The Plaints, Consolations, and Delights of Achmed Ardebeili

THE
VINDICATION.

SUPPOSE, one moment, ACHMED, thy retreat

Were to the prying WORLD OF MORTALS known,

Thy life, thy manners, and thy state complete,

Passions subdued, and prejudices flown.

The MONSTER⁵⁶ would exclaim, ‘Scorn points at thee,

Unsocial, indolent, a foe to fame,

Adverse to power, to wealth, to policy,

Resolved to live and die without a name.

‘Lost to all learning, loosed from every band

Of love, of friendship, kindred, native home;

Thine injured HONOR claims a vengeful hand,

Yet thou inglorious wilt wild forests roam.’

I’ll roam with savage beasts, in caverns hide,

Or scream with howlets thro’ the midnight hour;

Rather than dwell with LUXURY and PRIDE,

Or crouch the fawning slave of WEALTH and POWER.

A few short lines engraven on my sword,

To SULTAN favour led in FORTUNE’s morn,

Led me from humbler hopes to shine a Lord,

Gave me the ROSE, but not without a THORN.

Here NATURE reigns; MAN’s genuine wants are few,

Soon satisfied from her abundant store,

Her beauties charm where’er I turn my view,

I feel CONTENTMENT, and I ask no more.

If VENGEANCE yet my injured HONOR claim,

THAT, with my HEART, to HEAVEN I now resign:

Torn from the world, I quit its every aim,

Its motives, hopes, and hatreds, are not mine.

I’m not unsocial—all around me smiles,

And I responsive, smile on all around,

Not indolent—Activity beguiles

My passing hours, and treads this sacred ground.

Sacred to LIBERTY, life’s darling love,

For her I’ll dare whate’er man may endure,

With her thro’ forest glades delighted rove,

Where no false charms of ART the mind allure.

And while the loud acclaims of FAME, afar,

O’er fields of blood in savage discord rise,

Here will I sit, and view th’ EVENING STAR

In silent glory beam amid the skies:

Here sit, and sing the transports of a soul

Inspired, O NATURE! by thy charms sublime;

And while the seasons in succession roll,

Enjoy the sweet vicissitudes of TIME:

Delighted, view yon azure mountain-range

Extend its broken outline, wildly rude,

Soften’d by distance;—wherefore then, exchange

These scenes, where no asperities intrude;

The joyless DESERT tract to traverse o’er,

Each painful step perplex’d with rock and thorn,

Rough craggy steeps, where winds tempestuous roar,

WOLVES prowl for prey, and NATURE droops forlorn?

Such is the WORLD when distant I survey,

And such its aspect as I draw more near;

Aloof, then, ACHMED! let thy fancies play,

But, shun the dangers reason bids thee fear.

They once were thine:—escaped, thy safety prize,

Scorn the world’s maxims, and its scorn despise.

INSCRIPTION
ON
ACHMED’s SCIMETAR.

KEEN as the blasts from BULAK’s⁵⁷ desert blow;

High-temper’d as the souls of mighty kings;

Bright as the forky fires of light’ning glow,

When DEATH’s dread ANGEL rides upon their wings.

Such is this sword, O thou, whose hasty hand

Is guided only by despotic will,

Learn that from GOD was given this high command:

‘No blood UNJUSTLY shalt thou dare to spill.’

But to repel the force of lawless might,

To aid the INNOCENT, their wrongs redress,

Protect the JUST, defend thy country’s right:

For these, the BRAVE shall combat with success.

Wield then this vengeful blade.—By HEAVEN’s decree

DEATH’s SABLE ANGEL⁵⁸ shall give place to thee.

OMNIPRESENCE.

WHY was this SPIRIT, ardent still to rise,

Chain’d in a dungeon of compacted clay?

Why were those thoughts, aspiring to the skies,

In heavy fetters doom’d to pine away?

Strange—mystic union of discordant things,

Beyond the powers of REASON to descry:

Like the wild ostrich of the waste, whose wings

Tho’ strongly nerved, yet are not form’d to fly.

O sluggish clay, that bend’st thy inmate down,

Low to the parent dust that gave thee birth!

I fain would spurn thee, all thy ties disown,

And roam a pilgrim from the realms of earth.

Roam where? What unknown worlds wouldst thou explore?

Where rest in boundless space thy weary flight?

Float o’er etherial oceans without shore,

Mount to the stars—or sink in endless night?

What is thine aim? What mighty object, say,

To rise above this sublunary sphere?

Ev’n HIM, who reigns o’er all the realms of day,

Say, dost thou seek? Vain man! then seek him here.

For his Almighty WISDOM, POWER, and LOVE,

Are neither circumscribed by time, nor space,

But perfect here, as in the realms above,

Sustain the myriads of the human race.

Here shall the faithful heart with transport own,

GOD’s awful presence fills not Heaven alone.

TO THE
JASMINE.

LET the wild OLIVE rise with towering pride,

Deeply infix his strong tenacious root,

Spread his contorted limbs on every side,

And boast a copious load of bitter fruit.

What is his boast, sweet JASMINE! what to thee?

Say can it hurt the humble, to survey

The proud luxuriance of a lofty tree,

To whom thy central stem is but a spray?

No—fair diffuser of delightful balm!

Thy lowlier growth secures thee from the storm,

Gives thee to bloom all-lovely midst the calm,

That smiles complacent on thy slender form.

The fissured rock beneath the ridgy steep,

Where tangled woodbines court the western gale;

Where the close-mantling ivy loves to creep,

And the low juniper surveys the vale.

These, bashful BEAUTY, yield thee more delight

Than all the luxuries the vale bestows:

With thy humility—content unite,

And envy not the OLIVE or the ROSE.

Sweet child of purest NATURE! let me rest

Heedless of distant man beneath thy shade:

SIMPLICITY like thine, is surely blest,

No agitations thy meek state invade.

The little warbler midst thy foliage finds

A kind recess to raise her infant brood,

Shelter’d from feather’d foes—from boisterous winds,

Where MISCHIEF’s weazel-eye can ne’er intrude.

Her faithful sociate on thy light green spray,

Shall speak his tender joys in rapturous song;

With tuneful GRATITUDE thy shade repay,

And till the evening close, his strains prolong.

See the fall’n CEDAR, on that airy steep

How prone he lies, that rose so proud before,

Unheedful if the tempest rage, or sleep,

The dew-drop fall, or deep ning thunders roar:

How prone he lies! still frowns in faded state;

Frowns o’er the broken shrubs that sought his shade:

Thus fall the mighty by the hand of FATE,

That scarcely deigns thy humbler seats invade.

Blest be thy bow’ring branches—blest thy blooms,

Emblems of innocence and infant joy;

May light-wing’d zephyr waft their mild perfumes

To lovely bosoms, no rude thoughts annoy:

In virgin purity, serenely blest,

With sportive, youthful Happiness combined;

Of every tender sentiment possest,

That dwells, delicious, in the gentle mind.

So may’st thou live, and bloom in early SPRING,

So may soft pleasure crown thy SUMMER’s day;

Maturing AUTUMN wave her golden wing,

Long ere bald WINTER reign with tyrant sway.

Ah! while the circling SEASONS thus return,

Be thou serene—the boist’rous power shall mourn.

THE
INVITATION.

WHY, hapless MAN! consume thy labouring life,

In fond pursuit of phantoms, light as air?

The sport of passions, whose unceasing strife

Blends MADNESS, FOLLY, RAPTURE, and DESPAIR.

In vain does NATURE with persuasive voice,

Amidst her bounties urge thee to enjoy,

Enjoy true pleasures, gratefully rejoice:

MAN, spurning NATURE, would her gifts destroy!

Each pure emotion blasting in its rise,

Each heav’nly inmate binds in earthly chains,

While golden visions dance before his eyes,

And sensual furies revel in his veins.

O thou of different mind! the MAN of THOUGHT,

Of simple THOUGHT—of heart estrang’d from pride,

Who tired of strife, canst hold vain things at nought,

NATURE—thine admiration! TRUTH—thy guide!

Come, Pilgrim, seek these woods, these mountains wild,

And vales unknown to all the slaves of ART,

By many a dark enchantment’s charm beguiled,

That spreads a cank’ring poison through the heart.

O quit the treacherous WORLD, and taste with me,

Sweet PEACE, CONTENTMENT, HEALTH and LIBERTY!

THE
TURTLE DOVES.

HERE, ACHMED, let thy wearied frame once more

Enjoy the heavenly comforts of repose:

And may this much-lov’d solitude restore

Thy mind to calmness, long oppress’d with woes.

Unmanly RULER of the PERSIAN land,

A land of SLAVES, that abjectly obey;

This lonely region owns not thy command,

Here, ACHMED bends to no proud tyrant’s sway.

But blest with what primeval NATURE gave

To all that live—the right to rest, or roam;

For GOD ne’er form’d a tyrant, or a slave,

Nor chain’d mankind to any hateful home.

Free as the light the MAN of NATURE rose,

Gazed on her beauties, and with raptured heart

Adored the guardian of his sweet repose,

Who bade the SUN his genial powers impart.

He saw a charm diffused on all around,

His soul responsive, felt that charm her own;

His every thought with rosy chaplets crown’d,

And pure emotions blest his heart alone.

How different far the man of modern days

In vigorous health, and energy of mind;

Ev’n in maturity his strength decays,

His spirit daunted—wavering and confined.

He acts not, speaks not, as he thinks or feels,

But ruled by interest, or by custom led,

Awed by false shame or fear, his chariot wheels

Pursue the track from which lost REASON fled.

The sorceress, SUPERSTITION, waves her wand,

And blasts the face of NATURE to his view;

While USURPATION grasps with griffon hand

His scanty joys, his wealth, his freedom too.

Man taught alas! DELUSION’s voice to hear,

And lur’d from PEACE, to CRUELTY and STRIFE,

Led by AMBITION, meets the slaughtering spear,

Or lifts the sabre ’gainst his brother’s life.

Perhaps he falls:—the vulture screams delight,

Hovering impatient o’er the carnaged plain:

Perhaps—he triumphs in the field of fight,

A gory DEMON! ’midst the mangled slain.

Behold the neighbouring CITY, whose full fate

Hung on the chance of victory or defeat:

Lo! its high towers o’erturn’d—its wealth, its state,

Laid like their SOVEREIGN at the CONQUEROR’s feet.

The VIRGIN’s shriek—the WIDOW’s frantic tear,

The bitter anguish of a PARENT’s love,

Anticipating all the lot severe,

That his poor captive offspring soon must prove.

The chain that binds so cruelly their hands,

Binds them more firmly to his anguish’d soul:

Yet, see! the iron-hearted warrior stands

Exulting in the power of rude controul.

The smoaking ruin—the once lucid stream,

Whose trembling waters flow distain’d with blood;—

His dying sociate’s pangs,—awake no gleam

Of social feeling: VENGEANCE yells for food.

Nor yells in vain: Impetuous as the steed

That hears the shout of war with neighing joy:

While groans of DEATH to TERROR’s scream succeed,

Aloud the son of DISCORD cries, DESTROY!

Admit—the SULTAN whom his sword defends,

Yields him a scanty portion of the spoils;

RAPINE and MURDER still his hope extends,

With brutal revelry to crown his toils.

He lives a TYGER! If his hated name

Debase the annals of th’ historic page,

Indignant JUSTICE ’mid the sons of FAME,

Shall blast his memory—to each future age.

But hark! a gentler voice salutes mine ear,

With softly murmuring notes of joy and love;

A voice that long has breathed familiar here,

The placid spirit of the TURTLE DOVE.

Sweet birds! that nestling in the clefted stone,

Where the wild creeper forms a floating shade;

Ne’er may that discord to your lives unknown,

These sweetly-pensive solitudes invade.

Welcome—thrice welcome, then, my hallow’d fate,

And ah! farewel! thou world of cares and strife:

Wean’d from thy love, and heedless of thy hate,

HEAVEN yields me comforts, and sustains my life.

TO
SELIMA.

WHERE are you flown, ye hours of gay Delight,

When countless BEAUTIES crowding on my view,

Seem’d by some mystic concord to unite,

In forms of fair enjoyment, ever new?

When, as the nectar’d goblet pour’d around

Its smiling treasures to the sons of JOY:

The echoing roofs learnt only to resound,

‘These, these are pleasures that can never cloy.’

Then, spurning ev’ry fear of FORTUNE’s frown,

TIME’s rapid progress, or the shafts of FATE;

I fondly call’d thee, SELIMA! my own,

And deem’d my raptures of no mortal date.

‘Let holy DERVISHES,⁵⁵ of EDEN dream,

And clasp the visions of celestial bliss,

They ne’er beheld thy heav’nly beauty’s beam,

Nor from thy lips received a HOURI’s kiss.

‘O let my soul, transported as I gaze,

Proclaim thy triumph o’er the rising day;

See, light-wing’d clouds obscure his blushful blaze,

While gladden’d NATURE hails thy living ray!

‘O SELIMA! Enchantment reigns around,

Whene’er thy magic fingers touch the lyre;

But when thy voice accords its sweeter sound,

Ev’n listning SERAPHS with delight expire!’

Thus, I, exulting in each rapturous hour,

Ne’er bade my heart with grateful ardors glow,

To HIM whose goodness gave: his vengeful power

Reversed each charm, and plunged me deep in woe.

Yet, can my wounded spirit e’er repine?

Has it not known the HEART’s supremest joy?

The blest IDEA ever shall be mine,

Nor can ETERNITY that bliss destroy.

TO THE
TYRANT SON OF ABBAS.

FLATTERY was ne’er my tribute to the GREAT,

Nor to the HUMBLE were my words austere:

Ne’er with the LOFTY did I seek my seat,

Votaries of FORTUNE, or the slaves of FEAR.

Thou wast my PRINCE, I therefore honour’d thee;

My sword, my fealty, and my life were thine,

’Till like the mock-thron’d GAURE, compell’d to flee,

I felt the blessedness of FREEDOM mine.

Scorning deceit, unpractised to betray,

For TRUTH I dared to meet the frowns of FATE:

JUSTICE should thus direct a Sovereign’s sway,

And MERCY ever sit beside his gate.

REASON should guide him—for he is a man,

HONOR adorn him—for he is a KING;

Meer power despotic—like a GIANT’s span,

Is soon contracted by a reptile’s sting.

So when the LION, from a rising rock

Surveys the vales, and deems their herds his prize,

A few poor puny GNATS that round him flock,

May in a moment close his greedy eyes.

AVARICE should find no place upon a throne,

Nor shameless FRAUD conceal rich CASKETS⁶⁰ there,

A life of true BENEFICENCE alone,

Can call down blessings like a prophet’s pray’r.

FAITH and GOOD-DEEDS the aid of Heaven obtain,

Howe’er by man insulted or opprest;

While VICE and VIOLENCE exult in vain,

Strangers to peace, security, and rest.

The PERSIAN people, grown degenerate,—base,

Required a scourge—and found that scourge in thee;

For GOD’s afflictive judgments smite the race,

That sinks abandon’d to iniquity.

O fear HIM then—omnipotent as just!

Of whose pure GLORY,⁶¹ one resplendant ray

Reduc’d MOUNT PHARAN into instant dust,

As the first substance flow’d in streams away.

No! proud, lascivious Man! thou fear’st him not,

And therefore I should fear thee, wert thou here:

A heart more hard than SHEBEEB’s⁶¹ is thy lot,

And curst like VALID,⁶² thou canst shed no tear.

All thy delights, (if thou delight canst know,)

Are sensual, selfish, drawn from others’ wrong;

On thee no warm sun shines, no breezes blow,

But meet some malediction from thy tongue.

Obtain the luxuries of a thousand shores,

Indulge thine appetites, thy pomp, thy pride,

Let captive beauty—riches—swell thy stores,

And slaughter’d subjects fall on every side:

Deep in thy heart the thorn of GUILT shall lie;

TYRANTS who live like thee, hard, unrepentant die.

TO THE
LUXURIOUS.

