On earth 'twas yet all calm around,
A pulseless silence, dread, profound,
More awful than the tempest's sound.
The diver steered for ORMUS' bowers,
And moored his skiff till calmer hours;
The sea-birds with portentous screech
Flew fast to land;--upon the beach
The pilot oft had paused, with glance
Turned upward to that wild expanse;--
And all was boding, drear and dark
As her own soul when HINDA'S bark
Went slowly from the Persian shore.--
No music timed her parting oar,[244]
Nor friends upon the lessening strand
Lingering to wave the unseen hand
Or speak the farewell, heard no more;--
But lone, unheeded, from the bay
The vessel takes its mournful way,
Like some ill-destined bark that steers
In silence thro' the Gate of Tears.[245]
And where was stern AL HASSAN then?
Could not that saintly scourge of men
From bloodshed and devotion spare
One minute for a farewell there?
No--close within in changeful fits
Of cursing and of prayer he sits
In savage loneliness to brood
Upon the coming night of blood,--
With that keen, second-scent of death,
By which the vulture snuffs his food
In the still warm and living breath![246]
While o'er the wave his weeping daughter
Is wafted from these scenes of slaughter,--
As a young bird of BABYLON,[247]
Let loose to tell of victory won,
Flies home, with wing, ah! not unstained
By the red hands that held her chained.
Pages:
779
780
781
782
783
784
785
786
787
788
789
790
791
792
793
794
795
796
797
798
799
800
801
802
803