The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore Part 166

As if the very lips and eyes, Predestined to have all our sighs And never be forgot again, Sparkled and spoke before us then!

So came thy every glance and tone, When first on me they breathed and shone, New as if brought from other spheres Yet welcome as if loved for years.

Then fly with me,--if thou hast known No other flame nor falsely thrown A gem away, that thou hadst sworn Should ever in thy heart be worn.

Come if the love thou hast for me Is pure and fresh as mine for thee,-- Fresh as the fountain under ground, When first 'tis by the lapwing found.[340]

But if for me thou dost forsake Some other maid and rudely break Her wors.h.i.+pt image from its base, To give to me the ruined place;--

Then fare thee well--I'd rather make My bower upon some icy lake When thawing suns begin to s.h.i.+ne Than trust to love so false as thine.

There was a pathos in this lay, That, even without enchantment's art, Would instantly have found its way Deep in to SELIM'S burning heart; But breathing as it did a tone To earthly lutes and lips unknown; With every chord fresh from the touch Of Music's Spirit,--'twas too much!

Starting he dasht away the cup,-- Which all the time of this sweet air His hand had held, untasted, up, As if 'twere fixt by magic there-- And naming her, so long unnamed, So long unseen, wildly exclaimed, "Oh NOURMAHAL! oh NOURMAHAL!

"Hadst thou but sung this witching strain, "I could forget--forgive thee all "And never leave those eyes again."

The mask is off--the charm is wrought-- And SELIM to his heart has caught, In blushes, more than ever bright, His NOURMAHAL, his Haram's Light!

And well do vanisht frowns enhance The charm of every brightened glance; And dearer seems each dawning smile For having lost its light awhile: And happier now for all her sighs As on his arm her head reposes She whispers him, with laughing eyes, "Remember, love, the Feast of Roses!"

FADLADEEN, at the conclusion of this light rhapsody, took occasion to sum up his opinion of the young Cashmerian's poetry,--of which, he trusted, they had that evening heard the last. Having recapitulated the epithets, "frivolous"--"inharmonious"--"nonsensical," he proceeded to say that, viewed in the most favorable light it resembled one of those Maldivian boats, to which the Princess had alluded in the relation of her dream,-- a slight, gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but vapid sweets and faded flowers on board. The profusion, indeed, of flowers and birds, which this poet had ready on all occasions, --not to mention dews, gems, etc.--was a most oppressive kind of opulence to his hearers; and had the unlucky effect of giving to his style all the glitter of the flower garden without its method, and all the flutter of the aviary without its song. In addition to this, he chose his subjects badly, and was always most inspired by the worst parts of them. The charms of paganism, the merits of rebellion,--these were the themes honored with his particular enthusiasm; and, in the poem just recited, one of his most palatable pa.s.sages was in praise of that beverage of the Unfaithful, wine;--"being, perhaps," said he, relaxing into a smile, as conscious of his own character in the Haram on this point, "one of those bards, whose fancy owes all its illumination to the grape, like that painted porcelain,[341] so curious and so rare, whose images are only visible when liquor is poured into it." Upon the whole, it was his opinion, from the specimens which they had heard, and which, he begged to say, were the most tiresome part of the journey, that--whatever other merits this well-dressed young gentleman might possess--poetry was by no means his proper avocation; "and indeed," concluded the critic, "from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than a poet."

They had now begun to ascend those barren mountains, which separate Cashmere from the rest of India; and, as the heats were intolerable, and the time of their encampments limited to the few hours necessary for refreshment and repose, there was an end to all their delightful evenings, and LALLA ROOKH saw no more of FERAMORZ. She now felt that her short dream of happiness was over, and that she had nothing but the recollection of its few blissful hours, like the one draught of sweet water that serves the camel across the wilderness, to be her heart's refreshment during the dreary waste of life that was before her. The blight that had fallen upon her spirits soon found its way to her cheek, and her ladies saw with regret--though not without some suspicion of the cause--that the beauty of their mistress, of which they were almost as proud as of their own, was fast vanis.h.i.+ng away at the very moment of all when she had most need of it. What must the King of Bucharia feel, when, instead of the lively and beautiful LALLA ROOKH, whom the poets of Delhi had described as more perfect than the divinest images in the house of AZOR,[342] he should receive a pale and inanimate victim, upon whose cheek neither health nor pleasure bloomed, and from whose eyes Love had fled,--to hide himself in her heart?

