Instantly her eyes
were lighted up with pleasure; and after a few unheard remarks from
FADLADEEN upon the indecorum of a poet seating himself in presence of a
Princess everything was arranged as on the preceding evening and all
listened with eagerness while the story was thus continued:--
Whose are the gilded tents that crowd the way,
Where all was waste and silent yesterday?
This City of War which, in a few short hours,
Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powers[90]
Of Him who, in the twinkling of a star,
Built the high pillared halls of CHILMINAR,[91]
Had conjur'd up, far as the eye can see,
This world of tents and domes and sunbright armory:--
Princely pavilions screened by many a fold
Of crimson cloth and topt with balls of gold:--
Steeds with their housings of rich silver spun,
Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun;
And camels tufted o'er with Yemen's shells[92]
Shaking in every breeze their light-toned bells!
But yester-eve, so motionless around,
So mute was this wide plain that not a sound
But the far torrent or the locust bird[93]
Hunting among thickets could be heard;--
Yet hark! what discords now of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams are revelling in the wind;
The neigh of cavalry;--the tinkling throngs
Of laden camels and their drivers' songs;--
Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze
Of streamers from ten thousand canopies;--[94]
War-music bursting out from time to time
With gong and tymbalon's tremendous chime;--
Or in the pause when harsher sounds are mute,
The mellow breathings of some horn or flute,
That far off, broken by the eagle note
Of the Abyssinian trumpet, swell and float.
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