IV.

The breath of the East is in his face,
And it drives the sleet and the snow.
The air is keen, the wind is keen,
His limbs are aching with the cold,
His eyes are aching with the snow,3
His very heart is cold,

His spirit chill'd within him. He looks on
If aught of life be near,

But all is sky, and the white wilderness,
And here and there a solitary pine,
Its branches broken by the weight of snow.
His pains abate, his senses, dull
With suffering, cease to suffer.
Languidly, languidly,
Thalaba drags along,

A heavy weight is on his lids,
His limbs move slow with heaviness,
And he full fain would sleep.

Not yet, not yet, O Thalaba!
Thy hour of rest is come!
Not yet may the Destroyer sleep
The comfortable sleep;
His journey is not over yet,
His course not yet fulfill'd!..
Run thou thy race, O Thalaba!
The prize is at the goal.

Of Yemen, and its blessed bowers of balm.
A Fount of Fire, that in the centre play'd,
Roll'd all around its wonderous rivulets,
And fed the garden with the heat of life.
Every where magic! the Arabian's heart
Yearn'd after human intercourse.
A light!.. the door unclos'd!..
All silent.. he goes in.

IX.

There lay a Damsel, sleeping on a couch,
His step awoke her, and she gazed at him
With pleas'd and wondering look,
Fearlessly, like a yearling child,
Too ignorant to feare
With words of courtesy,
The young intruder spake.
At the sound of his voice, a joy
Kindled her bright black eyes;

She rose, and took his hand,

But, at the touch, the joy forsook her cheek, «Oh! it is cold!» she cried,

<< I thought I should have felt it warm, like mine, But thou art like the rest!»

X.

Thalaba stood mute awhile,

And wondering at her words:

«Cold? Lady!» then he said; « I have travelled long In this cold wilderness,

Till life is almost spent!»

ΧΙ.

LAILA.

Art thou a Man, then?

THALABA.

Nay.. I did not think

Sorrow and toil could so have altered me, That I seem otherwise.

LAILA.

And thou canst be warm Sometimes? life-warm as I am?

THALABA.

Surely, Lady,

As others are, I am, to heat and cold Subject like all. You see a Traveller, Bound upon hard adventure, who requests Only to rest him here to-night,.. to-morrow He will pursue his way.

LAILA.

Oh, not to-morrow!

Not like a dream of joy, depart so soon! And whither wouldst thou go? for all around Is everlasting winter, ice, and snow, Deserts unpassable of endless frost.

THALABA.

He who has led me here, will still sustain me Through cold and hunger.

XII.

« Hunger?» Laila cried;

She clapt her lily hands,

And whether from above, or from below,

It came, sight could not see,

So suddenly the floor was spread with food.

Women and men, like thee; and breathes into them
Motion, and life, and sense, . . but, to the touch,
They are chilling cold; and ever when night closes
They melt away again, and leave me here
Alone and sad. Oh then how I rejoice
When it is day, and my dear father comes
And cheers me with kind words, and kinder looks!
My dear, dear father!... Were it not for him,
I am so weary of this loneliness
That I should wish I also were of snow,
That I might inelt away, and cease to be.

THALABA.

And have you always had your dwelling here, Amid this solitude of snow?

LAILA.

I think so.

I can remember, with unsteady feet Tottering from room to room, and finding pleasure In flowers, and toys, and sweetmeats, things which long Have lost their power to please; which, when I see them, Raise only now a melancholy wish I were the little trifler once again Who could be pleased so lightly!

THALABA.

Then you know not

Your father's art?

LAILA.

No. I besought him once

To give me power like his, that where he went I might go with him: but he shook his head, And said, it was a power too dearly bought, And kiss'd me with the tenderness of tears. THALABA.

And wherefore hath he hidden you thus far From all the ways of humankind?

LAILA.

'T was fear,

Fatherly fear and love. He read the stars, Aud saw a danger in my destiny, And therefore placed me here amid the snows, And laid a spell that never human eye, If foot of man by chance should reach the depth Of this wide waste, shall see one trace of grove, Garden, or dwelling-place, or yonder fire, That thaws and mitigates the frozen sky. And, more than this, even if the enemy Should come, I have a guardian here.

THALABA.

A guardian?

LAILA.

'T was well, that when my sight unclos'd upon thee, There was no dark suspicion in thy face,

Else I had called his succour! wilt thou see him? But, if a woman can have terrified thee, How wilt thou bear his unrelaxing brow, And lifted lightnings?

