Part 7
“I meant not, AZIM,” soothingly she said, As on his trembling arm she lean’d her head, And, looking in his face, saw anguish there Beyond all wounds the quivering flesh can bear— “I meant not _thou_ shouldst have the pain of this:— “Though death, with thee thus tasted, is a bliss “Thou wouldst not rob me of, didst thou but know “How oft I’ve pray’d to God I might die so! “But the Fiend’s venom was too scant and slow;— “To linger on were maddening—and I thought “If once that Veil—nay, look not on it—caught “The eyes of your fierce soldiery, I should be “Struck by a thousand death-darts instantly. “But this is sweeter—oh! believe me, yes— “I would not change this sad, but dear caress, “This death within thy arms I would not give “For the most smiling life the happiest live! “All, that stood dark and drear before the eye “Of my stray’d soul, is passing swiftly by; “A light comes o’er me from those looks of love, “Like the first dawn of mercy from above; “And if thy lips but tell me I’m forgiven, “Angels will echo the blest words in Heaven! “But live, my AZIM;—oh! to call thee mine “Thus once again! _my_ AZIM—dream divine! “Live, if thou ever lov’dst me, if to meet “Thy ZELICA hereafter would be sweet, “Oh, live to pray for her—to bend the knee “Morning and night before that Deity, “To whom pure lips and hearts without a stain, “As thine are, AZIM, never breath’d in vain,— “And pray that He may pardon her,—may take “Compassion on her soul for thy dear sake, “And, nought remembering but her love to thee, “Make her all thine, all His, eternally! “Go to those happy fields where first we twin’d “Our youthful hearts together—every wind “That meets thee there, fresh from the well-known flowers, “Will bring the sweetness of those innocent hours “Back to thy soul, and mayst thou feel again “For thy poor ZELICA as thou didst then. “So shall thy orisons, like dew that flies “To Heaven upon the morning’s sunshine, rise “With all love’s earliest ardour to the skies! “And should they—but, alas, my senses fail— “Oh for one minute!—should thy prayers prevail— “If pardon’d souls may, from that World of Bliss, “Reveal their joy to those they love in this— “I’ll come to thee—in some sweet dream—and tell— “Oh Heaven—I die—dear love! farewell, farewell.”
Time fleeted—years on years had pass’d away, And few of those who, on that mournful day, Had stood, with pity in their eyes, to see The maiden’s death and the youth’s agony, Were living still—when, by a rustic grave, Beside the swift Amoo’s transparent wave, An aged man, who had grown aged there By that lone grave, morning and night in prayer, For the last time knelt down—and, though the shade Of death hung darkening over him, there play’d A gleam of rapture on his eye and cheek, That brighten’d even Death—like the last streak Of intense glory on the’ horizon’s brim, When night o’er all the rest hangs chill and dim. His soul had seen a Vision, while he slept; She, for whose spirit he had pray’d and wept So many years, had come to him, all drest In angel smiles, and told him she was blest! For this the old man breath’d his thanks and died.— And there, upon the banks of that lov’d tide, He and his ZELICA sleep side by side.
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The story of the Veiled Prophet of Khorassan being ended, they were now doomed to hear FADLADEEN’S criticisms upon it. A series of disappointments and accidents had occurred to this learned Chamberlain during the journey. In the first place, those couriers stationed, as in the reign of Shah Jehan, between Delhi and the Western coast of India, to secure a constant supply of mangoes for the Royal Table, had, by some cruel irregularity, failed in their duty, and to eat any mangoes but those of Mazagong was, of course, impossible.[149] In the next place, the elephant, laden with his fine antique porcelain,[150] had, in an unusual fit of liveliness, shattered the whole set to pieces:—an irreparable loss, as many of the vessels were so exquisitely old, as to have been used under the Emperors Yan and Chun, who reigned many ages before the dynasty of Tang. His Koran, too, supposed to be the identical copy between the leaves of which Mahomet’s favourite pigeon used to nestle, had been mislaid by his Koran-bearer three whole days; not without much spiritual alarm to FADLADEEN, who, though professing to hold with other loyal and orthodox Mussulmans, that salvation could only be found in the Koran, was strongly suspected of believing in his heart, that it could only be found in his own particular copy of it. When to all these grievances is added the obstinacy of the cooks, in putting the pepper of Canara into his dishes instead of the cinnamon of Serendib, we may easily suppose that he came to the task of criticism with, at least, a sufficient degree of irritability for the purpose.
