For the purpose of relieving the pauses of recitation by music, the young
Cashmerian held in his hand a kitar;--such as, in old times, the Arab
maids of the West used to listen to by moonlight in the gardens of the
Alhambra--and, having premised, with much humility, that the story he was
about to relate was founded on the adventures of that Veiled Prophet of
Khorassan,[23] who, in the year of the Hegira 163, created such alarm
throughout the Eastern Empire, made an obeisance to the Princess, and thus
began:--
THE VEILED PROPHET OF KHORASSAN.[24]
In that delightful Province of the Sun,
The first of Persian lands he shines upon.
Where all the loveliest children of his beam,
Flowerets and fruits, blush over every stream,[25]
And, fairest of all streams, the MURGA roves
Among MEROU'S[26] bright palaces and groves;--
There on that throne, to which the blind belief
Of millions raised him, sat the Prophet-Chief,
The Great MOKANNA. O'er his features hung
The Veil, the Silver Veil, which he had flung
In mercy there, to hide from mortal sight
His dazzling brow, till man could bear its light.
For, far less luminous, his votaries said,
Were even the gleams, miraculously shed
O'er MOUSSA'S[27] cheek, when down the Mount he trod
All glowing from the presence of his God!
On either side, with ready hearts and hands,
His chosen guard of bold Believers stands;
Young fire-eyed disputants, who deem their swords,
On points of faith, more eloquent than words;
And such their zeal, there's not a youth with brand
Uplifted there, but at the Chief's command,
Would make his own devoted heart its sheath,
And bless the lips that doomed so dear a death!
In hatred to the Caliph's hue of night,[28]
Their vesture, helms and all, is snowy white;
Their weapons various--some equipt for speed,
With javelins of the light Kathaian reed;[29]
Or bows of buffalo horn and shining quivers
Filled with the stems[30]
that bloom on IRAN'S rivers;[31]
While some, for war's more terrible attacks,
Wield the huge mace and ponderous battle-axe;
And as they wave aloft in morning's beam
The milk-white plumage of their helms, they seem
Like a chenar-tree grove[32] when winter throws
O'er all its tufted heads his feathery snows.
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