At the mention of a poet,
FADLADEEN elevated his critical eyebrows, and, having refreshed his
faculties with a dose of that delicious opium which is distilled from the
black poppy of the Thebais, gave orders for the minstrel to be forthwith
introduced into the presence.
The Princess, who had once in her life seen a poet from behind the screens
of gauze in her father's hall, and had conceived from that specimen no
very favorable ideas of the Caste, expected but little in this new
exhibition to interest her;--she felt inclined, however, to alter her
opinion on the very first appearance of FERAMORZ. He was a youth about
LALLA ROOKH'S own age, and graceful as that idol of women,
Crishna,[21]--such as he appears to their young imaginations, heroic,
beautiful, breathing music from his very eyes, and exalting the religion
of his worshippers into love. His dress was simple, yet not without some
marks of costliness; and the Ladies of the Princess were not long in
discovering that the cloth, which encircled his high Tartarian cap, was of
the most delicate kind that the shawl-goats of Tibet supply.[22] Here and
there, too, over his vest, which was confined by a flowered girdle of
Kashan, hung strings of fine pearl, disposed with an air of studied
negligence;--nor did the exquisite embroidery of his sandals escape the
observation of these fair critics; who, however they might give way to
FADLADEEN upon the unimportant topics of religion and government, had the
spirit of martyrs in everything relating to such momentous matters as
jewels and embroidery.
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