YE, who beneath rich canopies of state,

Mid circling slaves, that bend with servile awe,

Sit idly great; in SULTAN pomp elate,

Your wild-will JUSTICE, and your passions LAW.

Lo! costly odours, and the richest wine,

To crown your banquets from far realms are borne,

And all the treasures of the East combine

To make your splendors emulate the morn.

Tho’ melting sounds of music’s vocal strains,

With the soft lute in harmony combined,

Or dance of WANTON BEAUTY strive, in chains

Light as her step, to hold the captive mind.

Ev’n, tho’ a thousand sensual ARTS unite

To raise the enervated sould to joy;

Say, pass you in the HARAM OF DELIGHT⁶³

Your listless languid hours without annoy?

In LUXURY’s vale, or FLATTERY’s fertile field,

What crops of tares reward the tiller’s toil!

What acid grapes your mental vineyards yield!

What rank and poisonous weeds o’erspread the soil!

Will SLOTH (that hag unknown to NATURE) lead

Your half-form’d weary thoughts to sweet repose;

Or with false appetites and passions plead,

Along the stream from FOLLY’s fount that flows,

Hasty and foul, to swell the troubled lake

Of PREJUDICE, or stagnate round the root

Of PRIDE’s cloud-piercing tree, whose branches ache,

Bending beneath a load of vapid fruit?

Once, like yourselves, in flowery fetters bound,

To soft desires of sense I captive fell;

Smiled on the margin of that gulf profound,

Whose giddy whirlpools sink to DEATH and HELL.

Deem’d it a bliss to bear delusion’s chain;

Spurn’d at those truths that WISDOM’s voice displays;

’Till blest ADVERSITY assumed her reign,

And oped mine eyes to HEAVEN’s all beauteous rays:

Scourged me with thorns from LUXURY’s soft abode,

Tore me from man, and raised my soul to GOD.

FREEDOM.

‘FILL—fill the cup with generous WINE,

And pass the circling goblet round;

Expand the heart, dull thoughts resign,

And let the song of JOY resound.

‘Let BEAUTY’s praise inspire the lay;

Fond LOVE thy rapturous strains impart;

Thou, FRIENDSHIP, too, thy charms display,

And reign united o’er my heart.’

Bright were the joys the draught inspired;

Sweet were the numbers of the song:

While all the heart enchanted, fired,

Bless’d the gay hours that flew along.

They flew, unmark’d by GRIEF or CARE,

For YOUTH and FORTUNE hail’d the day:

LOVE bless’d my vows, and FRIENDSHIP fair

Warm’d like the sun’s unclouded ray.

That smiled around on earth and skies.

O’er man could happier moments roll?

‘Yes, ACHMED, yes!’—hark! FREEDOM cries,

I was a stranger to thy soul.’

TO
ENVY.

DISTRACTION, Monster! seize thine every thought,

Thine every scheme be frustrate.—What of good

E’er in thy blasted yew-walks refuge sought,

And found it?—Worst hag of JEHENNEM’s⁶⁴ brood!

I hate thee more than EBLIS, sire of SIN.

Thy bloody-mantled sister, CRUELTY,

Scarce the dread work of torment does begin,

Until inflamed and goaded on by thee.

Thou, fiend insatiate! findst not food in HELL

To gorge thine appetite:—those hideous eyes

Range thro’ the world of man, starved wolf-like, fell,

Yet sickening close whene’er they meet the skies.

For HAPPINESS is there thou canst not reach,

To trouble, taint, diminish, or destroy.

How long wilt thou on earth, blasphemer! teach,

That GOD ne’er GAVE for mortals to ENJOY?

Unless in some delusive guise, awhile

To taste mock bliss that terminates in tears;

Or, save when wildering dreams of hope beguile,

To leave the fond heart overwhelm’d with fears.

Self torturing spirit! thou canst know no rest,

While ANGELS spread their MAKER’s bounties wide,

And in the act of blessing, doubly blest,

Fly from thee, far as PIETY from PRIDE!

Ungrateful MISER of the gifts of GOD!

Thou rather wouldst thy canker’d entrails rend,

Feel the dire scourge of TABEKH’s⁶⁵ fiery rod,

Than see one heavenly joy on man descend.

Tho’ thy dark visage mock th’ eclipsing moon,

Or locust clouds, wide-hovering, blot the stars;

Dark as the horrors of that dreadful noon,

When VENGEANCE drew the sword of KAIOMARS;⁶⁶

Know, fiend abhorr’d! there is a power bestow’d

On generous souls, to daunt thy giant brood:

As SIMORG ANKA’s⁶⁷ living armour glow’d

Effulgence, that the GENI race subdued.

Thou dar’st not enter ACHMED’s lonely cave,

Thou canst no venom thro’ his heart diffuse,

Thou canst not plunge him in life’s stormy wave,

Thou canst not dim the sunshine of his views.

DEMON! thou canst not in his bosom raise

One sigh, for all that TREACHERY from him rent,

To swell A VILLAIN’s boast:—whilst rugged ways

O’er deserts led the wand’rer to CONTENT.

Unkindred spirits! never shall ye meet—

From ENVY, far as HAVIAT’s⁶⁸ gloom from Heaven,

Should ACHMED with CONTENT, his sociate sweet,

Beyond the planetary spheres be driven:

Thro’ lapsing ages traverse boundless space,

With all the swiftness of the light’ning’s speed:

Yet, at the utmost wild-range of his race,

Still would he find himself, like VIRTUE’s meed,

Embosom’d in that blest INFINITY,

To WHOM creation as a point appears

Amid the vast abyss.—ETERNITY

Thus shows how moment-like the lapse of years.

Dark FIEND, avaunt! For the world’s happiness

Let others envying pine.—CONTENT I here possess.

MORNING.

TO western climes as speed the GOBLIN crew,

The starry SENTINELS of Heaven retire,

Save ONE bright form, that o’er the trembling dew

Mingles his sapphire beam with golden fire.

Deep growls the BEAST of CARNAGE, from the waste

Retracing slow the steps he trod before:

The VULTURE rears his crest, and snuffs the blast,

Scenting afar the savage stain’d with gore.

From the rude apex of yon mountain’s brow,

Majestic see the ardent eagle rise,

Hailing with joy the warm diffusive glow,

He meets the sun-beam in the midway skies.

By gates, and bars, and circling guards, secured,

The PERSIAN TYRANT groans in beauty’s arms,

He knows no joy, no peace, no power assured,

TO HONOR dead, and dead to NATURE’s charms.

What tho’ victorious chiefs his realms extend,

In each victorious chief he fears a foe;

While in his own dark heart, a deadly fiend

Prompts to black deeds, then echoes, GUILT and WOE.

His days tumultuous, and his nights unblest;

His VIZIERS faithless, and his KHANS⁶⁹ unsound;

Visions of terror break convulsive rest,

And ev’n the rays of MORN have power to wound.

The captive wretch thro’ life that bears his chain,

The virgin doom’d to prove his brutal lust,

The tortured victims that his rage sustain,

May hope in death the portion of the JUST.

But can that HOPE pervade the TYRANT’s soul,

Long sunk in crimes, and daily acting new,

Remorseless, spurning MERCY’s mild controul?

I thank thee, Heaven! I’ve bid his realms adieu.

Here, MORN! thy lovely beams unsullied shine,

Pure as those beams, thy breezes wing their way;

HEALTH and CONTENT and LIBERTY are mine;

And like the FAWN my sportive fancies play.

The soul unfetter’d, undistraught with cares,

Heedless of all the din that jars mankind,

Far from life’s discord, pride, and sensual snares,

Hails each effusion of TH’ ETERNAL MIND.

SEES that effusion, NATURE! thro’ thy reign;

FEELS it in pure emotions of the heart;

HEARS it melodious in the warbler’s strain;

TASTES it in all that can delight impart:

While flowery blooms that ev’n these rocks adorn,

Breathe it in FRAGRANCE to the opening MORN.

TRANSITION.

HOW blest the day when bursting from the chains

Of iron-hearted interest, slavish fear,

And fiend-born superstition—o’er the plains

Of FREEDOM, man shall run his bold career!

So runs the bounding STAG, with ardour wild,

That seeks the shelter of his native shades;

No more by appetite or sloth beguiled,

He longs to traverse safe the lonely glades.

Marking the WOLF’s dire foot-tracks, swift away

Along the wind, he soon eludes a foe

Unskill’d with arts insidious to betray,

Or, from afar inflict the deadly blow.

With such thy happy fortune, ACHMED, here,

Forgive the wretch who sought thy blood to shed,

Nor deem the storm of destiny severe,

That shower’d down blessings on thy favour’d head.

When HEAVEN in mercy spares, the dangers past

Contrasted, heighten all the joys we feel;

Thus SPRING emerges from the wintry blast,

From its dark scabbard thus the gleaming steel.

The black cloud flown, thus lovely VENUS shines,

Soft HEZAR’s notes succeed the howlet’s scream.

The gloom-form’d treasures drawn from murky mines,

Catch dazzling brilliance from the SUN’s first beam.

Thus, rising from the grave, the righteous soul,

Clad in etherial vesture, mounts the skies;

And while below dark billowy oceans roll,

He views fair PARADISE with raptured eyes,

Contrasting heavenly JOYS with earthly strife,

Blesses the parting pangs of mortal life!

BENEFICENCE.

IF possess’d of hoarded treasure,

Wouldst thou strive to bless thy store?

Be it then thy sweetest pleasure

To impart it to the poor.

What art thou, this gift possessing,

But the minister of GRIEF,

If thou hide the radiant blessing,

Like the base and abject THIEF?

Look around thee, MAN! and say

Wouldst thou, like the source of day,

Pour the golden flood of light,

And glad the nations lost in night;

Exulting view thy lovely beams

Illume the mountains, dance along the streams;

Bid the wide earth in extacy rejoice,

And all her vocal tribes with grateful voice

Hymn their delight?—Or, like the VULTURE, cow’r

O’er the fall’n ELEPHANT, unable to devour

That giant carcase; yet insatiate, aim

To guard the mighty prey from every puny claim;

Crouch like the DRAGON in his murky den,

O’er gems and gold he knows not to employ:

Writhing his care-worn frame—his watchful ken,

Guards all approach of CHARITY or JOY?

What tho’ the lovers of this fleeting world,

Like hungry DOGS, growl o’er their carrion prey;

Tho’ musky odours in their track were hurl’d,

Still by the tainted breeze would guide their way:

Thou, ACHMED, all such base examples shun,

Be great, beneficent, and imitate the SUN.

If, by the SCOURGE OF FATE, to deserts driv’n,

Thou there hast met the favouring smile of HEAVEN.

If REASON build her mansion in thy mind:

If MEDITATION with EXPERIENCE join’d:

While every passion slumbers in the breast,

False hopes, and fears, and interests soothed to rest:

If WISDOM’s sacred flame illume thy soul,

And nought the freedom of her will controul.

To weak, to erring man, that light impart,

To guide his wand’ring steps, and warm his torpid heart.

Teach him the vanity of earthly things,

From sensual, sordid views, to pageant Kings:

Teach him—distinctions of the LORD and SLAVE,

Are soon forgotten in the silent grave.

That NATURE’s various gifts, where’er bestow’d,

Are all, the bounties of her guardian GOD.

These gratefully received, a bliss impart,

Beyond the boast of POWER, or pride of ART.

Teach him to act on NATURE’s simple plan,

Resign’d to HEAVEN—unconfident in MAN.

Teach him to prize HUMILITY and LOVE,

And seeking PEACE on earth—foretaste the joys above.

TO THE
SNAKE.

LET the false world, with dark reproach, compare

Thy winding course, to their meand’ring wiles,

That ceaseless form for INNOCENCE the snare,

And brew black venom under infant smiles.

Compare thy beautifully-tinted skin,

Thy graceful motion, and fair tapering form,

To those temptations that allure to sin:

To the gay sunshine that precedes the storm.

Gift thee with all the doublings of DECEIT,

In simplest guise still watchful to betray:

And, deep in human artifice, complete

The deadly character themselves display.

Such as young ACHMED (happier ACHMED here),

In FORTUNE’s golden day, too sadly found:

Such as the seasons of the circling year

Shall still survey, in their unwearied round.

Thou blameless inmate of the thorny brake,

Heed not the blast of man’s calumnious breath:

O ne’er the VIPER attributes partake,

Whose venomed rancour joys in wounds and death.

Should barbarous RAGE, or MALICE seek thy life,

Retire, haste, hide thee in some deep recess,

Nor with contemptuous hiss provoke a strife

That would destroy thy simple happiness.

Yet (and perhaps with truth) thy frequent flight

Has borne the stigma of a coward fear:

With COWARDICE base cruelties unite,

And run with TREACHERY a dread career.

When PRUDENCE calls, true bravery will retreat,

Nor trust the GEM OF LIFE in HATRED’s hand.

INTEGRITY, uncensured, dreads DECEIT,

As WISDOM shuns the touch of FOLLY’s wand.

The BRAVE are generous, sincere and free,

The COWARD flies from all but INFAMY.

TO
NATURE.

WHO can behold thy wildly varied forms,

Thy gentler beauties, and thy lovely hues;

Or walk sublime amid thy mountain storms,

O NATURE! and the vocal lay refuse?

Fair transcript of the vast eternal mind,

With awe—with love—with ever-new delight:

Viewing thy charms, I bless the ties that bind

My soul to thee; ne’er may they disunite.

For all the works of GOD combine in thee,

Vast aggregate of his creative will!

To him a point—to man immensity!

Fired with the sentiment, I fear no ill.

’Tis confidence in an eternal good:

’Tis resignation to almighty power:

’Tis human reason floating on the flood

Of WISDOM infinite, thro’ FORTUNE’s hour.

In HIM shall ACHMED’s boundless FAITH repose,

Thro’ every change of sublunary things;

Life of our joys, and balm of all our woes,

The diadem of PEACE to RIGHTEOUS KINGS!

When these, O lovely NATURE! learn to prize

Thy simple charms, the harbingers of TRUTH;

Then shall celestial virtues round them rise,

Fairer than all the blooms of vernal youth.

Then, spurning all the viper-brood of ART,

That taint the air of COURTS with poisonous breath,

Where embrio DEMONS form in FLATTERY’s heart,

And LUXURY riots on the spoils of DEATH.

Yes, spurning these, th’ indignant MAN of SWAY

Shall feel more joy, to will a NATION blest;

More comfort, in one heaven-approving day,

Than ASIA’s proudest Conqueror e’er possest.

Thro’ thee, O NATURE! will I raise my love,

To thine eternal ARCHETYPE above.

MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS.

THE savage haunted forest rises round:

The drear—lorn deserts far more widely spread.

Stern winter reigns: night low’rs in gloom profound:

Roar the wild winds: Affrighted sleep is fled.

This solitary CAVE is cold and dank;

The hungry WOLF an entrance strives to find:

All SOCIAL JOYS afar—a horrid blank

Seems to involve the outcast of mankind.

Poor—miserable ACHMED! what remains

Of all those comforts once enjoy’d by thee?

Indignant memory of my former chains,

With Health, Content, sweet Peace and Liberty!

These blessings triumph o’er the wintry glooms,

And render night more fair than slavery’s day:

SPRING shall adorn these rocks with lovelier blooms,

Than ART’s fantastic rose-walks can display.

I’d rather rove along the broken shades

Of old torn trees, in SUMMER’s sultry hours,

Than mid the artificial groves and glades

Of tasteless pomp—its founts—its jasmine bowers.

The shaggy mountain, rising vast and rude,

When the last sun-beam paints its rocky brow;

Or more sublime, in twilight solitude,

Dead’ns the proud dome, and sinks its turrets low.

Nor let th’ autumnal fruitage art obtains,

Presume to vie with all these wilds produce;

As well might vinous draughts that fire the brains,

Rival SHIRABEH’s soul-inspiring juice.

Let the gaunt WOLF howl eager as he stalks,

I heed him not,—I know his coward dread:

He’ll not molest me in my lonely walks,

More than the WILD-GOAT on the mountain’s head.

The only foe I’d shun is faithless MAN!

