THE THIRD BOOK.

Time will produce events of which thou canst have no idea; and he to whom thou gavest no commission will bring thee unexpected news. MOALLAKAT: Poem of Tarafa.

1.

THALABA.

ONEIZA, look! the dead man has a ring:
Should it be buried with him?

ONEIZA.

Oh, yes - yes!

A wicked man! Whate'er is his must needs

Be wicked too.

THALABA.

But see the sparkling stone!

How it hath caught the glory of the Sun,
And shoots it back again in lines of light!

ONEIZA.

Why do you take it from him, Thalaba,

And look at it so close? It may have charms

To blind or poison. Throw it in the grave:

I would not touch it.

THALABA.

And around its rim

Strange letters

ONEIZA.

Bury it; oh! bury it.

THALABA.

It is not written as the Koran is:

Some other tongue perchance. The accursed man Said he had been a traveller.

MOATH (coming from the tent).

Thalaba,

What hast thou there?

THALABA.

A ring the dead man wore: Perhaps, my father, you can read its meaning.

MOATH.

No, Boy: the letters are not such as ours.
Heap the sand over it! a wicked man
Wears nothing holy.

THALABA.

Nay, not bury it!

It may be that some traveller, who shall enter

Our tent, may read it; or, if we approach Cities where strangers dwell and learned men, They may interpret.

MOATH.

It were better hid

Under the desert sands. This wretched man, Whom God hath smitten in the very purpose And impulse of his unpermitted crime, Belike was some magician, and these lines Are of the language that the Demons use.

ONEIZA.

Bury it, bury it, dear Thalaba!

MOATH.

Such cursed men there are upon the earth,
In league and treaty with the Evil Powers,
The covenanted enemies of God

And of all good: dear purchase have they made
Of rule and riches, and their lifelong sway,-
Masters, yet slaves of Hell. Beneath the roots
Of Ocean, the Domdaniel caverns lie,
Their impious meeting; there they learn the words
Unutterable by man who holds his hope
Of heaven; there brood the pestilence, and let
The earthquake loose.

THALABA.

And he who would have killed me

Was one of these?

That on the Table of Destiny thy name
Is written their Destroyer, and for this

Thy life by yonder miserable man
So sought; so saved by interfering Heaven.

THALABA.

His ring has some strange power, then?

MOATH.

Every gem,

So sages say, hath virtue; but the science,
Of difficult attainment: some grow pale,
Conscious of poison, or with sudden change
Of darkness warn the wearer; some preserve
From spells, or blunt the hostile weapon's edge;
Some open rocks and mountains, and lay bare
Their buried treasures: others make the sight
Strong to perceive the presence of those Beings
Through whose pure essence, as through empty air,
The unaided eye would pass;

And in yon stone I deem

Some such mysterious quality resides.

THALABA.

My father, I will wear it.

MOATH.

Thalaba!

THALABA.

In God's name, and the Prophet's! be its power Good, let it serve the righteous; if for evil, God, and my trust in Him, shall hallow it.

2.

So Thalaba drew on
The written ring of gold.

Then in the hollow grave

They laid Abdaldar's corpse,
And levelled over him the desert dust.

3.

The Sun arose, ascending from beneath
The horizon's circling line.

As Thalaba to his ablutions went,
Lo! the grave open, and the corpse exposed!
It was not that the winds of night
Had swept away the sands which covered it;
For heavy with the undried dew

The desert dust lay dark and close around; And the night air had been so calm and still, It had not from the grove

Shaken a ripe date down.

4.

Amazed to hear the tale,

Forth from the tent came Moath and his child. Awhile he stood contemplating the corpse Silent and thoughtfully;