“In order,” said he, importantly swinging about his chaplet of pearls, “to convey with clearness my opinion of the story this young man has related, it is necessary to take a review of all the stories that have ever⸺”—“My good FADLADEEN!” exclaimed the Princess, interrupting him, “we really do not deserve that you should give yourself so much trouble. Your opinion of the poem we have just heard will, I have no doubt, be abundantly edifying, without any further waste of your valuable erudition.”—“If that be all,” replied the critic,—evidently mortified at not being allowed to show how much he knew about every thing but the subject immediately before him—“if that be all that is required, the matter is easily despatched.” He then proceeded to analyse the poem, in that strain (so well known to the unfortunate bards of Delhi), whose censures were an infliction from which few recovered, and whose very praises were like the honey extracted from the bitter flowers of the aloe. The chief personages of the story were, if he rightly understood them, an ill-favoured gentleman, with a veil over his face;—a young lady, whose reason went and came, according as it suited the poet’s convenience to be sensible or otherwise;—and a youth in one of those hideous Bucharian bonnets, who took the aforesaid gentleman in a veil for a Divinity. “From such materials,” said he, “what can be expected?—after rivalling each other in long speeches and absurdities, through some thousands of lines as indigestible as the filberts of Berdaa, our friend in the veil jumps into a tub of aquafortis; the young lady dies in a set speech, whose only recommendation is that it is her last; and the lover lives on to a good old age for the laudable purpose of seeing her ghost, which he at last happily accomplishes, and expires. This, you will allow, is a fair summary of the story; and if Nasser, the Arabian merchant, told no better,[151] our Holy Prophet (to whom be all honour and glory!) had no need to be jealous of his abilities for story-telling.”
With respect to the style, it was worthy of the matter;—it had not even those politic contrivances of structure, which make up for the commonness of the thoughts by the peculiarity of the manner, nor that stately poetical phraseology by which sentiments mean in themselves, like the blacksmith’s[152] apron converted into a banner, are so easily gilt and embroidered into consequence. Then, as to the versification, it was, to say no worse of it, execrable: it had neither the copious flow of Ferdosi, the sweetness of Hafez, nor the sententious march of Sadi; but appeared to him, in the uneasy heaviness of its movements, to have been modelled upon the gait of a very tired dromedary. The licences, too, in which it indulged, were unpardonable;—for instance, this line, and the poem abounded with such:—
Like the faint, exquisite music of a dream.
“What critic that can count,” said FADLADEEN, “and has his full complement of fingers to count withal, would tolerate for an instant such syllabic superfluities?” He here looked round, and discovered that most of his audience were asleep; while the glimmering lamps seemed inclined to follow their example. It became necessary, therefore, however painful to himself, to put an end to his valuable animadversions for the present, and he accordingly concluded, with an air of dignified candour, thus:—“Notwithstanding the observations which I have thought it my duty to make, it is by no means my wish to discourage the young man:—so far from it, indeed, that if he will but totally alter his style of writing and thinking, I have very little doubt that I shall be vastly pleased with him.”
Some days elapsed, after this harangue of the Great Chamberlain, before LALLA ROOKH could venture to ask for another story. The youth was still a welcome guest in the pavilion—to _one_ heart, perhaps, too dangerously welcome:—but all mention of poetry was, as if by common consent, avoided. Though none of the party had much respect for FADLADEEN, yet his censures, thus magisterially delivered, evidently made an impression on them all. The Poet himself, to whom criticism was quite a new operation, (being wholly unknown in that Paradise of the Indies, Cashmere,) felt the shock as it is generally felt at first, till use has made it more tolerable to the patient;—the Ladies began to suspect that they ought not to be pleased, and seemed to conclude that there must have been much good sense in what FADLADEEN said, from its having sent them all so soundly to sleep;—while the self-complacent Chamberlain was left to triumph in the idea of having, for the hundred and fiftieth time in his life, extinguished a Poet. LALLA ROOKH alone—and Love knew why—persisted in being delighted with all she had heard, and in resolving to hear more as speedily as possible. Her manner, however, of first returning to the subject was unlucky. It was while they rested during the heat of noon near a fountain, on which some hand had rudely traced those well-known words from the Garden of Sadi,—“Many, like me, have viewed this fountain, but they are gone, and their eyes are closed for ever!”—that she took occasion, from the melancholy beauty of this passage, to dwell upon the charms of poetry in general. “It is true,” she said, “few poets can imitate that sublime bird, which flies always in the air, and never touches the earth:[153]—it is only once in many ages a Genius appears, whose words, like those on the Written Mountain, last for ever:[154] but still there are some, as delightful, perhaps, though not so wonderful, who, if not stars over our head, are at least flowers along our path, and whose sweetness of the moment we ought gratefully to inhale, without calling upon them for a brightness and a durability beyond their nature. In short,” continued she, blushing, as if conscious of being caught in an oration, “it is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment, without having a critic for ever, like the old Man of the Sea, upon his back!”[155]—FADLADEEN, it was plain, took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next criticism. A sudden silence ensued; and the Princess, glancing a look at FERAMORZ, saw plainly she must wait for a more courageous moment.