Who drove me hither, would destroy me here:

Yet such, O NATURE, is thy wond’rous plan,

I love—whom sad experience bids me fear.

No individual’s sword, or ranc’rous hate,

Could for a moment raise my soul’s alarm:

I’ve met my equals in the field of FATE,

And felt those wounds that yet my courage warm.

But ’tis from MEN—degenerate MEN! combined,

As mutual guards from violence and wrong!

Yet, prompt to aid th’ OPPRESSORS of mankind,

A bigot multitude—a sordid throng.

Dead to all sense of freedom, dead to shame:

Lost to each manly sentiment of heart:

No mental energies their souls inflame,

To act a firm—disinterested part.

They hate not TYRANNY, but long to share

Its meanest portion, and in turn oppress:

And at his nod, whose sanguine TAJE⁷⁰ they wear,

Attack life, liberty, or happiness.

Such form the mass of MAN, self-fetter’d slaves

Of SUPERSTITION, INDOLENCE, DECEIT;

The thoughtless herd at first creates, then craves

Absurd protection of th’ unfeeling great.

Thus, when the poor deluded GAURE⁷¹ surveys

His miserable dwelling wrapt in flame,

He sees his ALL consume:—adores the blaze;

And, prostrate, praises mighty AZAR’s⁷² name!

Approach ye great, awhile your pomp resign,

Learn what is MAN in NATURE’s simple reign;

Say, have ye known a LIBERTY like mine,

And will you still bear DESPOTISM’s chain?

Yes! LUXURY, PRIDE, and servile lust of POWER,

Rose in the HOROSCOPE⁷³ that mark’d your natal hour.

TO THE
CAMEL.

EMBLEM of persevering patient toil;

Pattern of long-enduring abstinence:

By thy example taught, I learn to foil

The importuning snares of every sense.

Meek, patient sufferer! O’er the burning sands

Of the long desert, parch’d with thirst like thee,

Hast thou convey’d the wealth of Indian lands,

And oft to thine oppressor bent the knee.

Crouch’d in the dust, obedient to command,

Prompt to receive the elephantine load;

Attentive to the guidance of his hand,

Down the rude mountain’s steeply rugged road.

What’s the reward of all this toilsome care,

And tame subservience to thy master’s will?

A scanty pittance of the coarsest fare,

Brouzed on the way-side of the shrubby hill?

Bondage alas! is thy unceasing lot,

And cruel stripes too oft thy toils attend;

For one false step, past services forgot:

The too submissive rarely find a friend.

A TYRANT’s doubly such to those that trust

In the base workings of his wayward mind;

And all whose aid supports his power unjust,

Or soon, or late, a dark reward will find.

Experience would instruct. How few that learn,

How many follow what they ought to flee!

An abject spirit never will discern

The sweetest joys arise from LIBERTY.

Bend thou the knee, receive thy load to-day,

Pass on, and meet with insult: check thy moan:

To-morrow, lo! a thousand shall display

This truth—That FOLLY never acts alone.

One base example oft more followers gains,

Than every precept WISDOM’s BOOK contains!

THE
ECLIPSE.

WITHOUT a shade, where beams the orient light?

Where blooms the lovely rose without a thorn?

Is there a day without succeeding night?

Is there a MAN to no MISFORTUNE born?

Is there a SULTAN free from cares of state?

Is there a VIZIER free from anxious dread?

Is there a chieftain with success elate,

Whose FORTUNE hangs not on a spider’s thread?

Is there a sea unrufled by a storm,

Or rock-fenced shore unbeaten by the main?

Is there a sky no tempests e’er deform,

Or cloud that melts not into falling rain?

Ev’n now, the glorious SUN eclipsed I see,

Deep sunk in shadows, lo! his beams decay:

Why then, should prosperous FORTUNE favor me,

Thro’ life’s dim circle with a cloudless ray?

Grant me, just GOD! a calm, unfetter’d mind,

A humble heart—in all, to thee resign’d.

EXPANSION.

SHALL we not trace the various charms that please

Thro’ NATURE—to an origin DIVINE?

The pearl all-beauteous, form’d by dark disease,

With rubies, sapphires, emeralds shall shine.

The powers of FANCY in the human mind,

Oft from the paths of TRUTH and NATURE stray,

Yet, their effusions artfully combined,

TO TRUTH and NATURE point the certain way.

The destitution of these lively powers

That paint to age the sportive joys of youth;

Leads to profound research, employs the hours

Of studious WISDOM, in pursuit of TRUTH.

The vast of SCIENCE, boundless as th’ expanse

That holds the starry Heavens, invites the mind

Of man or angel, dauntless to advance,

Leaving all bounded hopes and spheres behind.

But vain the powers of man, or angel flight,

The infinite of knowledge to pursue:

For bounded faculties must find delight

In bounded objects, equal to their view.

Hence let me ever venerate and love

The simply-varied prospects NATURE yields,

Superior to the PERIES’ blooming grove,

Enchanted palaces, and musky fields.

I love to traverse the wild tracts around;

I love the forest glooms, and lonely glades;

The rising rock, the wooded glen profound,

Almost conceal’d in deep embow’ring shades.

And there, along the little wandering stream,

At morn, at noon, at eve, I love to stray,

To see its frequent-falling waters gleam

Down the dark steep, caught by some vagrant ray;

And musing, listen to the water-fall,

Converse with echoes all along the vale;

Gaze the rude shrub-crown’d cliff, or cypress tall,

That graceful greets the lightly-passing gale.

There, haply may the powers of GENIUS dwell,

Where wild poetic FANCY loves to stray,

And led by NATURE’s more than wizard spell,

In rapturous delight enjoys the day.

Rocks raised on rocks, aspiring to the skies;

Shades, shadowing shades, the winding vale descend;

To narrow bounds restricted, here the eye

Sees a romantic charm each scene attend.

’Tis thus in human life, the heart that finds

Domestic comforts in its humble home,

Will ne’er on fluttering pinions mount the winds

To gain the summit of AMBITION’s dome.

And yet, EXPANSION is delightful, too;

Expansion! torment to the sordid soul,

Opens sublime those prospects to our view,

That tempt a flight beyond the world’s controul.

Let not the TYRANT think I languish here;

An active spirit to this frame was given,

That triumphs over destiny severe,

And finds repose, altho’ to deserts driven.

Laments the abject state of wretched men,

And hails fair FREEDOM in a LION’s DEN!

TO
AZRAEL,
THE
ANGEL OF DEATH.

WHAT’s life? what’s death? Fate’s sunshine or its gloom?

And what th’ alternate gift that each bestows?

A glittering bubble, or a silent tomb,

A giddy whirlwind, or a calm repose.

Amid the agitating storm, too long

My wearied soul has felt the direful blast:

Now, DEATH, to thee I pour my pensive song,

And claim from thee a tranquil hour at last.

Yes, mighty AZRAEL! I with transport view

Thy pale-wing’d messengers before thee fly:

Soon shall my grateful heart declare anew,

How pleasing to the wretched ’tis to die.

Such is the bliss from adverse fate that springs,

Thou beamst all-radiant on my closing hour:

I mount from earth, O AZRAEL! on thy wings,

And rapturous enter RUZVAN’s⁷⁴ happy bower.

While FORTUNE’s sons, and PLEASURE’s giddy train,

Start from their revels at thy sullen call;

And as they seek some sheltering shield in vain,

Their vital flame is quench’d in viper’s gall.

How dire a fate life’s blessings to forego!

But, ah! how sweet to quit a world of woe.

VIRTUE
INSEPARABLE FROM NATURE.

LET LUXURY her fancied wants deplore,

Let AVARICE pine amid his hoarded wealth;

Let the proud Conqu’ror, when his wars are o’er,

Offer whole kingdoms for an hour of health.

For inward PEACE, CONTENT, heart-kindling JOY,

Such as reward the duties Heaven requires;

Rewards to those who their best hours employ,

To vanquish strife and quench destruction’s fires.

Obedient, heavenly WISDOM, to thy voice,

(More sweet than music to the virtuous ear),

Causing the poor, the aged to rejoice,

JUSTICE their guide, and MERCY their compeer.

Not all HINDOSTAN’s wealth can purchase these,

Nor the soul-soothing hope from these that springs;

That hope ne’er shipwreck’d on life’s stormy seas,

Can meet the tempest on seraphic wings.

The GOOD MAN lives beyond the day of death:

The BAD MAN dies before the year of doom:

FATE ever threat’ning, claims his forfeit breath,

Till giant INFAMY bestride his tomb!

On thee, O GOD! my soul for aid relies,

On thee for ever shall her hopes depend;

Perish the earth, and dissipate the skies,

VIRTUE shall live, for thou art VIRTUE’s friend.

No—not apart from NATURE, she is thine,

Thy WISDOM infinite, her charms combined;

Omnipotence sustains the fair design,

Eternal transcript of the heavenly mind.

Thro’ her delightful, ever varying round,

O let my soul a rapt enthusiast fly!

Still to her love may I be faithful found,

Live in her life, till FATE compel TO DIE.

To DIE IS NATURE’s SABBATH.—To survive

Is NATURE fraught with ACTIVE ENERGY.

All from one omnipresent LIFE derive

Existence, Joy, and love of Liberty.

Ah! when will man, deluded man, rejoice

In NATURE’s bliss, and listen to her voice;

The voice of TRUTH, of HARMONY and LOVE,

That with the eagle’s strength unites the mildness of the Dove?

TO
DISEASE.

UNWELCOME harbinger of languid woe,

Pale emissary from the court of DEATH,

Why wilt thou LUXURY’s soft abode forego,

To bid me draw with pain my labouring breath?

Wilt thou in these wild forests make abode,

Where NATURE holds her ever-temperate reign,

And quit for savage solitudes, the road

That leads thro’ short-lived pleasure’s fair domain?

It lies before thee.—There the sensual throng

Await thy coming, and invite thy stay:

There shall the sons of ART thy powers prolong,

And bid thee reign the despot of the day.

Whether insidious on soft languor’s bed,

Thou hold’st thy secret DIVAN⁷⁵ to destroy;

Or fierce, by fever’d rage of slaughter led,

In wild delirium all thy force employ.

Tremendous power! appall’d, thy form I view,

As the hush’d warbler’s eye beholds the snake;

Shall my fix’d gaze by FASCINATION, too,

Imbibe the venom, and the fate partake?

Forbid it, all ye salutary gales,

That waft a cool refreshment on your wings,

Forbid it, all ye lightly-shaded vales,

And you, ye ever-pure pellucid springs.

Ye rocky summits, where the wild heath blooms

Mid aromatic sweets that ceaseless rise,

And yield the tribute of their fresh perfumes,

A grateful offering to the vernal skies.

Forbid it, HEAVEN! whose kindly genial beam

Renews the vigour of my wasted frame,

Causing the lamp of life with cheerful gleam

Once more to animate its faded flame.

Why wilt thou linger here, dark spectre, say?

Lo! mighty AZRAEL beckons thee away.

THE
TEMPEST.

WILD tumult bursting from the depths of hell,

Invades the sacred empire of the night:

Deep thunders mingle with the tyger’s yell,

And the torn heavens blaze forth sulphureous light.

Vast fragments from the high impending rock

O’erwhelm the lightning-rifted pines below;

The giant mountain scarce sustains the shock;

And as the winds with madd’ning fury blow,

Descend the clouds—the ten-fold torrents roar,

And round th’ OPPRESSOR’s dome dark spirits howl.

There was a time, when ACHMED thus could soar

’Mid the conflicting tempests of his soul;

Catch a congenial fury from the blast,

And bid it rise more dreadful o’er the earth,

’Till haughty TYRANTS, red with crimes, aghast,

Should execrate the day that gave them birth:

Should tear the gorgeous trappings of their pride:

Abjure the violence of lawless sway:

Hopeless of mercy they so oft denied,

And all their base dependants shrunk away:

Dash from their lips th’ untasted draught of death,

And hurl the dagger from their murd’rous hands,

Fly to lone glooms, there draw their lingering breath

Thro’ nights more num’rous than TEHAMA’s⁷⁶ sands:

Stung with remorse, o’erwhelm’d with guilty shame,

Conscious that millions execrate their name!

TO
AMBITION.

WHAT are the dazzling objects of thine aim,

AMBITION! scourge of empires, and of all

Who dare repel, or fortify thy claim:

Both doom’d by thee, infuriate fiend, to fall.

Thou offspring of a cruel, proud, self-love,

Untameable Hyæna! ne’er wilt cease

The bane of joy, of freedom, life, to rove,

And ev’n of thine own safety, rest, and peace.

By turns the false friend, flatterer, or the foe,

Of all that’s noble, generous, or brave:

Viewing in each above thee or below,

The hated rival, or the destined slave.

To thee what’s honor, justice, public-good,

Or aught that leads to virtuous self-esteem?

Mad pestilence of HELL! go, swim in blood,

Go, realize the maniac’s sleepless dream.

Like SAUGHERY,⁷⁷ go, supplant thy fortune’s friend!

MONTAZER⁷⁸ like, thy sire remorseless slay!

Like ABBAS,⁷⁹ from thy son his eye-balls rend;

And then, insatiate, tear his life away!

In VIRTUE’s semblance sit on VICE’s throne;

With mimic JUSTICE, do deliberate WRONG:

Thro’ ravaged realms, and cities overthrown,

Go, chaunt, accursed of Heaven, the Murd’rer’s song.

Go! wander in some calm and moony night,

Along the vale where CHEHEL-MINAR⁸⁰ lies:

There, listening, as some DEMON yells affright,

Turn unappall’d, and view with wild surprize,

The long-fall’n domes to all their pride restored,—

Such as they rose in PERSIA’s golden days!

Ere lust of conquest led thy bands abhorr’d,

O’er burning deserts, or thro’ boist’rous seas.

So fame relates.—The midnight wandering man,

Whose feet approach these walls with dauntless tread!

Beholds the visionary pomp—’till wan

Around him, stalk tall shadows of the DEAD.

If the low groan of HORROR chill his heart,

If overwhelming FEAR assume its sway,

From their firm base the superstructures start,

And like faint misty vapours fleet away.

Legions of horrid SPECTRES round him throng,

And during all the residue of night,

Thro’ labyrinths of ruin chase along

The poor wretch trembling in his mazy flight.

Thro’ vaulted passages and spacious halls,

Whose star-crown’d columns seem to prop the sky,

While massy fragments of the marble walls,

On every side in rude confusion lie.

Howls the fierce wolf, the night-bird loudly screams,

Thro’ the wide portals moans a hollow blast,

The MOON in sable clouds conceals her beams,

Awaken’d echoes shriek!—HE stands aghast!

But lo! the first faint gleams of MORN arise.

Low speak the walls the MYSTIC WORDS they bear.

The deep foundations shake.—Each spectre flies

To his enchanted place, and fixes there!

Transform’d to STONE, no mortal force can rend

Their giant bulk away, ’till that dread hour,

When long-impending VENGEANCE shall descend,

And AYRAN’s fall unbind the MAGIC power.

Those hideous forms thus ranged in mute array,

Were VIZIERS, who employed a MONARCH’s name,

To aid their own base aims, oppress, betray;

Rapacious, cruel, and devoid of shame.

Or MAJES,⁸¹ who approach’d with faithless hearts

The altars of their GOD—thus expiate

Their pride, hypocrisy, and impious arts,

That sanctioned private guilt, or public hate.

O may the MASTER of the powerful spell,

If e’er AMBITION, thou my soul inflame,

Doom me with these in magic bonds to dwell,

Turn me to STONE, and there inscribe my name.

THE
TOMB OF FORTUNE.

THRO’ all the mazes of delusive ART,

Let restless mortals serpentize their way,

Check each emotion of the feeling heart,

Where NATURE claims an undivided sway.

Pant for the phantoms of AMBITION’s aim,

Grasp at the countless wealth that AVARICE craves,

Or lured by sensual PLEASURE’s fev’rish dream,

’Midst their wild visions are they real slaves.

