmurs That in the deserts rise; Soft mingling with the music The Genii's voices pour, Amid the air, unceasing, Around us evermore.

I love the burning odors This glowing region gives; And, round each gilded lattice, The trembling, wreathing leaves; And, 'neath the bending palm-tree, The gayly gushing spring; And on the snow-white minaret, The stork with snowier wing.

I love on mossy couch to sing A Spanish roundelay, And see my sweet companions Around commingling gay,-- A roving band, light-hearted, In frolicsome array,-- Who 'neath the screening parasols Dance down the merry day. But more than all enchanting At night, it is to me, To sit, where winds are sighing, Lone, musing by the sea; And, on its surface gazing, To mark the moon so fair, Her silver fan outspreading, In trembling radiance there.

W.D., _Tait's Edin. Magazine_

MOONLIGHT ON THE BOSPHORUS.

_("La lune était sereine.")_

[X., September, 1828.]

Bright shone the merry moonbeams dancing o'er the wave; At the cool casement, to the evening breeze flung wide, Leans the Sultana, and delights to watch the tide, With surge of silvery sheen, yon sleeping islets lave.

From her hand, as it falls, vibrates the light guitar. She listens--hark! that sound that echoes dull and low. Is it the beat upon the Archipelago Of some long galley's oar, from Scio bound afar?

Is it the cormorants, whose black wings, one by one, Cut the blue wave that o'er them breaks in liquid pearls? Is it some hovering sprite with whistling scream that hurls Down to the deep from yon old tower a loosened stone?

Who thus disturbs the tide near the seraglio? 'Tis no dark cormorants that on the ripple float, 'Tis no dull plume of stone--no oars of Turkish boat, With measured beat along the water creeping slow.

'Tis heavy sacks, borne each by voiceless dusky slaves; And could you dare to sound the depths of yon dark tide, Something like human form would stir within its side. Bright shone the merry moonbeams dancing o'er the wave.

JOHN L. O'SULLIVAN.

THE VEIL.

_("Qu'avez-vous, mes frères?")_

[XI., September, 18288.]

"Have you prayed tonight, Desdemona?"

THE SISTER

What has happened, my brothers? Your spirit to-day Some secret sorrow damps There's a cloud on your brow. What has happened? Oh, say, For your eyeballs glare out with a sinister ray Like the light of funeral lamps. And the blades of your poniards are half unsheathed In your belt--and ye frown on me! There's a woe untold, there's a pang unbreathed In your bosom, my brothers three!

ELDEST BROTHER.

Gulnara, make answer! Hast thou, since the dawn, To the eye of a stranger thy veil withdrawn?

THE SISTER.

As I came, oh, my brother! at noon--from the bath-- As I came--it was noon, my lords-- And your sister had then, as she constantly hath, Drawn her veil close around her, aware that the path Is beset by these foreign hordes. But the weight of the noonday's sultry hour Near the mosque was so oppressive That--forgetting a moment the eye of the Giaour-- I yielded to th' heat excessive.

SECOND BROTHER.

Gulnara, make answer! Whom, then, hast thou seen, In a turban of white and a caftan of green?

THE SISTER.

Nay, _he_ might have been there; but I muflled me so, He could scarcely have seen my figure.-- But why to your sister thus dark do you grow? What words to yourselves do you mutter thus low, Of "blood" and "an intriguer"? Oh! ye cannot of murder bring down the red guilt On your souls, my brothers, surely! Though I fear--from the hands that are chafing the hilt, And the hints you give obscurely.

THIRD BROTHER.

Gulnara, this evening when sank the red sun, Didst thou mark how like blood in descending it shone?

THE SISTER.

Mercy! Allah! have pity! oh, spare! See! I cling to your knees repenting! Kind brothers, forgive me! for mercy, forbear! Be appeased at the cry of a sister's despair, For our mother's sake relenting. O God! must I die? They are deaf to my cries! Their sister's life-blood shedding; They have stabbed me each one--I faint--o'er my eyes A _veil of Death_ is spreading!

THE BROTHERS.

Gulnara, farewell! take _that_ veil; 'tis the gift Of thy brothers--a veil thou wilt never lift!

"FATHER PROUT" (FRANK S. MAHONY).

THE FAVORITE SULTANA.

_("N'ai-je pas pour toi, belle juive.")_

[XII., Oct. 27, 1828.]

To please you, Jewess, jewel! I have thinned my harem out! Must every flirting of your fan Presage a dying shout?

Grace for the damsels tender Who have fear to hear your laugh, For seldom gladness gilds your lips But blood you mean to quaff.

In jealousy so zealous, Never was there woman worse; You'd have no roses but those grown Above some buried corse.

Am I not pinioned firmly? Why be angered if the door Repulses fifty suing maids Who vainly there implore?

Let them live on--to envy My own empress of the world, To whom all Stamboul like a dog Lies at the slippers curled.

To you my heroes lower Those scarred ensigns none have cowed; To you their turbans are depressed That elsewhere march so proud.

To you Bassora offers Her respect, and Trebizonde Her carpets richly wrought, and spice And gems, of which you're fond.

To you the Cyprus temples Dare not bar or close the doors; For you the mighty Danube sends The choicest of its stores.

Fear you the Grecian maidens, Pallid lilies of the isles? Or the scorching-eyed sand-rover From Baalbec's massy piles?

Compared with yours, oh, daughter Of King Solomon the grand, What are round ebon bosoms, High brows from Hellas' strand?

You're neither blanched nor blackened, For your tint of olive's clear; Yours are lips of ripest cherry, You are straight as Arab spear.

Hence, launch no longer lightning On these paltry slaves of ours. Why should your flow of tears be matched By their mean life-blood showers?

Think only of our banquets Brought and served by charming girls, For beauties sultans must adorn As dagger-hilts the pearls.

THE PASHA AND THE DERVISH.

_("Un jour Ali passait.")_

[XIII, Nov. 8, 1828.]

Ali came riding by--the highest head Bent to the dust, o'ercharged with dread, Whilst "God be praised!" all cried; But through the throng one dervish pressed, Aged and bent, who dared arrest The pasha in his pride.

"Ali Tepelini, light of all light, Who hold'st the Divan's upper seat by right, Whose fame Fame's trump hath burst-- Thou art the master of unnumbered hosts, Shade of the Sultan--yet he only boasts In thee a dog accurst!

"An unseen tomb-torch flickers on thy path, Whilst, as from vial full, thy spare-naught wrath Splashes this trembling race: These are thy grass as thou their trenchant scythes Cleaving their neck as 'twere a willow withe-- Their blood none can efface.

"But ends thy tether! for Janina makes A grave for thee where every turret quakes, And thou shalt drop below To where the spirits, to a tree enchained, Will clutch thee, there to be 'mid them retained For all to-come in woe!

"Or if, by happy chance, thy soul might flee Thy victims, after, thou shouldst surely see And hear thy crimes relate; Streaked with the guileless gore drained from their veins, Greater in number than the reigns on reigns Thou hopedst for thy state.

"This so will be! and neither fleet nor fort Can stay or aid thee as the deathly port Receives thy harried frame! Though, like the cunning Hebrew knave of old, To cheat the angel black, thou didst enfold In altered guise thy name."

Ali deemed anchorite or saint a pawn-- The crater of his blunderbuss did yawn, Sword, dagger hung at ease: But he had let the holy man revile, Though clouds o'erswept his brow; then, with a smile, He tossed him his pelisse.

THE LOST BATTLE.

_("Allah! qui me rendra-")_

[XVI., May, 1828.]