If any thing could have charmed away the melancholy of her spirits, it would have been the fresh airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley, which the Persians so justly called the Unequalled.[343] But neither the coolness of its atmosphere, so luxurious after toiling up those bare and burning mountains,--neither the splendor of the minarets and paG.o.das, that shone put from the depth of its woods, nor the grottoes, hermitages, and miraculous fountains,[344] which make every spot of that region holy ground,--neither the countless waterfalls, that rush into the Valley from all those high and romantic mountains that encircle it, nor the fair city on the Lake, whose houses, roofed with flowers,[345] appeared at a distance like one vast and variegated parterre;--not all these wonders and glories of the most lovely country under the sun could steal her heart for a minute from those sad thoughts which but darkened and grew bitterer every step she advanced.

The gay pomps and processions that met her upon her entrance into the Valley, and the magnificence with which the roads all along were decorated, did honor to the taste and gallantry of the young King. It was night when they approached the city, and, for the last two miles, they had pa.s.sed under arches, thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple-colored tortoise-sh.e.l.l of Pegu.[346] Sometimes, from a dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fireworks would break out, so sudden and so brilliant, that a Brahmin might fancy he beheld that grove, in whose purple shade the G.o.d of Battles was born, bursting into a flame at the moment of his birth;--while, at other times, a quick and playful irradiation continued to brighten all the fields and gardens by which they pa.s.sed, forming a line of dancing lights along the horizon; like the meteors of the north as they are seen by those hunters who pursue the white and blue foxes on the confines of the Icy Sea.

These arches and fireworks delighted the Ladies of the Princess exceedingly; and, with their usual good logic, they deduced from his taste for illuminations, that the King of Bucharia would make the most exemplary husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could LALLA ROOKH herself help feeling the kindness and splendor with which the young bridegroom welcomed her;--but she also felt how painful is the grat.i.tude which kindness from those we cannot love excites; and that their best blandishments come over the heart with all that chilling and deadly sweetness which we can fancy in the cold, odoriferous wind[347] that is to blow over this earth in the last days.

The marriage was fixed for the morning after her arrival, when she was, for the first time, to be presented to the monarch in that Imperial Palace beyond the lake, called the Shalimar. Though never before had a night of more wakeful and anxious thought been pa.s.sed in the Happy Valley, yet, when she rose in the morning, and her Ladies came around her, to a.s.sist in the adjustment of the bridal ornaments, they thought they had never seen her look half so beautiful. What she had lost of the bloom and radiancy of her charms was more than made up by that intellectual expression, that soul beaming forth from the eyes, which is worth all the rest of loveliness. When they had tinged her fingers with the Henna leaf, and placed upon her brow a small coronet of jewels, of the shape worn by the ancient Queens of Bucharia, they flung over her head the rose-colored bridal veil, and she proceeded to the barge that was to convey her across the lake;--first kissing, with a mournful look, the little amulet of cornelian, which her father at parting had hung about her neck.

The morning was as fresh and fair as the maid on whose nuptials it rose, and the s.h.i.+ning lake, all covered with boats, the minstrels playing upon the sh.o.r.es of the islands, and the crowded summer-houses on the green hills around, with shawls and banners waving from their roofs, presented such a picture of animated rejoicing, as only she, who was the object of it all, did not feel with transport. To LALLA ROOKH alone it was a melancholy pageant; nor could she have even borne to look upon the scene, were it not for a hope that among the crowds around, she might once more perhaps catch a glimpse of FERAMORZ. So much was her imagination haunted by this thought that there was scarcely an islet or boat she pa.s.sed on the way at which her heart did not flutter with the momentary fancy that he was there. Happy, in her eyes, the humblest slave upon whom the light of his dear looks fell!--In the barge immediately after the Princess sat FADLADEEN, with his silken curtains thrown widely apart, that all might have the benefit of his august presence, and with his head full of the speech he was to deliver to the King, "concerning FERAMORZ and literature and the Chabuk as connected therewith."