Slaves to some power, (despotic as the FATE

That hangs o’er all its strong compulsive chain)

Who bids the TYRANT in his pomp elate,

Bend abject to a lordlier tyrant’s reign.

Blest was the hour that overwhelm’d my soul

With dark ADVERSITY’s tremendous gloom;

Burst the strong fetters of the world’s controul,

While TRUTH, all radiant, shone on FORTUNE’s tomb.

On FORTUNE’s TOMB these sacred lines I read:

‘CONTENTMENT with my smile was never given,

Estranged from HER, even life itself is dead:

AFFLICTION opes the gate that leads to Heaven.’

SOLITUDE.

THE azure face of Heaven no cloud enveils,

No light-breeze waves the foliage of the wood,

No voice, no murmur, now the ear assails,

Mild, tranquil all, as souls divinely good.

Thy placid beams, fair MOON! diffuse around,

O’er earth and sky a sweetly soften’d day;

While rocks and woods, and hollow glens profound,

Contrast their shadowy glooms to thy pure ray.

How sweet, O NATURE! are thy simple charms:

What fair delights attend thy silent hour:

How different far, from those the din of arms

Conveys in TRIUMPH to the sons of power.

No PRIDE, no ENVY, no AMBITION, here

Lead pale REMORSE to ANGUISH and DESPAIR:

No sanguine HOPE, no spectre-haunted FEAR,

No self-devoted sacrifice to CARE.

The stream of DAY smooth-gliding from its source,

Thro’ smiling vales of ever green delight,

Here wandering, winds its gently devious course,

To dance with moon-beams on the lake of NIGHT.

Long banish’d hence, each dark, discordant thought:

Each vain desire, each passion sooth’d to peace:

Lost the false lore by EDUCATION taught,

While all the mental energies increase.

Increase and kindle, NATURE, as I view

Thy hourly-varying beauties round me rise,

Or, up the mountain-steeps my course pursue,

Where wilder, more stupendous scenes surprize.

And canst thou, ACHMED, thus serenely blest,

Turn to yon agitated world of strife?

Can its vain joys, its love, pervade thy breast,

And bid it sigh again for social life?

Yes—often does that sigh of social love,

With charm instinctive softly here intrude,

And tell me, ‘MAN was never born to rove

O’er rugged wilds, in ceaseless SOLITUDE.’

Yet often too, does old EXPERIENCE find,

The firm support of REASON’s potent sway:

Her voice recals th’ afflicted wand ring mind,

From all that FATE, or FORTUNE reft away.

Asks the fond heart, if midst the world of youth

It found ONE SOUL congenial with its own?

Enquires if HONOR, EQUITY, and TRUTH,

Dwell in the cottage, or sustain the throne?

If cities, courts, or camps their presence grace?

If yet sweet PEACE with man has deign’d to dwell,

Parent of blessings to the human race,

Beyond the comforts of this silent cell?

‘Ah! NO.’—Th’ inspiring voice of HEAVEN replies,

‘Here gratefully repose, in true contentment wise.’

THE
DERVISH.

WITHOUT assistance of the reas’ning power,

Without a precept, or an earthly guide;

Without apparent motive, every hour,

The soul on her own movements will decide.

Repress—excite—resolve:—and simply fraught

With inborn sentiment of wrong or right,

More justly act, than when distracted thought

Wanders by REASON’s misdirected light.

How oft dull mists o’erspread the sluggish mind,

Distorting or obscuring all around:

Mid clouds of ERROR, blown by PASSION’s wind,

Will TRUTH, bright ANGEL, sit divinely crown’d?

See, worldly WISDOM, in her devious course,

She seeks rich harvests from the stony plain:

Thro’ sandy deserts would the streamlet force,

Or raise tall forests on the stormy main?

See INTEREST, PREJUDICE, and PRIDE, combined

To lead insulted REASON far astray:

See POWER tyrannically awe mankind,

And grasp even mental freedom as her prey.

See POVERTY’s long train of deep’ning woes,

Incessant TOIL, pale FAMINE, and DISEASE;

OPPRESSION, SLAVERY, every ill that grows,

From mis-led IGNORANCE combined with these.

Enter some proud SERAGLIO,⁸² where enshrined

Sits SENSUAL JOY, in all her wishes blest,

And say, what powerful influence o’er the mind

Has sacred REASON ever there possest.

Lone in the bosom of BERKESTAN’s wood,

A hoary DERVISH long has made abode;

Remote from ill—sought only by the good,

His converse holy as his prayer to GOD.

Attentive, hear the venerable SAGE

Speak the experience of a length of years;

And deeply read in WISDOM’s sacred page,

What sweet simplicity of heart appears.

‘Why wilt thou, restless mortal, vainly stray,

Thro’ the dark mazes of the world, to gain

That rule of life, whose strong, persuasive sway,

Shall o’er thy soul dominion-long obtain;

‘Guide thee thro’ paths of HONOR, VIRTUE, PEACE;

Bless thee thro’ life, and bless thy parting breath:

Lead thee to scenes where joy shall never cease,

Beyond the power of pain, disease, or death.

‘Seek not the learn’d expounders of THE LAW,

Whose mystic dogmas render dimness blind:

Nor from the page of HIST’RY seek to draw

The bright exemplars of a perfect mind.

‘But humbly listen to the gentle voice

Of TRUTH, of NATURE, and her sovereign LORD,

That speaks within thy heart, confirms thy choice

In all that’s GOOD, and renders VICE abhorr’d.

‘Bids thee be mild, beneficent and free:

Bids thee be ever temperate, ever just:

Adverse to STRIFE, OPPRESSION’s enemy,

And ne’er forget thou art the child of dust.

‘Then—then shall REASON bear her genuine sway,

And sun-like, brighten all the mental day:

Then, wing’d with FAITH, thy soul pursue her course,

Pure as she sprang from her ETERNAL SOURCE.’

TO THE
NIGHTINGALE.

WHILE light-wing’d zephyrs waft each tender note,

Thine early energies, sweet bird, attune;

The harsh NIGHT-RAVEN opes his clamorous throat,

And screams, ill-omen’d, at the western moon.

While live those horrid discords, cease thy song,

Ah! cease, till silence hover o’er the vale,

Where the charm’d echoes shall thy strains prolong,

Till from the dawn swift flies the moon-beam pale.

Flies like the fairy dream of youthful joy,

Before the gloomy scoul of haggard CARE:

Were mine thy voice, sweet warbler, I’d employ

Its varied cadences to sooth DESPAIR.

Dark fiend of life—may his unhallow’d tread

Ne’er print the path in which I’m doom’d to go:

What tho’ the hours of vernal HOPE be fled,

May comforts still attend my days of woe.

Ev’n as the voice of MELODY is thine,

To chaunt the requiem of thy murder’d mate:

So be some tender consolation mine,

Thro’ all the dark severities of FATE.

Sweet warbler! raise once more the plaintive strain,

That swells in unison with ACHMED’s heart,

Long doom’d in suffering silence to remain,

Or only to the breeze its griefs impart.

Haply at times the breeze responsive sigh’d—

Methought I heard some sympathetic soul:

And as its low faint breathings gently died,

My heart scarce heaved, ’twas NATURE’s own controul.

Sweet warbler, how I love thy lonely lay,

How heav’nly-soothing ’midst th’ obscure of night,

That seems to linger on the verge of day,

Withheld by melancholy, soft delight.

Withheld like me, in magic circle bound,

Tho’ wearied nature claim the balm of rest,

All mute I stand upon th’ enchanted ground,

In the lorn spirit of thy wild notes blest.

Sweet warbler! cease not, close not yet the song,

Whose harmony delays the twilight hour:

’Till bright the MORN arise, its strains prolong,

The minstrels of the day shall own thy power;

While the glad vales their loveliest blooms disclose,

To greet the beauties of thy darling ROSE.

DEPENDANCE
ON THE
SUPREME BEING.

NATURE degenerates not; why then should MAN,

The boasted LORD of her terrestrial reign?

If sovereign WISDOM form’d the mystic plan,

Unchang’d its end, its order must remain.

If boundless LOVE embrace the wond’rous whole,

A work congenial to creative will:

Shall not all beings ranged from pole to pole,

The perfect FIAT of that LOVE fulfil?

The reptile crawling in his native clay,

The eagle soaring to the midway skies,

The dread Hyæna prowling fierce for prey,

The helpless Fawn to shun his rage that flies,

The lab’ring husbandman, the slothful lord

Feasting luxurious on the poor man’s toil,

The sordid wretch by gen’rous minds abhorr’d,

The sparkling diamond and its artful foil,

The dusky gloom of IGNORANCE, behold:

The imbecility of FOLLY’s train:

Sweet INNOCENCE more pure than virgin gold:

AMBITION restless as the billowy main.

Th’ intriguing statesman, wand’ring AFGHAN rude,

The pious MOSLEM, or the sensual JEW:

The exiled ACHMED here in solitude:

All equally the destined path pursue.

But to what end—is known to him alone,

Who rules supreme o’er Ocean, Earth, and Heav’n.

Should I repine—if thro’ the burning zone,

Or to the icy north my course were driv’n?

In HIM I live—by his behest I move;

His active energy my heart inspires:

I feel a portion of his heav’nly LOVE,

Expand my soul, and raise her native fires.

ETERNAL BEING! merciful as just!

With thy blest TRUTH illume my erring mind:

Teach it, IN THEE to place unbounded trust,

To leave the world and all its hopes behind.

With sweet CONTENT, O grant me here to dwell,

And bless the solitudes around my cell.

TO THE
SUN-FLOWER.⁸³

WHERE is the MAN who thus can nobly say?

I hail’d bright TRUTH in her eternal source;

Pursued her flight thro’ all the realms of day,

Nor ceased to follow her celestial course,

’Till that Almighty power, who rules the sphere,

Spread wide the mental night, and check’d my bold career.

If on this earth that man sublime there be,

That man, O lovely flower! resembles thee.

The breeze that wakens with the orient DAWN,

Scarce from thy bosom shakes the quiv’ring dew;

Scarce is the dusky veil of NIGHT withdrawn,

Ere thy fond eye expanding to the view,

With kindling rapture meets the golden gleam,

That now ascends the sky, now floats along the stream.

And when the burning blaze of summer NOON,

Darts from the midway heaven’s etherial height;

Thy daring eye, broad as the rising moon,

With transport gazes on the KING of LIGHT;

Tho’ all around thee droop the languid head,

And all the energies of life are fled.

And oft as EVENING sheds the dewy tear,

O’er the pale relics of departed day,

And in the blue expanse of Heaven, appear

The first faint gleams of many a starry ray,

Dost thou responsive to the zephyr’s sigh,

Mourn the past radiance of the western sky.

Thus, thus, may NATURE’s more than magic charm,

Attract for ever my admiring gaze;

Her purer dictates all my bosom warm,

And guide me far from SUPERSTITION’s maze.

Tho’ lost to yon vain world, may ACHMED prove

True to the last faint gleam of REASON, FAITH, and LOVE!

WAR.

‘O SACRED FIRE! O ever active FLAME!

Kindle my courage, but my FOE’s consume;

In smoke and ashes blend his hated name,

While round my head the flow’rs of conquest bloom.

‘Speed! speed! my shemshere,’ fierce BAHARAM⁸⁴ cried

I pant for battle as the wolf for prey;

And should the palm of VICTORY be denied,

Let me with HONOR die this fated day.’

Grant me sweet PEACE: th’ inglorious ACHMED craves,

I seek SERENITY and heav’nly LOVE:

Ne’er may MY efforts give untimely graves

To those that aid, or those that disapprove.

How swiftly flows the stream of human life,

Oft winding thro’ the glooms of GRIEF and CARE;

How agitated by the storms of STRIFE,

Dash’d from HOPE’s airy steep in cataracts of DESPAIR.

And can the restless mind of man devise,

Grateful to all the raging pow’rs of hell;

To offer up the dreadful sacrifice

Of human hearts—mid WAR’s infernal yell?

Oh! how I loathe the wretch whose scorpion soul

Inflicts those miseries on human kind;

Whom no soft ties of NATURE can controul,

Unfeeling as the rage of waves and wind.

Is there no charm in morning’s ruddy dawn,

Unless the evening ray be tinged with blood?

Is there no beauty in the verdant lawn?

In the smooth surface of the tranquil flood?

The murderous HAND is held ACCURSED of Heaven,

And can it bless the HEART that prompts the deed?

If OBEIDALLAH’s⁸⁵ guilt be unforgiven,

Shall impious YEZID’s pardon be decreed?

Inherent lust of CRUELTY alone,

Could ne’er perpetuate the tyrant mind;

No! see on ISMAEL’s⁸⁶ blood-establish’d throne,

HYPOCRISY—PRIDE—AVARICE combined.

From their dark scowl ev’n ENVY’s DEMON flies,

And all the VIRTUES seek their native skies!

TO
PEACE.

THE TRUMPET and the TEBEL’s⁸⁷ din, no more

Invade my slumbers, or my soul inspire,

To seek grim-visaged WAR, and stain’d with gore,

Join FURY’s yell, or light DESTRUCTION’s fire.

To banish PITY from my burning heart,

Pant with dire rage of Conquest and of Prey;

Defy the lifted shemshere and the dart,

While demons triumph in the deadly day.

No—Heaven-born PEACE, beneath thy sacred palm,

Far, far removed from all the strife of KINGS,

My deeply wounded heart imbibes that balm,

The soft breeze gently scatters from thy wings.

What haggard forms in murky mantles clad,

Have ris’n around, whilst memory mark’d each deed?

Torn with REMORSE, my soul, in anguish mad,

From dark thought starting, saw their war-wounds bleed.

Yet now, sweet PEACE! those terrors disappear:

I feel the beam of MERCY’s mildest ray

Dispel those glooms, my sinking spirits cheer,

And light them into thy fair dawn of day.

With thee, ’tis HEAVEN, in this lone cave to dwell,

A throne without thee is a pledge of HELL!

VIRTUE AND RESIGNATION.

THE few who bravely and sublimely dare,

To act the part thro’ life that DUTY claims,

Who stand aloof from bland ALLUREMENT’s snare,

And bend their souls to no ignoble aims.

Seek not from FORTUNE’s cloud the golden shower,

Mingled with Widows’ tears and Orphans’ blood;

Feel no AMBITION in the blaze of power,

But that of being truly WISE and GOOD:

Crouch not with ADULATION’s courtly band,

To SULTAN pride, or VIZIER’s dangerous sway,

That, whilst it taints the heart, impels the hand,

With dragon grasp to guard its golden prey.

Nor will the faithful MOSLEM’s tongue restrain

The voice of warning from a SULTAN’s ear;

Nor cease to thunder on the minion train,

Those awful truths OPPRESSORS dread to hear.

But if invested with the SOVEREIGN sword,

Fearing th’ Almighty JUDGE of earth and Heaven,

He shall behold THE RULE OF RIGHT restored,

And from his courts the base, the venal, driven.

Driven like the waves when MOSES raised his rod,

And wide disparting, roar’d the MESREAN flood:⁸⁸

Driven like the impious, when the hand of GOD

Smote MOSEILAMA⁸⁹ in the vale of blood.

Thus acted ALI,⁹⁰ friend of the Most High,

And thus pure HOSAIN,⁹¹ whose lamented death

Draws still the tear from heavenly VIRTUE’s eye,

And claims the sigh of PITY’s gentlest breath.

Of such the PROPHET⁹² spoke when thus he said:

To GOD’s high will I wholly am resign’d,

With all who have his sacred LAW obey’d,

True as the arrow pointed with the wind.

‘Ask those who now in purity of heart,

His written precepts own and understand.

Ask those who in that knowledge bear no part,

Far from ARABIA’s happy, favour’d land.

‘Ask them—if they resign their selves to GOD?

Those who in truth affirmative reply,

Follow the path, sweet PEACE, to thine abode,

Serene thro’ life as EDEN’s cloudless sky.

‘His MERCY boundless as his LOVE divine,

Shall from their hearts remove each peccant stain,

His radiant WISDOM in their bosoms shine,

And his OMNIPOTENCE their strength sustain.