But the glories of Nature, and her wild fragrant airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an evening or two after, they came to the small Valley of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the Emperor, for his favourite sister Rochinara, during their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and never was there a more sparkling assemblage of sweets, since the Gulzar-e-Irem, or Rose-bower of Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, that poetry, or love, or religion has ever consecrated; from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares his mistress’s hair,[156] to the _Cámalatá_, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented.[157] As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and LALLA ROOKH remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay,[158] or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost,—the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. “It is,” said he, with an appealing look to FADLADEEN, “in a lighter and humbler strain than the other:” then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began:—
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Paradise & the Peri
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One morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood, disconsolate; And as she listen’d to the Springs Of Life within, like music flowing, And caught the light upon her wings Through the half-open portal glowing, She wept to think her recreant race Should e’er have lost that glorious place!
“How happy,” exclaim’d this child of air, “Are the holy Spirits who wander there, “Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; “Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, “And the stars themselves have flowers for me, “One blossom of Heaven out-blooms them all!
“Though sunny the Lake of cool CASHMERE, “With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,[159] “And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; “Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, “And the golden floods that thitherward stray,[160] “Yet—oh, ’tis only the Blest can say “How the waters of Heaven outshine them all!
“Go, wing thy flight from star to star, “From world to luminous world, as far “As the universe spreads its flaming wall: “Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, “And multiply each through endless years, “One minute of Heaven is worth them all!”
The glorious Angel, who was keeping The gates of Light, beheld her weeping; And, as he nearer drew and listen’d To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten’d Within his eyelids, like the spray From Eden’s fountain, when it lies On the blue flower, which—Bramins say— Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.[161]
“Nymph of a fair but erring line!” Gently he said—“One hope is thine. “’Tis written in the Book of Fate, “_The Peri yet may be forgiven_ “_Who brings to this Eternal gate_ “_The Gift that is most dear to Heaven!_ “Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin— “’Tis sweet to let the Pardon’d in.”
Rapidly as comets run To the’ embraces of the Sun;— Fleeter than the starry brands Flung at night from angel hands,[162] At those dark and daring sprites Who would climb the’ empyreal heights, Down the blue vault the PERI flies, And, lighted earthward by a glance That just then broke from morning’s eyes, Hung hovering o’er our world’s expanse.
But whither shall the Spirit go To find this gift for Heaven?—“I know “The wealth,” she cries, “of every urn, “In which unnumber’d rubies burn, “Beneath the pillars of CHILMINAR;[163] “I know where the Isles of Perfume are, “Many a fathom down in the sea, “To the south of sun-bright ARABY;[164] “I know, too, where the Genii hid “The jewell’d cup of their King JAMSHID,[165] “With Life’s elixir sparkling high— “But gifts like these are not for the sky. “Where was there ever a gem that shone “Like the steps of ALLA’S wonderful Throne? “And the Drops of Life—oh! what would they be “In the boundless Deep of Eternity?”
While thus she mus’d, her pinions fann’d The air of that sweet Indian land, Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads O’er coral rocks, and amber beds:[166] Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem; Whose rivulets are like rich brides, Lovely, with gold beneath their tides; Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice Might be a Peri’s Paradise! But crimson now her rivers ran With human blood—the smell of death Came reeking from those spicy bowers, And man, the sacrifice of man, Mingled his taint with every breath Up wafted from the innocent flowers. Land of the Sun! what foot invades Thy Pagods and thy pillar’d shades[167]— Thy cavern shrines, and Idol stones, Thy Monarchs and their thousand Thrones?[168] ’Tis He of GAZNA[169]—fierce in wrath He comes, and INDIA’S diadems Lie scatter’d in his ruinous path.— His bloodhounds he adorns with gems, Torn from the violated necks Of many a young and lov’d Sultana;[170] Maidens, within their pure Zenana, Priests in the very fane he slaughters, And choaks up with the glittering wrecks Of golden shrines the sacred waters! Downward the PERI turns her gaze, And, through the war-field’s bloody haze Beholds a youthful warrior stand, Alone, beside his native river,— The red blade broken in his hand, And the last arrow in his quiver. “Live,” said the Conqueror, “live to share “The trophies and the crowns I bear!” Silent that youthful warrior stood— Silent he pointed to the flood All crimson with his country’s blood, Then sent his last remaining dart, For answer, to the’ Invader’s heart.
