But see--what moves upon the height?
Some signal!--'tis a torch's light
What bodes its solitary glare?
In gasping silence toward the Shrine
All eyes are turned--thine, HINDA, thine
Fix their last fading life-beams there.
'Twas but a moment--fierce and high
The death-pile blazed into the sky
And far-away o'er rock and flood
Its melancholy radiance sent:
While HAFED like a vision stood
Revealed before the burning pyre.
Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of fire
Shrined in its own grand element!
"'Tis he!"--the shuddering maid exclaims,--
But while she speaks he's seen no more;
High burst in air the funeral flames,
And IRAN'S hopes and hers are o'er!
One wild, heart-broken shriek she gave;
Then sprung as if to reach that blaze
Where still she fixt her dying gaze,
And gazing sunk into the wave.--
Deep, deep,--where never care or pain
Shall reach her innocent heart again!
* * * * *
Farewell--farewell to thee. ARABY'S daughter!
(Thus warbled a PERI beneath the dark sea,)
No pearl ever lay under OMAN'S green water
More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.
Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till Love's witchery came,
Like the wind of the south[266] o'er a summer lute blowing,
And husht all its music and withered its frame!
But long upon ARABY'S green sunny highlands
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom
Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands
With naught but the sea-star[267] to light up her tomb.
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