‘Ev’n in the night of ENVY’s darkest hate

Of all that rises eminently good;

Ev’n in the moment when the hand of FATE

Waves the keen sabre raised to shed their blood,

‘Shall RESIGNATION calm each mortal fear,

Repress the sigh, restrain the parting tear.’

NATURE
ALONE CAN LEAD TO TRUE DELIGHT.

TO notes of joy my LUTE was lightly strung,

When PLEASURE led me thro’ the bowers of YOUTH:

Beside my path the blooms of FANCY sprung,

While fairy phantoms veil’d the face of TRUTH.

Accustom’d fleeting shadows to pursue,

How painful ’tis to face the rising ray;

Yet, by degrees th’ intellectual view,

With eagle eye enjoys the blaze of day.

Where’er, O MAN! thou may’st sojourn, or rove

By streams where cool and balmy breezes blow,

O’er rugged hills, or thro’ the darkling grove,

Or in parch’d deserts meet the sultry glow.

Let NATURE’s charms attract thy wand’ring eye,

Her simple voice, persuasive, gain thine ear,

She reigns around thee, as she beams on high,

And guides the planets through the rolling sphere.

From her pure LAWS creation never strays:

In this the tyger and the lamb unite;

The falcon owns them, as the dove obeys;

The scowling tempest, and the orient light.

Shall MAN—vain MAN, presume with impious aim

To raise himself on ART’s fantastic throne;

To powers exclusive urge his boastful claim,

Burst from Creation’s bonds, and act alone?

Self-starting from its base, with equal ease,

Yon rugged mountain might in air ascend,

Traverse the plain, or float upon the seas,

As MAN to more than mortal powers pretend.

Yet, mortal powers, perverted from that aim

For which they surely were by Heaven design’d,

By FORCE, and FRAUD, and SUPERSTITION, claim

The right of tyrannizing o’er mankind.

Ye gloomy DESPOTS, gorged with human blood!

Ye foes to virtue, innocence, and truth!

Whose pageant influence, hard to be withstood,

Sway’d the lost moments of my giddy youth.

Why does one thought of those delusions dwell,

With your detested memory on my mind:

But that the comforts of this savage cell

O’erbalance all AMBITION yet could find?

Mine is that FREEDOM which you would destroy;

Mine is that PEACE you never can enjoy:

By NATURE’s bounty are my wants supplied;

GOD’s PROVIDENCE my guard, his INBORN LAW my guide.

ADVERSITY.

WHY do thine hours, thy days, thy years, O TIME!

Unmark’d, in silent, swift, succession fly,

Blest as the bloomy SPRING of youthful prime,

Bright as the love-fraught glance of BEAUTY’s eye?

Why fade not NATURE’s charms in ACHMED’s sight?

Why do the Heavens still smile serenely fair?

Why fail’d the gloom-clouds of AFFLICTION’s night,

To shroud his solitude in dark DESPAIR?

Children of dust! your cares, your sorrows flow,

Like troubled fountains, from a soil impure;

Tinged in their native bed, they ne’er forego

A taint that must thro’ all their course endure.

Winding thro’ shades impervious to the day,

They add dire increase to the stagnant fen,

From whence black PESTILENCE oft takes her way,

On sluggish wing, to blast the haunts of men.

Like her foul train, what fury passions rise

In every form that can distract the soul:

Even in the bosoms of the good and wise,

LOVE, TRUTH, and REASON, dread their fierce controul.

The sun of FORTUNE,⁹³ SLOTH’s seductive calm,

With VICE’s locust squadrons, lend their aid,

To spread those noxious powers no earthly balm

Can conquer, where their influence is convey’d.

WEALTH ask thy vot’ries, POWER thy giant arm

That wields at once the sceptre and the sword.

Do you possess the talismanic charm,

That makes EXISTENCE, like her GOD, adored?

NATURE admired and loved?—Her joys invite?

And all her gifts throughout their wide increase,

Bloom like the TREE of temperate delight,

Whose root’s CONTENTMENT, and whose fruit is PEACE?

Know, that deluded by the world’s false love,

AMBITION’s wild chimeras, FORTUNE’s toys,

The captive mind, in their enchanted grove

Shall only find A DEMON that destroys.

O blest ADVERSITY! to thy stern power

I owe that FREEDOM which I here possess,

That heartfelt joy which brightens every hour,

With the mild beam of mental happiness.

HEALTH’s balmy breeze breathes round my lone abode,

And all things speak the presence of their GOD.

TO THE
EVENING STAR.

HAIL! beauteous PLANET, whose unrivall’d ray

Smiles all benignant thro’ the early NIGHT,

To me, more grateful than the orb of DAY,

Crown’d with the glories of celestial light.

Like those, thy splendors beaming on the eye

Of antient SAGES,⁹⁴ taught them to adore

The awful—sacred symbols, placed on high,

Of MYSTIC POWER, that they could ne’er explore.

O whilst that mystic power my heart sustains,

And warms my soul, enraptured with the thought;

The proudest prince in ASIA’s rich domains,

His pomp, his armies, vanish into nought.

Such shadowy forms fantastic, seem to glide,

Clad in dim vapour, by the winding stream:

While NATURE mourns at eve her flowery pride,

Lost like the phantoms of a transient dream.

The transient dreams of RICHES, RANK, and POWER,

With all the varied JOYS that mortals know,

Droop sadly pensive, like the faded flower,

When adverse FORTUNE clouds her angry brow.

Yet, HEAVEN, in mercy to each suffering soul,

Soothes with the balm of PATIENCE every grief,

Bids PASSION yield to REASON’s calm controul,

And each wing’d moment waft some kind relief.

For such the fabric of th’ immortal mind,

We cease to weep those ills that long endure;

Long absent blessings faint remembrance find,

And long past pleasures scarce our hearts allure.

Ev’n ’mid these rocks and savage haunts, alone,

Reckless of danger, void of every fear,

I claim the hours of rising NIGHT my own,

And chide the moments of their swift career.

O lovely STAR! in thy fair form I view

Sweet CONSOLATION, robed in light divine.

My languid pow’rs of life, if HEAVEN renew,

Mild as thy first-born beam, shall PEACE be mine.

TO THE
LAMP.

SWEET solace of the dark and dreary hour,

When active mind eludes the bond of sleep;

When brooding MEMORY would exert her power,

To make FATE’s victim mournful vigils keep.

Blest was the night, when from her leafy throne,

The wandering GLOW-WORM gave the hint of thee,

Yielding a joy to ACHMED long unknown,

A new delight to HEALTH and LIBERTY.

This wild recess by ART commodious made,

Secured from damps, and screen’d from wintry wind,

Ev’n noon-day radiance would in vain pervade,

Yet MIDNIGHT, smiling, throws her glooms behind.

In vain her shadowy train to caverns fly,

Whilst beams around the MOON’s mild cheerful light:

More clear, more lovely, beams thy lucid eye

To me, than all the lustrous orbs of night.

No more the hideous bat, on fiend-like wing,

Shall hold with cries obscene his orgies here;

No more the bird of night his dirges sing,

To demon powers, or scream on ACHMED’s ear.

In beetled forms those demon powers, no more

With ceaseless whirl shall break my calm repose,

Nor, darkling to my anguish’d soul restore

The direful register of distant woes.

Ye sluggish hours, oppress’d with wintry gloom,

’Mid your chill horrors sinks the languid frame:

Deep throbs the heart, as tho’ impending doom

Hung in dank vapour o’er my vital flame.

Such often was the lonely exile’s state,

Ere heaven-born PEACE could soothe his soul to rest;

Ere thy bright presence thus could compensate

The loss of many a joy his youth possest.

For ah! one comfort in the hour of ill,

One soothing FRIEND when FORTUNE adverse proves,

Beside this grot, the pure, tho’ scanty rill,

Outweighs the world’s false smile, its joys, and loves.

Here might the idly great, abash’d, survey

Of needful industry th’ untutor’d skill,

The rush work curtain, and the slender spray,

Rudely entwined, but use-directed still.

There might they see the wicker-woven door

Closing the entrance of my inmost cell;

The moss-form’d bed, the smooth-compacted floor,

Where LUXURY’s self might inly sigh to dwell.

There, often too, thy rays, blest LAMP! diffuse

Their cheering influence thro’ the wakeful night,

Nor will the soothing power of sleep refuse

To smile complacent on thy sober light.

Ne’er may the wintry gust’s unhallow’d breath

Consign thy transient beam to darkness and to death.

THE
PURSUITS OF MAN.

POOR human life—perplex’d and painful span!

Tired, we exclaim, yet dread the hour of death,

Lament the evils of unhappy man,

Yet struggling, strive to gain a moment’s breath.

Breath! for what end?—To lengthen MISERY’s date

To grasp at false delights, that end in woe?

Opposing sickly HOPE to certain FATE,

That mocks our efforts to elude the blow?

Mark those who combat in the fields of FAME;

View those that aim at titles, wealth, and power:

Or those who feel, fond LOVE! thy gentle flame,

And seek soft transports in the nuptial bower.

Those who aspire to gain the praise of ART,

To guide the pencil, NATURE’s charms pourtray,

Employ the pen, truth, sciences, impart,

Or on poetic pinions wing their way.

Whate’er the OBJECT, still th’ attentive mind

This only difference learns in the event,

The MANY ceaseless seek, but never find,

The envied FEW that find—are not content!

THE
LOVE OF NATURE.

NOW the grey dawn along the eastern sky,

Faintly begins to light th’ horizon round;

Dark gloom the woods, and mountain rocks on high,

While all below forms one vast shade profound.

Silence—deep silence reigns, ev’n sleeps the breeze,

That wakening soon, shall rise on misty wing;

And o’er the waving foliage of the trees,

Breathe the mild spirit of the bloomy SPRING.

Earnest of joys unnumber’d, rising round

My peaceful dwelling: let not man deride

Those joys of simple NATURE, that abound

Far from FAME’s votaries and the haunts of Pride.

And sure the more remote, the happier still;

If HAPPINESS on earth will deign to dwell,

Pure as the waters of the mountain rill,

Calm as CONTENTMENT sits in yonder cell.

O NATURE, how I love thee! ACHMED cries,

As the wild scenery discloses round:

‘I love thee!’ hark! a faultering voice replies,

The lonely EXILE startles at the sound.

As when soft MUSIC vibrates from the string,

And thro’ the air melodious accents float:

Some kindred lute, some silver vase shall ring

In UNISON, and die as dies the note.

Speaks not some guardian SPIRIT from the rock,

To tell thee—‘ACHMED walks not here alone?

Or does the sportive echo idly mock

A heartfelt sentiment too rarely known?

Yes—NATURE, much I love thee, and that love

Shall live, while life sustains my heaving heart;

And tho’ pure bliss be only found above,

To gain that bliss, from thee I dare not part.

For I DO love thee! Every gladsome morn,

Each tranquil eve—and thro’ the gliding day,

Thy beauties more attractive charms adorn,

And o’er the guileless heart confirm thy sway.

A sway more strong than SULTAN yet could boast;

For whilst it claims the hand, it holds the heart;

More potent, than all AYRAN’s mighty host,

That wield the scimetar or point the dart.

Dire was the wretch, th’ infuriate wretch, who first

Raised the keen sword against his fellow man;

As the fell tyger loves to quench his thirst,

At life’s warm fountain—such the ruthless KHAN.

From such I flee—for such my soul abhors!

I’ve fought, I’ve conquer’d in youth’s feverish reign.

I’ve bled in battle, and with deep remorse,

Year after year, bewail’d the brave men slain.

And if contrition can for guilt atone,

For victims slaughter’d at AMBITION’s call,

Ye MIGHTY of the EARTH! your crimes bemoan,

At whose behest unnumber’d thousands fall.

Learn—learn to think as MEN, as MEN to feel,

And acting as the guardians of mankind;

Exert your powers to sheathe the reeking steel,

And rude CONTENTION yield to waves and wind.

So may th’ ETERNAL BEING, ever blest,

Most merciful to those that MERCY show;

Reward your labors with that peace and rest,

In PARADISE—you meant for MAN below.

But lo! the SUN in dazzling glory, rears

His golden orb above the orient-hills;

While all illumed each mountain head appears,

What dusky shade the woodland valley fills.

While sport the wild goats on the craggy steep,

And many a mountain warbler tunes his song;

Dim, misty, vapours, o’er the low-lands creep,

And darkling glides the little stream along.

Yet, by degrees, th’ obscuring mists shall fly,

Till all the lovely landscape stand reveal’d,

And while ten thousand beauties charm the eye,

Be not th’ emotions of the soul conceal’d?

No! ’tis impossible—for pure and free,

O SUN of NATURE! they arise with thee.

ASTEKHER.

WITH moss hung shaggy, stands the shatter’d pine,

While waves the willow o’er the falling stream;

With vines embower’d, th’ arching rock is mine,

Where zephyr flies, to shun the sultry beam.

And sooth’d by wild notes floating on the breeze,

From hence, I view the broken prospects round;

Here opening fair—there half obscured by trees,

Whose long and bending branches meet the ground.

The ARJVAN⁹⁵ blushful, and the JASMIN⁹⁶ sweet,

That owe their stations here to ACHMED’s hand;

With many a flow’ret blooming at their feet,

The wild heath mingling as tho’ NATURE plann’d.

Yes, ACHMED! she, the fair instructress, claims

O’er all this rude domain a fostering care:

She forms thy fancy, she improves thy aims,

And when false ART prevails, she cries ‘forbear.’

Then, sure, to violate her high behest,

Were to profane the love of BEAUTY’s charms;

Were to repel, ungrateful! from thy breast,

Each hope that animates, each joy that warms.

The joys of sweet simplicity and truth,

That like th’ etherial Heavens, will ne’er decay:

But ever blooming—in eternal youth

Survive the frailty of this frame of clay.

Now sinks the SUN: yet glows the welkin clear,

Tho’ wide spread clouds hang hovering on high:

Clad in grey haze the distant wilds appear,

Till in faint azure they elude the eye.

How widely different from the sullen gloom,

That scowling ushers in the wintry night:

Dark, dismal, as the caverns of the tomb,

Compar’d with youth’s gay spring of warm delight.

Yet, tho’ full many of those long nights drear,

Have closed poor ACHMED in his lone retreat;

While haply brooding o’er his lot severe,

TEMPTATION spoke the language of deceit:

Bade him with morn arise, and smile farewel,

To cheerless solitude—the world regain,

And nothing fearing of old foes, dispel

Seclusive principles, with all their train.

As oft, methought, a voice that spoke within,

Cried sternly, ‘ACHMED learn thy soul to prize:

FATE led thee hither, from a world of SIN,

Of SORROW, and of SORDID SACRIFICE.

‘Thy Vows forget not, lest the guardian power

That heard the solemn pledge, abandon thee;

For know if thou return to MAN, that hour

Shall blast thy HEALTH, thy PEACE, thy LIBERTY.

Long strove calm REASON, ere the stubborn heart

Could well resign its loves, its hopes, its fears;

Ere habitudes of LUXURY would depart;

Ere sad EXPERIENCE was matured by years.

Ere simple NATURE had obtain’d her sway,

And heav’nly PROVIDENCE in all appear’d;

Ere sheltering groves had risen from the spray,

By ACHMED’s long-continued care uprear’d.

And as they rose, AFFECTION with them grew,

As for a babe long nurtured on the knee;

AFFECTION follow’d, for the region too,

Where Freedom dwells with sweet Tranquillity.

For mental conflicts now no more obtain

Discordant power, amid these peaceful seats;

ASTEKHER’s fallen domes shall rise again,

Ere ACHMED freely quit these loved retreats.

All potent TIME, whose widely wasting hand,

Has laid ASTEKHER’s⁸⁰ loftiest turrets low;

Tho’ still her palaces thy might withstand,

Their massy columns dread th’ impending blow.

Unnumber’d SPIRITS, as tradition tells,

Ceaseless defend the old PEHLEVIAN wall;

Where DEVASTATION, bound by magic spells,

Shall ne’er prevail till AYRAN’s empire fall.

