For many days after their departure from Lahore a considerable degree of
gloom hung over the whole party. LALLA ROOKH, who had intended to make
illness her excuse for not admitting the young minstrel, as usual, to the
pavilion, soon found that to feign indisposition was unnecessary;--
FADLADEEN felt the loss of the good road they had hitherto travelled and
was very near cursing Jehan-Guire (of blessed memory!) for not having
continued his delectable alley of trees[187] a least as far as the
mountains of Cashmere;--while the Ladies who had nothing now to do all day
but to be fanned by peacocks' feathers and listen to FADLADEEN seemed
heartily weary of the life they led and in spite of all the Great
Chamberlain's criticisms were so tasteless as to wish for the poet again.
One evening as they were proceeding to their place of rest for the night
the Princess who for the freer enjoyment of the air had mounted her
favorite Arabian palfrey, in passing by a small grove heard the notes of a
lute from within its leaves and a voice which she but too well knew
singing the following words:--
Tell me not of joys above,
If that world can give no bliss,
Truer, happier than the Love
Which enslaves our souls in this.
Tell me not of Houris' eyes;--
Far from me their dangerous glow.
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