And saw in every smile of thine,
Returning hours of glory shine!—
While the wrong'd spirit of our land
Lived, look'd, aud spoke her wrongs through thee,God! who could then this sword withstand?
Its very flash were victory!
But now-estranged, divorced for ever,
Far as the grasp of fate can sever;
Our only ties what love has wove,—
Faith, friends, and country, sunder'd wide ;—
And then, then only, true to love,
When false to all that's dear beside!
Thy father, Iran's deadliest foe-
Thyself, perhaps, even now-but no-
Hate never look'd so lovely yet!
No-sacred to thy soul will be
The land of him who could forget
All but that bleeding land for thee!
When other eyes shall see unmoved,
Her widows mourn, her warriors fall, Thoul't think how well one Gheber loved, And for his sake thou'lt weep for all! But look
With sudden start he turn'd,
And pointed to the distant wave, Where lights, like charnel meteors burn'd Bluely, as o'er some seaman's grave;
And fiery darts, at intervals,
Flew up all sparkling from the main,
As if each star that nightly falls,
Were shooting back to heaven again.
My signal lights !—I must away
Both, both are ruin'd, if I stay!
Farewell, sweet life! thou cling'st in vain―
Now Vengeance !-I am thine again."
Fiercely he broke away, nor stopp'd,
Nor look'd-but from the lattice dropp'd
Down mid the pointed crags beneath,
As if he fled from love to death.
While pale and mute young Hinda stood,
Nor moved, till in the silent flood
A momentary plunge below
Startled her from her trance of woe.
Such were the tales that won belief,
And such the colouring fancy gave
To a young, warm, and dauntless chief-
One who, no more than mortal brave,
Fought for the land his soul adored,
For happy homes and altars free,
His only talisman the sword,—
His only spell-word, Liberty!
One of that ancient hero line,
Along whose glorious current shine
Names that have sanctified their blood;
As Lebanon's small mountain flood
Is render'd holy by the ranks
Of sainted cedars on its banks !
'Twas not for him to crouch the knee
Tamely to Moslem tyranny
'Twas not for him, whose soul was cast
In the bright mould of ages past,
Whose melancholy spirit, fed
With all the glories of the dead,
Though framed for Iran's happiest years,
Was born among her chains and tears!
'Twas not for him to swell the crowd
Of slavish heads, that shrinking bow'd
Before the Moslem as he pass'd,
Like shrubs beneath the poison-blast.
No-far he fled-indignant fled
The pageant of his country's shame;
While every tear her children shed
Fell on his soul like drops of flame;
And as a lover hails the dawn
Of a first smile, so welcomed he
The sparkle of the first sword drawn
For Vengeance and for Liberty!
DESCRIPTION OF THE HOLD OF THE GHEBERS.
AROUND its base the bare rocks stood,
Like naked giants, in the flood,
As if to guard the Gulf across;
While on its peak that braved the sky,
A ruin'd temple tower'd so high,
That oft the sleeping albatross
Struck the wild ruins with her wing,
And from her cloud rock'd slumbering
Started-to find man's dwelling there,
In her own silent fields of air!
Beneath, terrific caverns gave
Dark welcome to each stormy wave
That dash'd, like midnight revellers, in;—
And such the strange mysterious din
At times throughout those caverns roll'd,—
And such the fearful wonders told
Of restless sprites imprison'd there,
That bold were Moslem, who would dare,
At twilight hour, to steer his skiff
Beneath the Gheber's lonely cliff.
On the land side, those towers sublime,
That seem'd above the grasp of time,
Were sever'd from the haunts of men
By a wide, deep, and wizard glen,
So fathomless, so full of gloom,
No eye could pierce the void between;
It seem'd a place where Gholes might come
With their foul banquets from the tomb,
And in its caverns feed unseen.'
Like distant thunder from below,
The sound of many torrents came;
Too deep for eye or ear to know
If 'twere the sea's imprison'd flow,
Or floods of ever-restless flame.
For each ravine, each rocky spire
Of that vast mountain stood on fire:
And though for ever pass'd the days,
When God was worshipp'd in the blaze
That from its lofty altar shone,—
Though fled the priests, the votaries gone,
Still did the mighty flame burn on
Through chance and change, through good and ill,
Like its own God's eternal will,
Deep, constant, bright, unquenchable!
DESCRIPTION OF A CALM AFTER A STORM.
How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone!
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity,—
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!
When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scatter'd at the whirlwind's will,
Hang floating in the pure air, still,
Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm;
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left
and flowers,
the grass
upon
Sparkles, as 'twere that lightning gem
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears,-
As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own,
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs!
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And even that swell the tempest leaves,
Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest-
Too newly to be quite at rest!
Such was the golden hour that broke
Upon the world when Hinda woke
From her long trance, and heard around
No motion but the waters' sound
* A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen,
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