If yet one wand’ring wish could tempt to stray

From these dear shades, it were to rove awhile

’Mid those stupendous RUINS, and survey

The deep recesses of each antique pile:

With ghosts of ancient bards and heroes mourn

The lapse of ages never to return.

THE
FLOATING SUN-BEAMS.

THE tranquil water’s glassy surface glows

With all the splendors of the morning sky,

Where lightly-hovering clouds their tints disclose,

In soften’d beauty to the wand’rer’s eye:

Yet, brighter far, yon orb, whose parent ray

Yields all the lustre that adorns the day.

While thus I view the glad creation round,

Each moment some attractive charm supplies,

Warbles delight in every tuneful sound,

And odoriferous balms around me rise;

For here, the first-born fragrance of the vale,

Floats o’er the flowers that still new sweets exhale.

Lured by the love of NATURE’s vernal charms,

I rove—delighted—lost to all beside:

Ev’n FANCY’s fire no more my bosom warms,

And fled each thought to REASON’s power allied.

Exterior beauties crowd upon my soul,

Raise her to joy, and all her powers controul!

But when, O gracious ALLAH! when to thee

On wings of holy FAITH my thoughts aspire,

Swift from my raptured soul tumultuous flee

The brief delights those circling charms inspire:

EARTH—SKIES—dissolve, the SUN himself decays,

Lost in thy GLORY’s uncreated rays!

TO THE
KIDS.

YE wanton KIDS that browse beside my bowers,

Sportive companions of my vacant hours,

That joyful follow where I love to stray,

That, doubly sweet, receive from ACHMED’s hand

The dewy branch, bedeck’d with flow’rets bland,

Breathing the fragrance of the new-born day.

Here, in assured tranquillity repose,

Here, dreadless of the fierce and hungry foes,

That o’er yon crags impel your sires to bound,

Or prowling thro th’ obscure of night, obtain

An aid that fearful vigilance in vain

Strives to elude:—but this is hallow’d ground.

Here but one steepy avenue remains,

By careful toil secured—this, ART maintains

With barriers that the WOLF’s approach defy:

The tender herbage then without a fear,

The fragrant thyme, the low-hung branches, here

Browse gaily—till obscures the evening sky.

Then shall the rock beside mine own retreat,

Yield to your slumbering hours a cavern’d seat,

A fold enshelter’d from the nightly dews:

There, while fierce whirlwinds o’er the desert sweep,

Or tempests rage around the lofty steep,

Shall sweet security a calm diffuse.

How blest the calm that ACHMED has enjoy’d,

A calm of PASSIONS, not that cheerless void

Which can at times absorb the sensual mind,

That from false friends and froward fortune gains

The respite of distaste—yet bears the chains

That unregenerate men ne’er leave behind.

Such will not, uncompell’d, these mountains range,

Nor quitting scenes of discord, seek to change

Their turbulence and cares for silent peace.

The greedy of the WORLD will far away

With POWER’s heaven-spurning vot’ries pass their day,

Where splendid wretchedness may find increase.

But why to you, sweet innocents! of these,

Of their dark councils, and detested ways,

That to the shrieking shades of ZACOUM⁹⁷ lead?

You ne’er saw cruelty without remorse

Exulting o’er a virtuous victim’s corse,

Mangled by treachery’s dirk—while Princes praised the deed.

With ACHMED, here remote from guile and crime,

’Mid rocks and woods—where NATURE reigns sublime,

And bloom the beauties of the lovely spring,

In harmless gay delight you pass your hours,

’Mid aromatic herbs and heathy flowers,

And where mild zephyr roves on wanton wing.

Blithe children of my care, whene’er I view

Your gambols, all my youthful hours renew.

THE
ADVANCES OF AGE.

THE wither’d leaves that float adown the stream,

Scarce tinge its surface with their yellow hue,

Now faintly glimmer with the morning beam,

Then sinking—vanish from my transient view.

Lured by the promised joys of vernal youth,

They burst their gems to court the smile of day,

Matured beneath that smile, the cank’ring tooth

Of some base reptile works their swift decay.

Or, if perchance, succeeding SUNS behold

Their wings wave lightly to the sportive breeze,

Ere AUTUMN’s varying vesture change to gold,

The rude gale tears them from their parent trees.

Yon parent tree before the rising storm

Bends his wild branches to elude the blast,

Tho’ whirlwind rage his tortured limbs deform,

Yet stands unrent his lonely trunk at last.

Thus bloom’d the hope-buds of mine early hours,

Thus frequent fell the prey of insect art:

Or, haply, when increasing manhood’s powers,

Cherish’d some darling vision of the heart.

While FORTUNE pointed with her golden wand

To fairy forms of bliss—gay hovering round,

Lo! FATE descending, scourged with hasty hand,

The sportive phantoms into shades profound.

Tore me from all my heart had deem’d secure,

Tore me from fortune, friends, and native clime:

Torn from my love, he bade my soul endure

A grief that scorn’d the conquering power of TIME.

Scorn’d, but in vain—TIME’s lenient voice prevail’d,

Whispering sweet peace, and charm’d my lonely way,

And while the languid powers of REASON fail’d,

Tormenting MEMORY hasten’d to decay.

Like the fall’n leaves that floated down the stream,

Past sorrows rise to momentary view,

Catch oft from FANCY’s light a wand’ring beam,

Then sinking, bid the mind a dark adieu!

No more I feel the poignancy of wrongs

Which youthful SENSIBILITY endures:

IMPATIENCE now no more my grief prolongs,

Nor painted HOPE my steadier thought allures.

As rest to labour—peace succeeds to strife:

When sinks the storm, the raging waves subside:

Thus undisturb’d my tranquil eve of life

Into an azure twilight seems to glide.

No threat’ning clouds o’erhang my closing day,

But friendly PLANETS shed their mildest ray.

TO
HOPE.

HOPE! thou false inmate of the human breast,

Delusive charm, enchanting souls from rest,

Why wilt thou strive to gain admittance here,

Where FORTITUDE has made the rock her seat?

Why with thy trembling sociate, coward FEAR,

Seek to invade this calm tho’ rude retreat?

Why your vain influence o’er my heart combine,

Like morning dews on yonder blasted pine?

Here worldly wishes long have ceased to rove;

But, like the breeze that met the orient ray,

And ’mid the noon-day fervors fann’d the grove,

With evening’s faded lustre, died away.

HOPE! ere again on me thou triest thy power,

Bid moon-beams raise to bloom the wither’d flower.

Shall RESIGNATION gaze on rainbow glare?

Shall wearied THOUGHT on FANCY’s pinions fly

To scenes of mimic joy where griffon care

Glotes on her victims with distorted eye,

And restless fiends of strife in ambush lie?

HOPE! when thy beams illume MISFORTUNE’s cave,

Bid the pale SPECTRE triumph o’er the GRAVE.

THE
BATTLE.

WHAT mean those deep’ning shouts that rend the sky,

Join’d with the yell of ANGUISH and DISMAY:

Loud peals of thunder that approach so nigh,

And clouds of smoke that veil the face of day?

At the shrill blasting of the BOUKZAN’s⁹⁸ breath,

Lo! the fierce OUZBEK rushes to the plain,

Where ASMOUGH¹⁰¹ wields the scimetar of DEATH,

And RAPINE riots o’er the mangled slain.

Alternate RAGE and TERROR rule each band,

As savage FURY floats the field with gore;

DESTRUCTION wildly waves her blazing brand,

And red with carnage, wolf-like, howls for more.

When sinks the sun beyond the CASPIAN main,

And HORROR hails the gloomy fiend of night;

Sad—sullen BONDAGE clanks his iron chain,

And wandering spirits claim the funeral rite.

For deeds like these shall endless praises flow?

Shall blood-stain’d VICTORY swell the trump of FAME,

Has GLORY placed her TAJE on TIMOUR’s⁹⁹ brow,

And join’d ‘immortal’ to KHAN ZINGI’s¹⁰⁰ name?

GOD of the just! O let me ne’er repine,

Or, while those glaring meteors strike my view,

Heave the deep sigh—wish impiously to shine,

And bid this calm, this blest retreat adieu!

Ah! what avails the splendid pomp of state,

The boast of RICHES, or imperial sway;

While on the restless bosoms of the great

Beams not CONTENT her mild, celestial ray?

Far from heart-hard’ning scenes of public strife,

Far from AMBITION’s call, and fields of blood,

She walks with PEACE the vale of humble life,

And smiles serenely on the WISE and GOOD.

THE
ALARM.

FROM whence?—what art thou?—ghastly SPECTRE! say.

Why glooms that visage on my twilight view?

Does FATE presageful hither guide thy way,

And bid dark VENGEANCE here my soul pursue?

That SHEMSHERE gleaming by the moon’s pale light?

Those faltering steps that would my cave explore?

That groan deep wounding the repose of night?

And why appear those limbs distain’d with gore?

Does magic art by demon power constrain

Thine airy image to some dire intent?

Or, fever’d FANCY form within my brain

Distemper’d phantoms only to torment?

The tyger, the hyæna, here might rove,

As darkling o’er the wilds for prey they prowl,

For oft along th’ impending rocks above,

The echoes tremble with their midnight howl.

But thus remote from all the haunts of men,

And where no motives can induce to stray,

What mortal being would approach this den,

Freely and dreadless in the face of day?

Scarce at the noon-tide hour could FATE’s decree

Here lead me by the guidance of DESPAIR,

When these sequester’d glooms first shelter’d me,

The child of SORROW, and MISFORTUNE’s heir.

A LION’s headlong fury to elude,

Drove me to scale the rugged rocks beneath;

And plunged amid this darkling solitude,

I sought a refuge from the jaws of death.

But DANGER dwelt here.—With tremendous roar,

And sullen step, advanced the savage foe:

Wildly impell’d, a ponderous stone I bore,

Heaven gave me fortitude, and sped the blow.

Tho’ down yon broken steep the LION fell,

Torn in his fall, blood-wet with many a wound,

With wilder rage and agonizing yell,

Recovering soon, he climb’d the craggy mound:

This sword received him, and the monster died.

Now say, if MAN thou art—what leads thee here?

‘A MAN I am,’—the DREARY FORM replied,

‘Long lost to HOPE, and now estranged to FEAR.

‘Know, bold possessor of this lonely cave,

No base designs induce me here to roam:

Wounded in fight the hand of help I crave,

Far from my friends and from my native home.

‘But why of friends or native home to thee,

Who mournst, perchance, thine own as dearly loved,

As long, as sadly lost, as mine to me,

As much regretted, and as far removed?

‘In sympathy I share thy bosom’s grief,

Ah! could I feel resign’d, such comforts too,

For know, thy prayers, ere thus I sought relief,

I heard with wonder, as to Heaven they flew.

‘And sure, who seeks for MERCY from on high,

And craves with pious prayer the aid of HEAVEN,

Will not a hapless wand’rer’s suit deny,

Deep wounded—famish’d—o’er the desert driven.’

Enough, afflicted stranger! ACHMED said.

Tho’ rooted from the garden of mankind,

I yet can hear the voice of NATURE plead,

And speak soft comfort to the wounded mind.

Approach then, fearless SOLDIER, and partake

Of such refreshments as these wilds bestow,

Herbs from the glen, and berries from the brake,

With purest water from the spring below.

This forest too shall yield a kindly balm

Of power to sooth thy wound’s afflictive smart;

And haply here RETIREMENT’s genial calm

May shed it’s influence o’er a troubled heart.

The MOON all lovely, from her clouded veil

Soft-gliding, lifts her silvery lamp on high,

The little STARS their twinkling rays conceal,

And to their dens the powers of darkness fly.

So, when the beams of heavenly comfort shine,

Life’s fairy visions faintly glide away;

The train of ANGUISH fly her light divine,

That yields the faithful soul eternal day.

Now NATURE claims (each sorrowing sigh supprest)

Her due refreshment and the hour of rest.

To-morrow’s morn shall ampler time bestow,

To speak those truths we each desire to know.

TO THE
STRANGER.

IS then this tranquil life so irksome grown?

Are these sweet SOLITUDES devoid of charms,

And is fair NATURE form’d for ME alone?

For still HER LOVE my aged bosom warms.

As when in active youth I fondly stray’d

By ABI-KOURA⁴⁵ or the CASPIAN shore,

With rapture her romantic mien survey’d,

And all her hues of beauty o’er and o’er:

Felt the mild sway of her attractive power,

To soothe, refine, and harmonize the heart,

To waft delight with every winged hour,

With every changing scene new joys impart.

O had those scenes of simple joy remain’d,

Present, as now in retrospective view,

Had MEMORY thro’ my riper years retain’d

The traits of NATURE, YOUTH’s wild pencil drew.

Then had not dreams of unsubstantial bliss

Display’d their dazzling veil before my sight,

Nor LUXURY’s spell enchain’d, nor serpent hiss

Of ENVY’s demon, changed my noon to night.

A long tempestuous night, whose hollow blast

Raised into billowy rage my anguish’d soul,

Presaging future wrongs to crown the past,

Indignantly I spurn’d at base controul;

Spurn’d at the bonds, the maxims that enslave

To abject views, the free, the generous mind,

Disdaining dark REVENGE, resolved to brave

The dangerous desert, and abjure mankind.

’Twas then, resign’d to HEAVEN, I sought REPOSE,

And here, with LIBERTY, REPOSE I found;

With every rising morn new comforts rose,

Each day fair NATURE lovelier smiled around,

And smiled within, and gently whisper’d PEACE:

Calm REASON heard her voice with mild assent,

And bade the tumult of the passions cease,

While health and temperance led to sweet CONTENT.

And here I hourly bless the heavenly hand,

That led thro’ yon lorn wilds my lonely way,

Preserved me from the TARTAR’s wandering band,

And from night-prowling savage beasts of prey.

That, when AMBITION, ENVY, SENSUAL LOVE,

Had triumph’d over GRATITUDE awhile,

Bade a dark miscreant and his sociates prove

The just reward of VIOLENCE and GUILE.

For vainly MAN, or FIENDS infernal, strive

To strike the blow that PROVIDENCE disowns,

In vain would FORCE effect, or ART contrive

To crush an insect, or perpetuate thrones.

A wond’rous chain of causes and effects

Combines mute nature, animals, and man,

Whether the being’s passive, or reflects,

Or acts instinctive, in the mighty plan.

That chain, depending from the throne divine,

Can ne’er be broken by created force:

While pure intention of the heart is thine,

No act that follows will disgrace its source.

Thy woes have risen from thy FATHER’s crime,

And I, his earlier VICTIM, pity thee:

O may the gently-soothing hand of TIME

Pour o’er thy griefs the balm that comforts me.

HE is no more, and SELIMA is blest,

Since Heaven in MERCY claim’d HER as its own:

That world of charms his treachery possest,

Delusive HOPE long pictured mine alone.

Depart in peace, and with my last FAREWEL

Receive the counsel of experienced years:

PRIDE, AVARICE, LUXURY, from thy breast expel,

Or THEY will guide thee to the fount of tears.

Let not th’ atrocious deeds of demon POWER

Produce malignant influence on thy mind,

But imitate th’ autumnal cloud, whose shower

Revives the plain where thirsty suns have shined.

Thou art the child of HER in LIFE adored,

And still in DEATH remember’d with a sigh;

Thou art the offspring of A MAN ABHORR’D

Whose memory often clouds my mental eye!

Yet learn this truth, from his once deadly foe

I felt more pleasure here to shield his son,

Than he, AMBITION’s votary, could forego,

When his career of short-lived power was run.

Henceforth, his NAME in dark oblivion rest,

No more remembrance bid his actions live,

But may th’ all-merciful and ever-blest

Forgive his frailties as I now forgive!

To thee these tranquil scenes no solace yield,

Nor seem my words congenial to thine ear;

That ordent spirit seeks a different field,

For PEACE and NATURE only, harbour here.

To ME yon spreading CEDAR’s friendly shade,

Yields more delight in SUMMER’s sultry hour,

Than erst the pomp of grandeur’s vain parade,

Than all the dazzling charms of wealth and power.