False flew the shaft, though pointed well; The Tyrant liv’d, the Hero fell!— Yet mark’d the PERI where he lay, And, when the rush of war was past, Swiftly descending on a ray Of morning light, she caught the last— Last glorious drop his heart had shed, Before its free-born spirit fled!
“Be this,” she cried, as she wing’d her flight, “My welcome gift at the Gates of Light. “Though foul are the drops that oft distil “On the field of warfare, blood like this, “For Liberty shed, so holy is,[171] “It would not stain the purest rill, “That sparkles among the Bowers of Bliss! “Oh, if there be, on this earthly sphere, “A boon, an offering Heaven holds dear, “’Tis the last libation Liberty draws “From the heart that bleeds and breaks in her cause!”
“Sweet,” said the Angel, as she gave The gift into his radiant hand, “Sweet is our welcome of the Brave “Who die thus for their native Land.— “But see—alas!—the crystal bar “Of Eden moves not—holier far “Than even this drop the boon must be, “That opes the Gates of Heaven for thee!”
Her first fond hope of Eden blighted, Now among AFRIC’S lunar Mountains,[172] Far to the South the PERI lighted; And sleek’d her plumage at the fountains Of that Egyptian tide—whose birth Is hidden from the sons of earth Deep in those solitary woods, Where oft the Genii of the Floods Dance round the cradle of their Nile, And hail the new-born Giant’s smile.[173] Thence over EGYPT’S palmy groves, Her grots, and sepulchres of Kings,[174] The exil’d Spirit sighing roves; And now hangs listening to the doves In warm ROSETTA’S vale[175]—now loves To watch the moonlight on the wings Of the white pelicans that break The azure calm of MŒRIS’ Lake.[176] ’Twas a fair scene—a Land more bright Never did mortal eye behold! Who could have thought, that saw this night Those valleys and their fruits of gold Basking in Heaven’s serenest light;— Those groups of lovely date-trees bending Languidly their leaf-crown’d heads, Like youthful maids, when sleep descending Warns them to their silken beds;[177]— Those virgin lilies, all the night Bathing their beauties in the lake, That they may rise more fresh and bright, When their beloved Sun’s awake;— Those ruin’d shrines and towers that seem The relics of a splendid dream; Amid whose fairy loneliness Nought but the lapwing’s cry is heard, Nought seen but (when the shadows, flitting Fast from the moon, unsheath its gleam,) Some purple-wing’d Sultana[178] sitting Upon a column, motionless And glittering like an Idol bird!— Who could have thought, that there, even there, Amid those scenes so still and fair, The Demon of the Plague hath cast From his hot wing a deadlier blast, More mortal far than ever came From the red Desert’s sands of flame! So quick, that every living thing Of human shape, touch’d by his wing, Like plants, where the Simoom hath past, At once falls black and withering! The sun went down on many a brow, Which, full of bloom and freshness then, Is rankling in the pest-house now, And ne’er will feel that sun again. And, oh! to see the’ unburied heaps On which the lonely moonlight sleeps— The very vultures turn away, And sicken at so foul a prey! Only the fierce hyæna stalks[179] Throughout the city’s desolate walks[180] At midnight, and his carnage plies:— Woe to the half-dead wretch, who meets The glaring of those large blue eyes[181] Amid the darkness of the streets!
“Poor race of men!” said the pitying Spirit, “Dearly ye pay for your primal Fall— “Some flow’rets of Eden ye still inherit, “But the trail of the Serpent is over them all!” She wept—the air grew pure and clear Around her, as the bright drops ran; For there’s a magic in each tear Such kindly Spirits weep for man! Just then beneath some orange trees, Whose fruit and blossoms in the breeze Were wantoning together, free, Like age at play with infancy— Beneath that fresh and springing bower, Close by the Lake, she heard the moan Of one who, at this silent hour, Had thither stolen to die alone. One who in life, where’er he mov’d, Drew after him the hearts of many; Yet now, as though he ne’er were lov’d, Dies here unseen, unwept by any! None to watch near him—none to slake The fire that in his bosom lies, With even a sprinkle from that lake, Which shines so cool before his eyes. No voice, well known through many a day, To speak the last, the parting word, Which, when all other sounds decay, Is still like distant music heard;— That tender farewell on the shore Of this rude world, when all is o’er, Which cheers the spirit, ere its bark Puts off into the unknown Dark.
Deserted youth! one thought alone Shed joy around his soul in death— That she, whom he for years had known, And lov’d, and might have call’d his own, Was safe from this foul midnight’s breath,— Safe in her father’s princely halls, Where the cool airs from fountain falls, Freshly perfum’d by many a brand Of the sweet wood from INDIA’S land, Were pure as she whose brow they fann’d.