Publish upon a card, as Robert Southey's, Each filiated on some original; All the rest But thou, Friend Darton, and.. observe me, man, I call thee Friend!.. hadst no original; Of thy bad groatsworth, thou didst get a barber A bear, and when he puts to death poor Bruin I think, or peradventure from his block. Next comes a minion worthy to be set Just now God Cynthius pluck me by the ear. Keswick, August, 1828. R. S.1 Een Franschmans lach op halfverwrongen kaken, Die geest beduidt op 't aanzicht van een bloed;5 En, om 't getal dier fraaiheen vol te maken, Eens Financiers verwaande domme snoet. 6 En dat moet ik, dat moet een Dichter wezen! Gelooft gy 't ooit, die deze monsters ziet? Geert, wat ik schreef, één trek daar van te lezen Zoo zeg gerust: "Hy kent zich zelven niet." Maar zacht een poos!.. Hoe langer hoe verkeerder! Mijn God is 't waar, zijn dit mijn wezenstrekken, Die troffen, ja! die wisten af te malen Wat oog en mond, wat elke zenuw sprak ; Wier borst, doorstroomd van hooger idealen, Een hand bewoog die 't voorwerp noort, ontbrak. Doch, wat maalt gy? . . 't Misnoegen van 't vervelen Voor Rust der ziel in zalig zelfgenot; Met Ongeduld om 't haatlijk tijdontstelen; En-Bitterheid, die met uw wanklap spot Wen ge, om den mond iets vriendlijks af te prachen, Of slaaprigheid of mijmrende ernst verstoort, En door uw boert het aanzicht tergt tot lachen Met zotterny, slechts wreevlig aangehoord. Maar HODGES! gy, die uit vervlogen eeuwen Ontdek ik 't hart dat lof noch laster acht; In the continuation of the Arabian Tales, the Dondaniel is mentioned; a seminary for evil magicians, under the roots of the sea. From this seed the present romance has grown. Let me not be supposed to prefer the rhythm in which it is written, abstractedly considered, to the regular blank verse; the noblest measure, in my judgement, of which our admirable language is capable. For the following Poem I have preferred it, because it suits the varied subject: it is the Arabesque ornament of an Arabian tale. The dramatic sketches of Dr. Sayers, a volume which no lover of poetry will recollect without pleasure, induced me, when a young versifier, to practise in this rhythm. I felt that while it gave the poet a wider range of expression, it satisfied the ear of the reader. It were easy to make a parade of learning, by enumerating the various feet which it admits : it is only needful to observe that no two lines are employed in sequence which can be read into one. Two six-syllable lines, it will perhaps be answered, compose an Alexandrine: the truth is, that the Alexandrine, when harmonious, is composed of two six-syllable lines. One advantage this metre assuredly possesses, the dullest reader cannot distort it into discord: he may read it prosaically, but its flow and fall will still be perceptible. Verse is not enough favoured by the English reader: perhaps this is owing to the obtrusiveness, the regular Jew's harp twing-twang, of what has been foolishly called heroic measure. I do not wish the improvisatorè tune; but something that denotes the sense of harmony, something like the accent of feeling,-like the tone which every poet necessarily gives to poetry Cintra, October, 1800. 1 Henry More had a similar picture in his mind when he wrote of, "Vast plains with lowly cottages forlorn, Rounded about with the low-wavering sky." THALABA THE DESTROYER. 4. No tear relieved the burthen of her heart; Stunn'd with the heavy woe, she felt like one Half-waken'd from a midnight dream of blood. But sometimes when the boy Would wet her hand with tears, The pious sufferer cried, 5. "Good is He!" quoth the boy : "Why are my brethren and my sisters slain? Why is my father kill'd? Did ever we neglect our prayers, Or ever lift a hand unclean to Heaven? Unwelcomed turn away? 6. Then Zeinab beat her breast in agony, "O God, forgive the child! He knows not what he says; Thou know'st I did not teach him thoughts like these; O Prophet, pardon him!" 7. She had not wept till that assuaging prayer, . . She raised her swimming eyes to Heaven, Beneath the dispensations of that will I groan, but murmur not. A day will come, when all things that are dark Will be made clear; .. then shall I know, O Lord! Why in thy mercy thou hast stricken me; Then see and understand what now My heart believes and feels." 8. Young Thalaba in silence heard reproof; His brow in manly frowns was knit, With manly thoughts his heart was full. "Tell me who slew my father?" cried the boy. Zeinab replied and said, "I knew not that there lived thy father's foe. The blessings of the poor for him Went daily up to Heaven; In distant lands the traveller told his praise; .. I did not think there lived Hodeirah's enemy." 9. "But I will hunt him through the world!" Young Thalaba exclaim'd. "Already I can bend my father's bow; Soon will my arm have strength To drive the arrow-feathers to his heart." 10. Zeinab replied, "O Thalaba, my child, Thou lookest on to distant days, And we are in the desert, far from men!" 11. Not till that moment her afflicted heart She cast her eyes around, No palm-tree rose to spot the wilderness; And rested like a dome 2 Upon the circling waste. She cast her eyes around, Famine and Thirst were there; And then the wretched Mother bow'd her head, And wept upon her child. 