Again, as in MEROU, he had her deckt
Gorgeously out, the Priestess of the sect;
And led her glittering forth before the eyes
Of his rude train as to a sacrifice,--
Pallid as she, the young, devoted Bride
Of the fierce NILE, when, deckt in all the pride
Of nuptial pomp, she sinks into his tide.[128]
And while the wretched maid hung down her head,
And stood as one just risen from the dead
Amid that gazing crowd, the fiend would tell
His credulous slaves it was some charm or spell
Possest her now,--and from that darkened trance
Should dawn ere long their Faith's deliverance.
Or if at times goaded by guilty shame,
Her soul was roused and words of wildness came,
Instant the bold blasphemer would translate
Her ravings into oracles of fate,
Would hail Heaven's signals in her flashing eyes
And call her shrieks the language of the skies!
But vain at length his arts--despair is seen
Gathering around; and famine comes to glean
All that the sword had left unreaped;--in vain
At morn and eve across the northern plain
He looks impatient for the promised spears
Of the wild Hordes and TARTAR mountaineers;
They come not--while his fierce beleaguerers pour
Engines of havoc in, unknown before,[129]
And horrible as new;--javelins, that fly[130]
Enwreathed with smoky flames thro' the dark sky,
And red-hot globes that opening as they mount
Discharge as from a kindled Naphtha fount[131]
Showers of consuming fire o'er all below;
Looking as thro' the illumined night they go
Like those wild birds that by the Magians oft[132]
At festivals of fire were sent aloft
Into the air with blazing fagots tied
To their huge wings, scattering combustion wide.
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