They now had entered the ca.n.a.l which leads from the Lake to the splendid domes and saloons of the Shalimar and went gliding on through the gardens that ascended from each bank, full of flowering shrubs that made the air all perfume; while from the middle of the ca.n.a.l rose jets of water, smooth and unbroken, to such a dazzling height that they stood like tall pillars of diamond in the suns.h.i.+ne. After sailing under the arches of various saloons they at length arrived at the last and most magnificent, where the monarch awaited the coming of his bride; and such was the agitation of her heart and frame that it was with difficulty she could walk up the marble steps which were covered with cloth of gold for her ascent from the barge.

At the end of the hall stood two thrones, as precious as the Cerulean Throne of Koolburga,[348] on one of which sat ALIRIS, the youthful King of Bucharia, and on the other was in a few minutes to be placed the most beautiful Princess in the world. Immediately upon the entrance of LALLA ROOKH into the saloon the monarch descended from his throne to meet her; but scarcely had he time to take her hand in his when she screamed with surprise and fainted at his feet. It was FERAMORZ, himself, who stood before her! FERAMORZ, was, himself, the Sovereign of Bucharia, who in this disguise had accompanied his young bride from Delhi, and having won her love as an humble minstrel now amply deserved to enjoy it as a King.

The consternation of FADLADEEN at this discovery was, for the moment, almost pitiable. But change of opinion is a resource too convenient in courts for this experienced courtier not to have learned to avail himself of it. His criticisms were all, of course, recanted instantly: he was seized with an admiration of the King's verses, as unbounded as, he begged him to believe, it was disinterested; and the following week saw him in possession of an additional place, swearing by all the Saints of Islam that never had there existed so great a poet as the Monarch ALIRIS, and moreover ready to prescribe his favorite regimen of the Chabuk for every man, woman and child that dared to think otherwise.

Of the happiness of the King and Queen of Bucharia, after such a beginning, there can be but little doubt; and among the lesser symptoms it is recorded of LALLA ROOKH that to the day of her death in memory of their delightful journey she never called the King by any other name than FERAMORZ.

[1] These particulars of the visit of the King of Bucharia to Aurungzebe are found in _Dow's "History of Hindostan_," vol. iii. p. 392.

[2] Tulip cheek.

[3] The mistress of Mejnoun, upon whose story so many Romances in all the languages of the East are founded.

[4] For the loves of this celebrated beauty with Khosrou and with Ferhad, see _D'Herbelot, Gibbon, Oriental Collections_, etc.

[5] "The history of the loves of Dewilde and Chizer, the son of the Emperor Alla, is written in an elegant poem, by the n.o.ble Chusero."?- _Ferishta_.

[6] Gul Reazee.

[7] "One mark of honor or knighthood bestowed by the Emperor is the permission to wear a small kettle-drum at the bows of their saddles, which at first was invented for the training of hawks, and to call them to the lure, and is worn in the field by all sportsmen to that end."--_Fryer's_ Travels. "Those on whom the King has conferred the privilege must wear an ornament of jewels on the right side of the turban, surmounted by a high plume of the feathers of a kind of egret. This bird is found only in Cashmere, and the feathers are carefully collected for the King, who bestows them on his n.o.bles."--_Elphinstone's_ Account of Cabul.

[8] "Khedar Khan, the Khakan, or King of Turquestan beyond the Gibon (at the end of the eleventh century), whenever he appeared abroad was preceded by seven hundred hors.e.m.e.n with silver battle-axes, and was followed by an equal number bearing maces of gold. He was a great patron of poetry, and it was he who used to preside at public exercises of genius, with four basins of gold and silver by him to distribute among the poets who excelled."--_Richardson's_ Dissertation prefixed to his Dictionary.

[9] "The kubdeh, a large golden k.n.o.b, generally in the shape of a pine- apple, on the top of the canopy over the litter or palanquin."--_Scott's_ Notes on the Baharda.n.u.sh.

[10] In the Poem of Zohair, in the Moallakat, there is the following lively description of "a company of maidens seated on camels." "They are mounted in carriages covered with costly awnings, and with rose-colored veils, the linings of which have the hue of crimson Andem-wood. "When they ascend from the bosom of the vale, they sit forward on the saddlecloth, with every mark of a voluptuous gayety. "Now, When they have reached the brink of yon blue-gus.h.i.+ng rivulet, they fix the poles of their tents like the Arab with a settled mansion."

[11] See _Bernier's_ description of the attendants on Rauchanara Begum, in her progress to Cashmere.

