Classic Poem

1.

So from the inmost cave
Did Thalaba retrace
The windings of the rock.
Still on the ground the giant limbs
Of Zohak lay dispread;
The spell of sleep had ceased,
And his broad eyes were glaring on the youth;
Yet raised he not his arm to bar the way,
Fearful to rouse the snakes
Now lingering o'er their meal.

2.

Oh, then, emerging from that dreadful cave,
How grateful did the gale of night.
Salute his freshen'd sense!
How full of lightsome joy,
Thankful to Heaven, he hastens by the verge
Of that bitumen-lake,
Whose black and heavy fumes,
Surge heaving after surge,
Roll'd like the billowy and tumultuous sea.

3.

The song of many a bird at morn
Aroused him from his rest.
Lo! at his side a courser stood;
More animate of eye,
Of form more faultless never had he seen,
More light of limbs and beautiful in strength,
Among the race whose blood,
Pure and unmingled, from the royal steeds
Of Solomon came down.
4.

The chosen Arab's eye
Glanced o'er his graceful shape,
His rich caparisons,
His crimson trappings gay.
But when he saw the mouth
Uncurb'd, the unbridled neck,
Then his heart leap'd, and then his cheek was flush'd;
For sure he deem'd that Heaven had sent
A courser, whom no erring hand might guide.
And lo! the eager Steed
Throws his head and paws the ground,
Impatient of delay!
Then up leap'd Thalaba,
And away went the self-govern'd courser.

5.

Over the plain
Away went the steed;
With the dew of the morning his fetlocks were wet;
The foam froth'd his limbs in the journey of noon;
Nor stay'd he till over the westerly heaven
The shadows of evening had spread.
Then on a shelter'd bank
The appointed Youth reposed,
And by him laid the docile courser down
Again in the gray of the morning
Thalaba bounded up;
Over hill, over dale,
Away goes the steed.
Again at eve he stops,
Again the Youth alights;
His load discharged, his errand done,
The courser then bounded away.

6.

Heavy and dark the eve;
The Moon was hid on high;
A dim light tinged the mist
That cross'd her in the path of Heaven
All living sounds had ceased;
Only the flow of waters near was heard,
A low and lulling melody.

7.

Fasting, yet not of want
Percipient, he on that mysterious steed
Had reach'd his resting-place,
For expectation kept his nature up.
Now, as the flow of waters near
Awoke a feverish thirst,
Led by the sound he moved
To seek the grateful wave.

8.

A meteor in the hazy air
Play'd before his path:
Before him now it roll'd
A globe of living fire;
And now contracted to a steady light,
As when the solitary hermit prunes
His lamp's long undulating flame;
And now its wavy point
Up-blazing rose, like a young cypress-tree
Sway'd by the heavy wind;
Anon to Thalaba it moved,
And wrapt him in its pale, innocuous fire;
Now, in the darkness drown'd,
Left him with eyes bedimm'd,
And now, emerging, spread the scene to sight.

9.

Led by the sound and meteor-flame,
The Arabian youth advanced.
Now to the nearest of the many rills
He stoops; ascending steam
Timely repels his hand,
For from its source it sprung, a boiling tide.
A second course with better hap he tries:
The wave, intensely cold,
Tempts to a copious draught.
There was a virtue in the wave:
His limbs, that, stiff with toil,
Dragg'd heavy, from the copious draught received
Lightness and supple strength.
O'erjoyed, and weening the benignant Power,
Who sent the reinless steed,
Had blest these healing waters to his use,
He laid him down to sleep,
Lull'd by the soothing and incessant sound,
The flow of many waters, blending oft
With shriller tones, and deep, low murmurings,
Which, from the fountain caves,
In mingled melody,
Like faery music, heard at midnight, came.

10.

The sounds which last he heard at night
Awoke his recollection first at morn.
A scene of wonders lay before his eyes.
In mazy windings o'er the vale
A thousand streamlets stray'd,
And in their endless course
Had intersected deep the stony soil,
With labyrinthine channels islanding
A thousand rocks, which seem'd,
Amid the multitudinous waters there,
Like clouds that freckle o'er the summer sky,
The blue ethereal ocean circling each
And insulating all.

11.

Those islets of the living rock
Were of a thousand shapes,
And Nature with her various tints
Diversified anew their thousand forms;
For some were green with moss;
Some ruddier tinged, or gray, or silver white;
And some with yellow lichens glow'd like gold;
Some sparkled sparry radiance to the sun.
Here gush'd the fountains up,
Alternate light and blackness, like the play
Of sunbeams on a warrior's burnish'd arms.
Yonder the river roll'd, whose ample bed,
Their sportive lingerings o'er,
Received and bore away the confluent rills.

12.

This was a wild and wondrous scene,
Strange and beautiful, as where
By Oton-tala, like a sea of stars,
The hundred sources of Hoangho burst.
High mountains closed the vale,
Bare rocky mountains closed the vale,
Inhospitable; on whose sides no herb
Rooted, no insect fed, no bird awoke
Their echoes, save the Eagle, strong of wing,
A lonely plunderer, that afar
Sought in the vales his prey.

13.