O’er broken rocks I love to climb the steep,

And trace thro’ those wild glens the winding way

O’erhung with gloomy pines, whose shadows deep,

Almost exclude the living light of day.

Gain some rude prominence—thence widely view

The varied prospect of the wilds below,

Or DISTANCE fading to etherial blue,

While nearer mountains catch the evening glow.

Hear oft, delighted, at the close of day,

The little warbler’s briefly-broken song,

’Till the sweet nightingale assume the lay,

Whose notes soft echoes from the rocks prolong.

And oft the azure arch of heaven survey,

When silent night advances calm and clear,

Trace thro’ its signs the planetary way,

And various aspects of the changeful year.

As roll the stars around the radiant pole,

I contemplate THE POWER that gave them birth,

And gives expansion to the free-born soul,

To raise its views above this little earth.

On FANCY’s wing with lightning swiftness fly

Thro’ all the regions of etherial space,

Mix with the happy spirits of the sky,

And o’er the clouds the blazing meteors chace.

These are delights to which thou wilt not soar;

In the closed HARAM see soft pleasures reign,

Seek COURTLY interest, FORTUNE’s golden store,

Or rush to CONQUEST o’er the bloody plain.

Win FLATTERY’s FAVOR, and aspire to FAME,

Ascend the dangerous pinnacle of POWER,

Let pompous titles supercede thy name,

Nor heed the threat’ning storms that o’er thee lower.

When YOUTH retires, when FORTUNE adverse proves,

And gloomy CARE thine every hope invades;

Perhaps remembrance of these silent groves

May lead thy footsteps oft to lonely shades.

May lead thee far—induce thee here to stray,

And seek old ACHMED in his calm abode;

His voice shall cheer thee, kindly bid thee stay,

And strive to lighten thy oppressive load.

Or if, since FATE relentless reigns o’er all,

And soon or late will claim our fleeting breath,

Should ACHMED hear the blest angelic call,

And this dear cell become the cave of DEATH.

If then the sigh of SORROW heave thy breast,

Or tear of tender PITY mourn my doom,

Form HERE my grave, HERE let my relics rest,

’Tis all I ask from MAN—a simple TOMB.

THE
ALLEGORY.

IN long and painful silence, have my thoughts,

My pensive thoughts, revolved from day to day,

From year to year. Ev’n now, by MEMORY led,

An ever-active circling course they run

Around the central point of human life,

Where sad EXPERIENCE, laden with the gleanings,

Abundant gleanings, of that various harvest

Mown by the hand of TIME, deems herself rich

In wisdom and in knowledge: thence presumes,

With countenance austere, to cast a gloom

Athwart the smile of HOPE; or, with a voice

Formed to the trembling accents of distrust,

Recals, with harsh rebuke’s sententious lore,

The lovely wand’rer from that fair expanse

Thro’ which she wont to roam on vagrant wing,

Catching far-distant views of FAIRY LAND,

Romantically beauteous; or, from meads

Of more than vernal loveliness, where blooms

A mimic EDEN; and the roving eye

Along the smooth but swiftly-gliding stream,

Expatiates unwearied:—many a form

Of magical illusion, from the surface

Apparently reflected, but from objects

As unsubstantial as the forms that float

Upon the wat’ry mirror.—Here awhile,

’Mid the gay bow’rs of youth, I fondly stray’d,

And cull’d the flowers of FANCY, for they grew

In fair luxuriance.—HOPE with airy step

Still led me on thro’ mazes of DELIGHT;

And as the zephyr gently-sportive play’d

Amid the quivering foliage, that o’erhung

Our devious path, sequester’d from the eye

Of prying CURIOSITY, and all

The sick’ning tribe of ENVY, or the sons

Of soul-corroding CARE. Along the grove

Acrial notes of harmony divine

Dwelt on the ear enraptured, for awhile

In low vibration, then, with gentlest swell

Flow’d on the breeze, or on its bosom died

Amid the fragrance of a thousand balms,

Stol’n from SHEBAVAN’s vale, from groves of LAR,

From OBOLA’s jasmine borders, and the meads

That skirt MOSELLA’s stream;¹⁰² or, where amid

SHIRAZIAN gardens¹⁰³ prodigal of blooms

The lonely minstrel that awakes the morn,

Bends o’er the new-blown rose, inebriate

With beauty and with love.—A trembling light

That seem’d as if the lucid powers that mourn

Confined within the caves of VIZAPORE,²⁶

Had burst their fated bonds, and beam’d at once

The mingled radiance of JAURABAD’s¹⁰⁴ gems—

Now tinged with changeful gleam the light of heaven.

All was enchantment! yet the wizard power

So artfully conceal’d, that still the whole

Seem’d a fair region of reality,

Nor did the mind, assimilated softly

To the CHARM, once dare to deem it FICTION.

Here in fond admiration, as I gazed

On NATURE’s fairest FLOWER, whose lovely form,

Soft tinted hues, and odoriferous scent,

Might rival all the blooms of PARADISE,

My heedless foot press’d on a sleeping SNAKE

That sudden turn’d, and writhing round the limb,

Oped wide his venom’d jaws that threaten’d death,

And hissing, darted forth his forky tongue.

Aghast, I started back—HOPE hurrying fled

With more than arrowy speed. A phantom train

Of shapes infernal, dreadful as the band

Raised by infuriate FANCY to torment

Some wretched MANIAC in his wildest hours,

When ghastly DEMONS burst upon his eye,

When nought assail his ear but shrieks of woe,

And HORROR’s deadly fiend with iron hand

Grasps his convulsive heart:—’mid dusky clouds

That wildly roll’d around, the SPECTRES flew,

Now half obscured, now starting from the gloom,

Then vanishing again. A chilling blast

That rose in whirlwind eddies, now involved

The visionary throng in one dire mass

Of horrible confusion. Thro’ the midst

Led by a hand unseen,—with trembling step

And heart subdued by dread, beyond the power

Of utterance to express, o’er broken ground

Bestrew’d with thorns and over rugged rocks

I pass’d despondent, ’till by slow degrees

The cloudy veil dissolving into air,

Open’d my prospect to a scene more wild

Than e’er imagination yet could paint,

From many a rude romantic form combined,

Of mountain, forest, rock, and narrow’d vale,

Thro’ which the roaring waters wend their way,

Impatient of the day-beam that ne’er pierced

The gloomy Asghaubs, whence they burst to freedom,

Thro’ deep enchannell’d banks, rudely o’erhung

By half-fall’n aged trees, whose distant YOUTH

Enjoy’d its vigour, when proud AYRAN’s realm

Was blest and vigorous too.—AGE steals on ALL—

And happy they who meet it well prepared—

That meet it, like the heaven-devoted bard

Sheikh Mosla-eddin SAADI,¹⁰⁵ whose pure song

Shall live whilst heart-felt harmony endures—

Long as divine benignity shall bless

BEN-ATHA’s¹⁰⁶ pious strains, that sung of joy

Amid the desert waste.—These aiding oft

The sweet effusions of congenial minds—

KHACANI¹⁰⁷ — virtuous KEMALEDDIN¹⁰⁸ thine—

And thine sublime KERMANI,¹⁰⁸ humbly great—

Who, leaving courtly grandeur, and the snares

Of soul-enfeebling luxury, didst retire

To temperance and a cottage—science fraught;

And, midst the plane-tree-shaded valley sing

Of that fair HOPE—DELIGHT—SERENITY—

Which pure intention of the heart alone

Yields the poor HADJY thro’ life’s pilgrimage.

These oft in faithful recollection dwell,

And charm my lonely hours—and grateful raise

To heavenly ardors this enkindling heart.

But lo! the torrent dashing down the steep,

Thro’ pendent woods, and over many a mass

Of jutting rock, and huge disjointed stone,

Rifted by lightnings from the cliffs above.

A broken pathway winding up the glen

Here lay before me:—whilst on either side

The high-embow’ring branches overspread

Fair slopes of liveliest verdure,—such as rise

Where PERI spirits join in festive dance

Beneath the myrtle shade, and hymn the hour

When NEURUZE¹¹⁹ first unfolds the blossom’d bud

Thro’ sweet MOURDESTAN’s^109a forest, ever-green—

And almost ever-blooming:—lov’lier far,

Delightful SHIRAZ, than thy cypress groves,

That wave their spiring branches o’er the nest

Of the complacent turtle, who restrains

Her murmuring love-note, whilst the nightingale

Listens attentively to ZSHOOLEH’s lay.¹¹⁰

So Angels hear the GOOD MAN’s song of praise

Flow from a humble heart. My friendly guide

Unseen, and scarcely felt, withdrew his hand,

While on mine ear a more than mortal voice

Thus broke divinely sweet.—‘ACHMED, forbear

To doubt that PROVIDENCE which hitherto

Has been thy guide, thy guard. O let thy soul

Resign’d in all to Heaven’s ETERNAL LORD,

Seek WISDOM from on high, and from the source

Of boundless LOVE receive th’ inspiring gift

Of fair BENEVOLENCE, that bids thee meet

The wide creation with expanded heart.

Do good to every creature that exists

Within thy field of action: for the world

Of INSECT or of VEGETABLE LIFE,

Alike display the wonders of his power,

Alike partake the bounties of his hand,

Alike obey the mandates of his will,

Alike advance the universal good,

With MAN’s more lordly race, or ANGEL powers,

That rise sublime above thy sphere, as man

Above the lowest reptile.—Yonder path,

Tho’ devious it appear, will lead thee on

Thro’ NATURE’s fair domain. At every step

New wonders will present, and every hour

The grateful heart new tribute will bestow

Of love and admiration.—If the forms

Or hues of BEAUTY can attract thine eye,

If sweet SIMPLICITY can charm thy heart,

Or TRUTH—eternal TRUTH, can e’er extend

Her empire o’er thy soul, there shalt thou find

A bliss, a heavenly bliss, that wayward MAN

Spurns from his crowded haunts, his camps, his courts,

And leaves the EXILED ACHMED to enjoy.

FINIS.

NOTES.

NOTES.

MONSTER. The depraved and enfettered state of society in the large cities of Persia, and especially near the seat of Power, during the reigns of the later SEFIES, must inevitably have led a thinking mind, in the calm of retirement, to look on the recollected aggregate of the world (at least that part of it from which he had derived his experience), with but few favourable sentiments of its condition, its objects, and pursuits, as accordant with a cultured mind, the simplicity of nature, or the duties prescribed by that law of Religion publicly professed. Sentiments, which however generally degrading, must ever cause the man of truly estimable character, as an individual, to be more highly estimated.

“If, (says the venerable bard of SHIRAZ) every stone in the wilds of Bedukhshan were a ruby, then the value of a ruby would but equal the worth of a stone.”

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BULAK’s DESERT, the wild and sterile tract of country, between Khorasan and the Deshti Gaur in the mountainous parts of which the descendants of the tyrant ZOHAK took refuge from the vengeance of Persia. These extensive deserts afford the Persian frontiers their best security against the incursions of the Ouzbeks, and other Tartar nations on the north eastern quarter.

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THE ANGEL OF DEATH is supposed by the Moslems to appear with a beautiful and luminous countenance to the just and virtuous, but to the wicked and to the infidel, with a dark and frightful visage, at the time of their departure.

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DERVISHES, a religious order of men amongst the Mahomedans, who having relinquished the temporal concerns of the world, profess to lead a life of Poverty, Abstinence, and Humility, as fitting them for the duties of prayer and instruction. Some of these Dervishes live together in monastic communities (their monasteries, supported by gifts, being called Khankah: some few, who live in a more secluded manner as Hermits, are stiled Kelwetneshin, sitting in solitude. There are others who, forsaking their friends and native place, wander continually from one city, province, or country to another, wearing a coarse and peculiar dress, in Persia chiefly blue, and subsisting on the gifts of Charity.

The sanctity of no one is held in estimation by the Persians, whose appearance does not indicate the humility of a Dervish, and a rejection of all worldly wealth

To those, however, who make no such pretensions, their advice is not of the fastidious kind. The excellent Poet SAADI, who was himself a Dervish, left this as a maxim for the affluent, “Riches are given to be expended for the enjoyment of life, but not life to be devoted to the accumulation of money.”

But, addressing one of his own fraternity, the Poet says,

This World, O my brother, is a permanency to no one, “Center then thy heart on the Creator of the world, for he is all-sufficient.”

Whilst to the avaricious worldling this sarcasm is directed;

“The wealth of the Miser arose from the earth,

To yield him a space for his Grave.”

TAMERLANE decreed, that if any of his kindred should prove rebellious, they were to be humbled to the condition of a Dervish,—

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It is related, that the war which the OUZBEKS waged with so much fury against the Persians, when, in the last century, they overcame and ravaged great part of the large and fertile province of KHORASAN, was occasioned by this circumstance.—The Sultana, wife of the Sultan Colican, going in pilgrimage to MECCA, accompanied by the Sultan’s brother and a train of attendants, consisting of 3000 Tartars, Shah Seliman refused to admit any more than 200 of them to enter the city of Ispahan, where the Sultana confided a most valuable CASKET of jewels to the care of the King of Persia, until her return. Her brother having died on the pilgrimage, Seliman not only with much discourtesy denied her a passage back to Samarcand by the route she came, but obliged her to make, with the wearied pilgrims, a very circuitous journey, through rugged and mountainous roads, by the way of Shiraz, and basely refused to restore the jewels. True is the Arabian adage,

“Justice with Avarice never can unite.”

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THE GLORY OF GOD. Jellali Allah. The Mahomedans say that one ray of this divine glory reduced Mount Pharan, in Arabia, into dust, and dissolved into water the Bernek, or Heyvela al avely, the first substance that was created to form the world.

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SHEBEEB BEN ZEID, an Arab chief, who was highly celebrated for his valour and his victories in the time of the Ommiades. He was never wounded or defeated, until the day on which he lost his life, although he often engaged his troops against great superiority of numbers. He was at length drowned in an attempt to cross the river Sarsar, in a small skiff, when clad in armour. The eastern writers relate, that his body being taken out of the water and opened, his heart was found to be as solid and hard as a stone.

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VALID, or FERAON VALID, PHARAOH, King of Egypt, who is held in such detestation by the Moslems, that they rarely pronounce his name but with an execration, as they are accustomed to do when they speak of the Devil.

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HAREM, that part of a house or palace which contains the women’s apartments, (the word is Arabic, and signifies prohibited or forbidden.) These are often decorated with a profusion of expensive ornaments, and furnished with every thing that can please the voluptuary, and accord with the luxurious and slothful lives of their inhabitants.

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JEHENNEM, JEHEEM, the infernal regions.

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TABEKH, the Angel of Hell, who presides over the avenging Angels, the Demons, and those condemned to be tormented by them. In the 74th chapter of the KORAN it is said, that these Angels are nineteen in number.

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KAIOMARS, or Caiumarras. This Prince was, according to the Persian histories, not only the first of their Monarchs, but is also supposed to have been the first who ever reigned over any people. To avenge the death of his son NAZEC, who, being of a philosophic turn of mind, and a great admirer of the beauties of Nature, had retired with his wife to a secluded but pleasant abode in the country, where he was soon after murdered by a gigantic race of marauders, CAIOMARS pursued them with a body of troops into Tabristan, where their defeat was followed by a dreadful slaughter; those who escaped the carnage of the day being carried into captivity, were employed in building the city of Balkh.

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SIMORG ANKA a bird or griffon, of an extraordinary strength and size, as its name imports, signifying as large as 30 eagles, which, according to the eastern writers, was sent by the Supreme Being to subdue and chastize the rebellious Divs, in the fabulous ages of antiquity. It was supposed to possess rational faculties, and the gift of speech. The CAHERMAN NAMEH relates, that Simorg Anka, being asked his age, replied, “This world is very ancient, for it has been already seven times replenished with beings different from man, and as often depopulated. That the age of ADAM, or the human race in which we now are, is to endure 7000 years, making a great cycle; that himself had seen twelve of these revolutions, and knew not how many more he had to see.” The story of SIMORG protecting the infant ZALZER, and the miraculous power of his feather at the birth of ROSTAM, is related by Ferdusi in the 7th and 8th books of the SHAH NAMEH.