12. A sudden cry of wonder Where high in air a stately palace rose. Nor where the family of Greece 13. Here studding azure tablatures 3 And ray'd with feeble light, Star-like the ruby and the diamond shone: Here on the golden towers "The Lord gave, and the Lord taketh away; blessed be press a feeling of religion in that language with which our the name of the Lord.”—Job, i. 21. I have placed a Scripture phrase in the mouth of a Mahommedan; but it is a saying of Job, and there can be no impropriety in making a modern Arab speak like an ancient one. Resignation is particularly inculcated by Mahommed, and of all his precepts it is that which his followers have best observed: it is even the vice of the East. It had been easy to have made Zeinab speak from the Koran, if the tame language of the Koran could be remembered by the few who have toiled through its dull tautology. I thought it better to ex religious ideas are connected. 2 "La mer n'est plus qu'un cercle aux yeux des Matelots, Où le Ciel forme un dôme appuyé sur les flots. Le Nouveau Monae, par M. Le Suire. The magnificent Mosque at Tauris is faced with varnished bricks, of various colours, like most fine buildings in Persia, says Tavernier. One of its domes is covered with white flower-work upon a green ground; the other has a black ground, spotted with white stars. Gilding is also The yellow moon-beam lay, Here with white splendour floods the silver wall. 14. They enter'd, and through aromatic paths At length, upon a mossy bank, Young he appear'd, for on his cheek there shone And the brown beard curl'd close around his chin. Of coming feet awaking, fix'd his eyes 15. He heard, and he look'd up to heaven, Since the sweet sounds have visited my ear! It is a human voice!" 16. To Zeinab turning then, he said, "O mortal, who art thou, common upon Oriental buildings. At Boghar in Bactria our old traveller Jenkinson saw many houses, temples, and monuments of stone, sumptuously builded and gilt." In Pegu" they consume about their Varely or idol houses great store of leafe-gold, for that they overlay all the tops of the houses with gold, and some of them are covered with gold from the top to the foote; in covering whereof there is a great store of gold spent, for that every ten years they new overlay them with gold, from the top to the foote, so that with this vanitie they spend great aboundance of golde. For every ten years the rain doth consume the gold from these houses."-Cæsar Frederick, in Hakluyt. A waste of ornament and labour characterises all the works of the Orientalists. I have seen illuminated Persian manuscripts that must each have been the toil of many years, every page painted, not with representations of life and manners, but usually like the curves and lines of a Turkey carpet, conveying no idea whatever, as absurd to the eye as nonsense-verses to the ear. The little of their literature that has reached us is equally worthless. Our barbarian scholars have called Ferdusi the Oriental Homer. Mr. Champion has published a specimen of his poem; the translation is said to be bad and certainly must be unfaithful, for it is in rhyme; but the vilest copy of a picture at least repre *Hakluyt. sents the subject and the composition. To make this Iliad of the East, as they have sacrilegiously styled it, a good poem, would be realizing the dreams of alchemy, and transmuting lead into gold. The Arabian Tales certainly abound with genius; they have lost their metaphorical rubbish in passing through the filter of a French translation. 1 The Arabians call this palace one of the wonders of the world. It was built for Noman-al-Aôuar, one of those Arabian Kings who reigned at Hirah. A single stone fastened the whole structure; the colour of the walls varied frequently in a day. Noman richly rewarded the architect Sennamar; but recollecting afterwards that he might build palaces equal or superior in beauty for his rival kings, ordered that he should be thrown from the highest tower of the edifice. D'Herbelot. An African colony had been settled in the north of Ireland long before the arrival of the Neimhedians. It is recorded, that Neimheidh had employed four of their artisans to erect for him two sumptuous palaces, which were so highly finished, that, jealous lest they might construct others on the same, or perhaps a grander plan, he had them privately made away with, the day after they had completed their work. O'Halloran's History of Ireland. 2 The tribe of Ad were descended from Ad, the son of Aus or Uz, the son of Irem, the son of Shem, the son of Noah Alas! in the days of my youth, The hum of mankind Was heard in yon wilderness waste; Happy Al-Ahkâf then, For many and brave were her sons, Her daughters were many and fair. 20. "My name was Aswad then.. Of noble race I came, One of the wealthy of the earth my sire. An hundred horses in my father's stall, Stood ready for his will; Numerous his robes of silk; The number of his camels was not known. These were my heritage, O God! thy gifts were these; who, after the confusion of tongues, settled in Al-Ahkâf, or the Winding Sands in the province of Hadramaut, where his posterity greatly multiplied. Their first King was Shedad, the son of Ad, of whom the eastern writers deliver many fabulous things, particularly