THALABA.

Lead me to him, Lady!

XIV.

She took him by the hand, And through the porch they past. Over the garden and the grove, The fountain-streams of fire Poured a broad light like noon; A broad unnatural light,

Whom, like a loathsome leper, I have tainted With my contagious destiny. At evening He kiss'd me as he wont, and laid his hands Upon my head, and blest me ere I slept. His dying groan awoke me, for the Murderer Hlad stolen upon our sleep!... For me was meant The midnight blow of death; my father died;

The brother play-mates of my infancy, The baby at the breast, they perished all,.. All in that dreadful hour!... but I was sav'd To remember and revenge.

XVI.

She answered not, for now, Emerging from the o'er-arch'd avenue, The finger of her uprais'd hand Mark'd where the Guardian of the garden stood. It was a brazen image, every limb7 And swelling vein and muscle, true to life: The left knee bending on, The other straight, firm planted, and his hand

<< Liar!» quoth Thalaba.

And Laila's wondering eye

Looked up, all anguish, to her father's face.

By Allah and the Prophet,» he replied,
<< I speak the words of truth.
Misery, misery,

That I must beg mine enemy to speed
The inevitable vengeance now so near!
I read it in her horoscope,

Her birth-star warn'd me of Hodeirah's race.
I laid a spell, and call'd a Spirit up.
He answered, one must die,
Laila or Thalaba...

Accursed Spirit! even in Truth

Giving a lying hope!.

Last, I ascended the seventh Heaven,
And, on the everlasting Table there,8

In characters of light,

I read her written doom.

The years that it has gnawn me! and the load
Of sin that it has laid upon my soul!
Curse on this hand, that in the only hour
The favouring stars allow'd,
Reek'd with other blood than thine.
Still dost thou stand and gaze incredulous?
Young man, be merciful, and keep her not
Longer in agony !»>

XXV.

Thalaba's unbelieving frown
Scowl'd on the Sorcerer,

When in the air the rush of wings was heard,
And Azrael stood among them.

In equal terror, at the sight, The Enchanter, the Destroyer stood, And Laila, the victim maid.

XXVI.

« Son of Hodeirah !» said the Angel of Death, « The accursed fables not.

When, from the Eternal Hand, I took
The yearly scroll of fate,9

Her name was written there;..

Her leaf hath withered on the Tree of Life.' This is the hour, and from thy hands Commission'd to receive the Maid I come.»>

XXVII.

« Hear me, O Angel!» Thalaba replicd;

<< To avenge my father's death,

To work the will of Heaven,

To root from earth the accursed sorcerer race, I have dared danger undismay'd,

I have lost all my soul held dear, I am cut off from all the ties of life, Unmurmuring. For whate'er awaits me still, Pursuing to the end the enterprise, Peril or pain, I bear a ready heart.

BOOK XI.

Those, Sir, that traffick in these seas,

Fraught not their bark with fears.

SIA ROBERT HOWARD, Blind Lady.

I.

O FOOL, to think thy human hand
Could check the chariot-wheels of Destiny!
To dream of weakness in the all-knowing Mind,
That his decrees should change!

To hope that the united Powers
Of Earth, and Air, and Hell,

Might blot one letter from the Book of Fate,
Might break one link of the eternal chain!
Thou miserable, wicked, poor old man,
Fall now upon the body of thy child,
Beat now thy breast, and pluck the bleeding hairs
From thy grey beard, and lay

Thine ineffectual hand to close her wound,
And call on Hell to aid,

And call on Heaven to send

Its merciful thunderbolt!

O'er trackless snows, his way;
Unknowing he what blessed messenger
Had come to guide his steps,

That Laila's Spirit went before his path. Brought up in darkness, and the child of sin, Yet, as the meed of spotless innocence, Just Heaven permitted her by one good deed To work her own redemption, after death; So, till the judgment day,

She might abide in bliss,
Green warbler of the Bowers of Paradise.

VI.

The morning sun came forth,
Wakening no eye to life

In this wide solitude;

His radiance, with a saffron hue, like heat, Suffus'd the desert snow.

The Green Bird guided Thalaba;

Now oaring with slow wing her upward way; Descending now in slant descent

On out-spread pinions motionless; Floating now, with rise and fall alternate, As if the billows of the air

Heav'd her with their sink and swell.
And when, beneath the noon,

The icy glitter of the snow
Dazzled his aching sight,
Then, on his arm alighted the Green Bird,
And spread before his eyes

Her plumage of refreshing hue.