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HAVIAT the lowest and most dreadful caverns of hell, destined for the punishment of Hypocrites.

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KHANS, Governors of certain Provinces in Persia (vide Note 7.) It is also given as a title, to great Lords and Sovereigns, and to the Tartarian Emperors, who likewise assumed the title of KHACAN.

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TAJE, or TAUJ, a crown, or diadem. It here signifies the scarlet cap, invented by SHEIKH HEIDER, and used as the badge of a military order by ISMAEL SOPHI, and his successors, whence they derived the name of Kisilbashkians, or red heads, which the Turks apply in ridicule to the Persians in general.

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Superstition has been known to extend its influence so fully over the GAURES, that many of them, when their habitations have been on fire, instead of endeavouring to stop the progress of the destructive element, which they call AZAR have fallen prostrate before it, and, after returning thanks as to a benevolent divinity, have fed its flames with offerings of oil.

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HOROSCOPE the ascendant stars at the hour of a person’s nativity, supposed to determine his fortune through life. Hence TAMERLANE, assumed a title given to Kai Khosro and Solomon—Lord of the planetary conjunctions.

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RUZVAN one of the Mahomedan names for the celestial Paradise.

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DIVAN a Council of State, a tribunal, a consultation.

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TEHAMA a Province of Arabia, South of Mecca, on the coast of the Red Sea, called also from its low situation Gaur.

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TAHER, Sultan of Sistom, being with his courtiers on a hunting party, SAUGHERY, a vassal to Leis, his kinsman, who had raised him to a military command, taking advantage of the Sultan’s absence, made himself master of the city of Shiraz by surprise; then leading his followers against the Sultan, who having received intelligence of the revolt, was marching to recover the city, routed his army and took one of his brothers, whom he bound in chains, and sent to Bagdad. He soon after seized on Leis, his patron and benefactor, and sent him also with Madel, another of the Sultan’s brothers, a prisoner to Bagdad.—A. H. 302.—A. D. 914.

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MONTAZER BILA, the thirtieth Khalif of Bagdad, being impatiently ambitious to reign, caused his own father to be murdered by his slaves, A. D. 850. He only lived to disgrace the throne about six months. The votary of Ambition walketh in the path of Perdition.

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SHAH ABAS, usually called the Great, distrustful of his son, Sefi Mirza, because of his superior abilities, and the love which the people expressed for him, first caused him to be deprived of sight, by having a red-hot wedge of gold held near his eyes; but not satisfied with committing only this unnatural act of barbarity, he soon after commanded one of the Ameers to strike off his son’s head with a scymetar!

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CHEHEL-MENAR, the vast ruins of the ancient city of Astekher, better known in Europe by the name of PERSEPOLIS.—Chehel, or Chelmenar signifies, in the Persian language, forty towers, an appellation given it in past ages, from the appearance which the pillars, porticos, and other prominent parts of the ruin made, on approaching them. The traditionary superstitions of the neighbouring country have not failed to make them the abodes of supernatural beings, such as Genies, Ifrits, Binaries, and the spirits of the dead, attributing strange and magical effects to the inscriptions on the walls, which have hitherto defied all attempts of the learned to decypher them, being in a language and character now totally unknown, and prove, beyond all dispute, the city to have been of the remotest antiquity. On the walls within, and at the principal entrance of the great hall, as well as on the precipitous sides of the surrounding mountains, the eye is struck with a great number of gigantic representations of divinities, sacrifices, and funeral processions, in which the figures are represented with flowing vests, long hair, tiaras and caps in the form of mitres, very different from the Persian dress of later times. Many animals and monstrous forms are also sculptured in relief, which, with the grotesque statues, doubtless led a people fertile in fancy to conceive such wild notions of spectres and magical transformations, as the poem here referred to contains.

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MAGES, the priests and teachers of the doctrine of Zoroaster, or Zeradusht, which previous to the conquest of Persia by the Moslems, was generally the religion of that empire.

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SERAGLIO, (See N. 63.) [HAREM, that part of a house or palace which contains the women’s apartments, (the word is Arabic, and signifies prohibited or forbidden.) These are often decorated with a profusion of expensive ornaments, and furnished with every thing that can please the voluptuary, and accord with the luxurious and slothful lives of their inhabitants.]

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THE SUN-FLOWER grows wild in the vallies of Persia, larger and more deeply coloured than in our gardens. It is also called Khor-perest or worshipper of the Sun. The Guebres hold it in superstitious regard.

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BAHARAM, or Ardshir diraz dest, was the sixteenth King of Persia, and, according to their historians, one of the best and bravest of the old Pehlevian race. It is related that at the completion of the first year of his reign he assembled his nobles, and requested, that if any of them should see in his future conduct that which they might deem reprehensible, to advertise him freely and fully of it; and if he should be found unworthy to reign, to depose him, and he would remain thenceforth contented in private life. His father Askandiar, having been slain in single combat with the celebrated champion of Persia, in consequence of Rostam’s refusal to embrace the religion of the Mages, Baharam, soon after ascending the throne, meditated vengeance for the death of his father; but ere he could with his army reach the place where Rostam lay encamped, tidings arrived that he was dead, and his son advancing with a large army. They met, and after a severe conflict, victory remained with Baharam. The son of Rostam fell, and ZAL, his grandfather, was taken prisoner.

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OBEIDALLAH (Introduct. p. xii.)

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It need scarcely be here repeated, that ISMAEL SOPHI obtained the throne of Persia, and supported himself upon it, by a course of insidious artifice, violence, and slaughter, only to be equalled by the pride, capricious cruelties, hypocrisy, and debauched lives of his descendants.—(See N. 40.) [ISMAEL SOPHI, — the son of Sheikh Haidar, and the first of that family who reigned in Persia. His many splendid atchievements, and the princely virtues that have been attributed to him, were all sullied by a spirit of revenge, excited by circumstances that attended the death of his father. The city of Tabriz felt the first effects of his fury, where, forgetful of the precept which his great ancestor Ali left to his followers, “When GOD shall have given you victory over your enemies, the best Thanksgiving you can offer up for the divine favour is to pardon them.” And at that early time of life, when the heart unhardened in habitudes of cruelty, is yet alive to nature, and the offspring of her genuine sensibilities--Humanity,—he not only caused a dreadful slaughter to be made of the inhabitants with a studied barbarity, which the brute animals also shared, but it is even said his own mother, who, during the time of her son’s concealment, had been married to a Chief of the opposite party, was put to death with three hundred women of profligate character, in a most inhuman manner. At Shiraz his rage was re-kindled, not so suddenly as unexpectedly a few years afterwards. On being told by some of his courtiers that there were persons living in that city who had fought against his father, he ordered his soldiers to fall on the inhabitants, of whom almost 40,000 were put to the sword, without any discrimination of age or sex. He died A. H. 921. A. D. 1523, at the age of only 38, though he had reigned, or rather tyrannized, 24 years. The revengeful character of ROSTAM BEN MAKSOUD seems to have been equally, if not more strongly marked by being concentered to a point, in his malignant determination to destroy the young sovereign, during whose short reign he had been confined in the fortress of Aleniak, from whence he was rescued A. D. 1492, and proclaimed Sultan. In the following year he slew BAISANGOR, and soon after caused ALI MIRZA (the brother of Shah Ismael, who was also a child) to be murdered by assassins. In the year 1498, Hamed Beg, another Turcoman Prince, having defeated ROSTAM, he fled into Georgia, where he was pursued by his enemies and slain. The destructions and slaughters of those times were dreadful in Persia, and the perpetrators fell victims in their turns, verifying the observation of a Mahomedan Sage, “EMPIRE may continue in the hands of the INFIDEL, but it will not continue in the hands of the TYRANT.”

]

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TEBL, a drum; the Persian field officers have a small one affixed to their saddles, on which they strike when they give the word of command.

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MESREAN FLOOD; the Red Sea, or Deria Yemen.

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MOSEILAMA, an Arabian chieftain, who, after having embraced the Mahomedan religion, relinquished it again, and became one of the most inveterate enemies it ever had, setting himself forth as a prophet, he promulgated some strange doctrines, and had for a short time many followers, who put to death such of the Moslems as fell into their hands. The Khalif OMAR, soon after the death of Mahomed, led a body of troops against them, but met with a more formidable resistance than he expected, and retreated with the loss of 1200 men, yet in another attempt he succeeded. Moseilama, and 10,000 of his followers were slain, and the valley of Achreb, where this and the former engagement took place, was from thence called the Vale of Blood. The neighbouring city of Hagiar contains the tombs of those who fell of the assailants; these are visited often by pilgrims as containing the bodies of martyrs for the faith.

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ALI, or Ali-Mortiza, the fourth Khalif.—(See the Introduction.)

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HOSAIN, the second son of Ali.— (See Introduct. p. x. xi. xii.)

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The Moslems, speaking of MAHOMED, very rarely mention him by name; but say simply the Prophet, or “the Messenger of God, on whom be the blessing and peace of God.”

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The three leading causes assigned for the pestilential contagion so dreadfully frequent in the Levant, are, the excessive heats of Summer, the air impregnated with marsh effluvia in consequence of calms, and the swarms of locusts, that after eating up every trace of verdure, die, and infect the country with their putrid millions.

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ANCIENT SAGES.—The Sabians, who before the Zoroastrian adoration of fire, worshipping the Divinity by symbols, sought them in the sublime of Nature. The Sabian was probably the religion of the most early ages; many who yet profess it, say they are the unmixed descendants of the old Assyrians, but call themselves, in consequence of a decree of the Khalif Mamoun, Christians of St. John. These chiefly inhabit near the banks of the Tygris and Euphrates.

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ARJVAN, a tree that bears a profusion of beautiful red flowers, frequently inclining to the crimson or purplish hue, the leaf buds are also of a deep red, which gives it an uncommon appearance, especially when the old trees are in full bloom, which is often before the green leaves are expanded. It is a species of the Arbor Judaica, or Circis of Linnæus.

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Many beautiful species and varieties of the Jasmine are natives of Persia, yellow, blue, and white. Of the latter there is a sort that grows plentifully about OBOLLA, and in various parts of Bahrein, which they call Gul Razeki It resembles the buds of the hundred leaved rose, continues long unfaded, and is said to surpass in fragrance every other Asiatic flower; hence it is often named Giti arai, adorning the world.

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ZACOUM a tree which the Mahomedans say, grows in the centre of Hell, that its fruit are the heads of Devils, and that its dismal shade ever resounds with shrieks and lamentations.

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BOUKZEN a Trumpeter.

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TIMOUR. (See Introduct. p. xvi.)

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KHAN ZINGIS, (or as we commonly write it) Gengis Khan, died A. D. 1226, at the age of 73, having devoted the greater part of his life to the conquest and ravaging of the most fertile and flourishing kingdoms of ASIA, destroying cities and slaughtering mankind.

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ARDEBEIL, in the province Azarbijan, is one of the most ancient cities of Persia; it is large, but rather irregularly built, and very populous. The tombs of Sefi-eddin and Sheikh Heider being in this city, have caused it to be the resort of pilgrims from all parts of Persia, the first being highly venerated as a saint, and the latter both as a saint and martyr, by the sect of Ali, hence it has gained the appellation of Abadani Firouz, or the Abode of Felicity. The river Aras, formerly called Araxes, flows by the walls of Ardebeil, through a finely diversified country, until uniting with the wildly impetuous stream of the Kur or river of Cyrus; they pour their waters into the Caspian Sea, a little to the southward of the port of Bachu. The western shore of the CASPIAN runs wildly romantic, from the Mountains of Derbend along the coast of Daghestan and Shirvan, till it terminates in prospects of a more pleasingly picturesque, and richly luxuriant character, on the shores of GHILAN, one of the most fertile provinces of Persia.

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ASMOUGH the Demon of War and Discord. The Gaures still use talismans and cabalistic rhymes, to keep him from their dwellings and social assemblies.

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The beautiful avenues of cypress trees, vineyards, groves and gardens, with which the city of SHIRAZ is surrounded, especially along the neighbouring vale of ROKNABAD, like the charming region near MOSELLA, (where the most admired flowers grow wild in far more luxuriant beauty and perfection than in our gardens) have furnished the Poets of Persia with the most pleasing rural images and allusions. HAFIZ even says, in one of his mystic odes,

“Boy, bring the residue of the wine—for thou wilt not find in the gardens of Paradise, the sweet banks of the river of Roknabad, or the flowery meads of Mosella.”

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“Boy, bring the residue of the wine—for thou wilt not find in the gardens of Paradise, the sweet banks of the river of Roknabad, or the flowery meads of Mosella.”

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The kingdom of VIZAPORE has an extent of Western coast, that is in the possession of the Portuguese. The interior of the country is rude and mountainous; and produces great quantities of diamonds and other valuable gems, especially near the city of Raolconda.

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JAU’RABAD the fabled capital of the Province of Shadeh Kiam, in Fairy-Land, is described by Oriental fancy as the center of delights, and in all parts ornamented with gold and jewels, “outshone the morning-star.”

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SHEIKH MOSLAH-EDDIN SAADI AL SHIRAZI This celebrated Poet was born at Shiraz, in the year 571 of the Hejra. Being a Dervish, he passed the early part of his days in a wandering and abstinent life, in the course of which he met with a variety of adventures. He performed the pilgrimage to Mecca, and in his Western rambles fell into the hands of the Crusaders, by whom he was compelled to work as a slave, on the fortifications of Tripoli, in Syria, until ransomed by a Merchant, who purchased his freedom for ten crowns, and gave him a hundred more as a marriage portion with his daughter, who added nothing to his happiness. This he laments in some bitter stanzas; though he says in the GULISTAN, which he finished in his ninetieth year,

If thou eat Coloquintida from the hand of kindness,

It shall be sweet as honey from the hand of ill-nature.

He afterwards wrote his BOSTAN, or fruit Garden, besides other pieces, in prose and verse. Having lived in the enjoyment of health and the cheerfulness of youth, to the great age of 120 years, he died at Shiraz, A. H. 691. A. D. 1292.

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AHMED BEN ATHA, was an Arabian Poet, who wrote several fine pieces on a contemplative and retired life, the bounties of Providence, and the joys of humble independency.

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KHACANI, a Poet of admirable talents, who was possessed also of much learning and philosophic science. After a highly honoured but unwilling residence at the Court of Manuchehar, Sultan of Shirvan, he was permitted to follow the bent of his inclination for a retired life, and became a Dervish. During his pilgrimage to Mecca, he composed some beautiful poems on the wild scenery of the mountains, sands, and deserts that he traversed in his journey. He died at Tabriz, A. H. 582. A. D. 1186.

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KEMALEDDIN ISMAEL, called also — the King of Poets. After the destruction of Ispahan by the Tartars, they sought for hidden treasures near the hermitage of Kemaleddin, and even put him to the most cruel tortures, which he bore with great firmness, rather than betray a confidence reposed in him, by some who had once been his envious persecutors. He died A. H. 635. A. D. 1237.

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OMAD EDDIN FAKIH derived the appellation of KERMANI from Kerman, his native province. He was of an ennobled family, and stood very high in favour with MODHAFER, Sultan of Shiraz, and was esteemed the most correct yet elegant writer of that age, a man of science, and a philosopher, but at the same time pious and contemplative, which caused him to retire from Court favour and the luxuries of life, to a small cottage in the country, where he received the frequent visits of many learned men. He died A. H. 775.

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NEURUZE the first day of the month Ferverdin answering to our March, and sacred to the Genius of the New Year. Though as Mahomedans, they have adopted the Arabian Calendar, this day is still kept in Persia as one of their greatest public festivals.

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MOURDESTAN an extensive and tall forest of beautiful Myrtles, between Shiraz and Baheban.

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ZSHOOLEH, a species of ground Lark, having a very sweet note, though inferior both in compass and melody to those of the Peearek and the Nightingale.

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