[12] This hypocritical Emperor would have made a worthy a.s.sociate of certain Holy Leagues.--"He held the cloak of religion [says Dow] between his actions and the vulgar; and impiously thanked the Divinity for a success which he owed to his own wickedness. When he was murdering and persecuting his brothers and their families, he was building a magnificent mosque at Delhi, as an offering to G.o.d for his a.s.sistance to him in the civil wars. He acted as high priest at the consecration of this temple; and made a practice of attending divine service there, in the humble dress of a Fakeer. But when he lifted one hand to the Divinity, he, with the other, signed warrants for the a.s.sa.s.sination of his relations."--"_History of Hindostan_,". vol. iii. p.335. See also the curious letter of Aurungzebe, given in the _Oriental Collections_, vol. i. p.320.

[13] "The idol at Jaghernat has two fine diamonds for eyes. No goldsmith is suffered to enter the PaG.o.da, one having stole one of these eyes, being locked up all night with the Idol."--_Tavernier_.

[14] See a description of these royal Gardens in "An Account of the present State of Delhi, by Lieut. W. Franklin."--_Asiat. Research_, vol.

iv. p. 417.

[15] "In the neighborhood is Notte Gill, or the Lake of Pearl, which receives this name from its pellucid water."--_Pennant's_ "Hindostan."

"Nasir Jung encamped in the vicinity of the Lake of Tonoor, amused himself with sailing on that clear and beautiful water, and gave it the fanciful name of Motee Talah, 'the Lake of Pearls,' which it still retains."-- _Wilks's_ "South of India."

[16] Sir Thomas Roe, Amba.s.sador from James I. to Jehanguire.

[17] "The romance Wemakweazra, written in Persian verse, which contains the loves of Wamak and Ezra, two celebrated lovers who lived before the time of Mahomet."--_Note on the Oriental Tales_.

[18] Their amour is recounted in the Shah-Nameh of Ferdousi; and there is much beauty in the pa.s.sage which describes the slaves of Rodahver sitting on the bank of the river and throwing flowers into the stream, in order to draw the attention of the young Hero who is encamped on the opposite side.--See _Champion's_ translation.

[19] Rustam is the Hercules of the Persians. For the particulars of his victory over the Sepeed Deeve, or White Demon, see _Oriental Collections_, vol. ii. p. 45.--Near the city of s.h.i.+raz is an immense quadrangular monument, in commemoration of this combat, called the Kelaat-i-Deev Sepeed, or castle of the White Giant, which Father Angelo, in his "_Gazophilacium Persic.u.m_," p.127, declares to have been the most memorable monument of antiquity which he had seen in Persia.--See _Ouseley's_ "Persian Miscellanies."

[20] "The women of the Idol, or dancing girls of the PaG.o.da, have little golden bells, fastened to their feet, the soft harmonious tinkling of which vibrates in unison with the exquisite melody of their voices."-- _Maurice's_ "Indian Antiquities."

"The Arabian courtesans, like the Indian women, have little golden bells fastened round their legs, neck, and elbows, to the sound of which they dance before the King. The Arabian princesses wear golden rings on their fingers, to which little bells are suspended, as well as in the flowing tresses of their hair, that their superior rank may be known and they themselves receive in pa.s.sing the homage due to them."--See _Calmet's_ Dictionary, art. "Bells."

[21] The Indian Apollo.? "He and the three Ramas are described as youths of perfect beauty, and the princesses of Hindustan were all pa.s.sionately in love with Chrishna, who continues to this hour the darling G.o.d of the Indan women."--_Sir W. Jones_, on the G.o.ds of Greece, Italy, and India.

[22] See _Turner's_ Emba.s.sy for a description of this animal, "the most beautiful among the whole tribe of goats." The material for the shawls (which is carried to Cashmere) is found next the skin.

[23] For the real history of this Impostor, whose original name was Hakem ben Haschem, and who was called Mocanna from the veil of silver gauze (or, as others say, golden) which he always wore, see _D'Herbelot_.

[24] Khora.s.san signifies, in the old Persian language, Province or Region of the Sun.--_Sir W. Jones_.

[25] "The fruits of Meru are finer than those of any other place: and one cannot see in any other city such palaces with groves, and streams, and gardens."--_Ebn Haukal's_ Geography.

[26] One of the royal cities of Khora.s.san.

[27] Moses.