that he finished the magnificent city his father had begun; wherein he built a fine palace, adorned with delicious gardens, to embellish which he spared neither cost nor labour, proposing thereby to create in his subjects a superstitious veneration of himself as a god. This garden or paradise was called the garden of Irem, and is mentioned in the Koran, and often alluded to by the Oriental writers. The city, they tell us, is still standing in the deserts of Aden, being preserved by Providence as a monument of divine justice, though it be invisible, unless very rarely, when God permits it to be seen: a favour one Colabah pretended to have received in the reign of the Khalif Moawiyah, who sending for him to know the truth of the matter, Colabah related his whole adventure: that, as he was seeking a camel he had lost, he found himself on a sudden at the gates of this city, and entering it, saw not one inhabitant; at which being terrified, he stayed no longer than to take with him some fine stones, which he showed the Khalif. - Sale. The descendants of Ad in process of time falling from the worship of the true God into idolatry, God sent the prophet Houd (who is generally agreed to be Heber) to preach the unity of his essence, and reclaim them. Houd preached for many years to this people without effect, till God at last was weary of waiting for their repentance. The first punishment which he inflicted was a famine of three years' continuance, during all which time the heavens were closed upon them. This, with the evils which it caused, destroyed a great part of this people, who were then the richest and most powerful of all in Arabia. The Adites seeing themselves reduced to this extremity, and receiving no succour from their false gods, resolved to make a pilgrimage to a place in the province of Hegiaz, where at present Mecca is situated. There was then a hillock of red sand there, around which a great concourse of different people might always be seen; and all these nations, the faithful as well as the unfaithful, believed that by visiting this spot with devotion, they should obtain from God whatever they petitioned for, respecting the wants and necessities of life. The Adites having then resolved to undertake this religious journey, chose seventy men, at whose head they appointed Mortadh and Kail, the two most considerable personages of the country, to perform this duty in the name of But better had it been for Aswad's soul And begg'd the crumbs which from his table fell, 21. "Boy, who hast reach'd my solitude, To bend before my God; To shape one holy prayer. We worshipp'd Idols, wood and stone, We mock'd the Lord, long-suffering, slow to wrath. the whole nation, and by this means procure rain from Heaven, without which their country must be ruined. The deputies departed, and were hospitably received by Moâwiyah, who at that time reigned in the province of Hegiaz. They explained to him the occasion of their journey, and demanded leave to proceed and perform their devotions at the Red Hillock, that they might procure rain. Mortadh, who was the wisest of this company, and who had been converted by the prophet Houd, often remonstrated with his associates, that it was useless to take this journey for the purpose of praying at this chosen spot, unless they had previously adopted the truths which the Prophet preached, and seriously repented of their unbelief. For how, said he, can you hope that God will shed upon us the abundant showers of his mercy, if we refuse to hear the voice of him whom he hath sent to instruct us ? Kail, who was one of the most obstinate in error, and consequently of the Prophet's worst enemies, hearing the discourses of his colleague, requested King Moȧwiyah to detain Mortadh prisoner, whilst he and the remainder of his companions proceeded to make their prayers upon the Hillock. Modwiyah consented, and, detaining Mortadh captive, permitted the others to pursue their journey, and accomplish their vow. Kail, now the sole chief of the deputation, having arrived at the place, prayed thus: "Lord, give to the people of Ad such rains as it shall please thee." And he had scarcely finished when there appeared three clouds in the sky, one white, one red, the third black. At the same time these words were heard to proceed from Heaven: "Choose which of the three thou wilt." Kail chose the black, which he imagined the fullest, and most abundant in water, of which they were in extreme want. After having chosen, he immediately quitted the place, and took the road to his own country, congratulating himself on the happy success of his pilgrimage. As soon as Kail arrived in the valley of Magaith, a part of the territory of the Adites, he informed his countrymen of the favourable answer he had received, and of the cloud which was soon to water all their lands. The senseless people all came out of their houses to receive it; but this cloud, which was big with the divine vengeance, produced only a wind, most cold and most violent, which the Arabs call Sarsar; it continued to blow for seven days and seven nights, and exterminated all the unbelievers of the country, leaving only the prophet Houd alive, and those who had heard him and turned to the faith. — D'Herbelot. Al-Ahkâf signifies the Winding Sands. |