Thither toward those mountains Thalaba
Following, as he believed, the path prescribed
By Destiny, advanced.
Up a wide vale that led into their depths,
A stony vale between receding heights
Of stone, he wound his way.
A cheerless place! the solitary Bee,
Whose buzzing was the only sound of life,
Flew there on restless wing,
Seeking in vain one flower, whereon to fix.

14.

Still Thalaba holds on;
The winding vale now narrows on his view,
And steeper of ascent,
Rightward and leftward rise the rocks;
And now they meet across the vale.
Was it the toil of human hands
Had hewn a passage in the rocks,
Through whose rude portal-way
The light of heaven was seen?
Rude and low the portal-way;
Beyond, the same ascending straits
Went winding up the wilds.

15.

Still a bare, silent, solitary glen,
A fearful silence, and a solitude
That made itself be felt;
And steeper now the ascent,
A rugged path, that tired
The straining muscles, toiling slowly up.
At length, again a rock
Stretch'd o'er the narrow vale;
There also had a portal-way been hewn,
But gates of massy iron barr'd the pass,
Huge, solid, heavy-hinged.

16.

There hung a horn beside the gate,
Ivory-tipp'd and brazen-mouth'd.
He took the ivory tip,
And through the brazen mouth he breathed;
Like a long thunder-peal,
From rock to rock rebounding rung the blast;
The gates of iron, by no human arm
Unfolded, turning on their hinges slow,
Disclosed the passage of the rock.
He enter'd, and the iron gates fell to,
And with a clap like thunder closed him in;

17.

It was a narrow, winding way;
Dim lamps, suspended from the vault,
Lent to the gloom an agitated light.
Winding it pierced the rock,
A long, descending path,
By gates of iron closed;
There also hung a horn beside,
Of ivory tip and brazen mouth;
Again he took the ivory tip,
And gave the brazen mouth its voice again
Not now in thunder spake the horn,
But breathed a sweet and thrilling melody
The gates flew open, and a flood of light
Rush'd on his dazzled eyes.

18.

Was it to earthly Eden, lost so long,
The fated Youth had found his wondrous way?
But earthly Eden boasts
No terraced palaces,
No rich pavilions bright with woven gold,
Like these, that, in the vale,
Rise amid odorous groves.
The astonish'd Thalaba,
Doubting as though an unsubstantial dream;
Beguiled him, closed his eyes,
And open'd them again;
And yet uncertified,
He press'd them close, and, as he look'd around,
Question'd the strange reality again.
He did not dream;
They still were there —
The glittering tents,
The odorous groves,
The gorgeous palaces.

19.

And lo! a man, reverend in comely age,
Advancing greets the youth.
" Favor'd of Fortune, " thus he said, " go taste
The joys of Paradise!
The reinless steed, that ranges o'er the world,
Brings hither those alone for lofty deeds
Mark'd by their horoscope; permitted thus
A foretaste of the full beatitude,
That in heroic acts they may go on
More ardent, eager to return and reap
Endless enjoyment here, their destined meed
Favor'd of Fortune thou, go taste
The joys of Paradise! "

20.

This said, he turn'd away, and left
The Youth in wonder mute;
For Thalaba stood mute,
And passively received
The mingled joy which flow'd on every sense.
Where'er his eye could reach,
Fair structures, rainbow-hued, arose;
And rich pavilions, through the opening woods.
Gleam'd from their waving curtains sunny gold;
And, winding through the verdant vale,
Went streams of liquid light;
And fluted cypresses rear'd up
Their living obelisks;
And broad-leav'd plane-trees, in long colonnades,
O'er-arch'd delightful walks,
Where round their trunks the thousand tendrill'd vine
Wound up and hung the boughs with greener wreaths,
And clusters not their own.
Wearied with endless beauty, did his eyes
Return for rest? beside him teems the earth
With tulips, like the ruddy evening streak'd;
And here the lily hangs her head of snow;
And here, amid her sable cup,
Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star,
The solitary twinkler of the night;
And here the rose expands
Her paradise of leaves.

21.

Then on his ear what sounds
Of harmony arose!
Far music and the distance-mellow'd song
From bowers of merriment;
The waterfall remote;
The murmuring of the leafy groves;
The single nightingale
Perch'd in the rosier by, so richly toned,
That never from that most melodious bird,
Singing a love-song to his brooding mate,
Did Thracian shepherd by the grave
Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody,
Though there the Spirit of the Sepulchre
All his own power infuse, to swell
The incense that he loves.

22.

And oh! what odors the voluptuous vale
Scatters from jasmine bowers,
From you rose wilderness,
From cluster'd henna and from orange groves,
That with such perfumes fill the breeze,
As Peris to their Sister bear,
When from the summit of some lofty tree
She hangs encaged, the captive of the Dives
They from their pinions shake
The sweetness of celestial flowers,
And, as her enemies impure
From that impervious poison far away
Fly groaning with the torment, she the while
Inhales her fragrant food.

23.

Such odors flow'd upon the world,
When at Mohammed's nuptials, word
Went forth in Heaven, to roll
The everlasting gates of Paradise
Back on their living hinges, that its gales
Might visit all below; the general bliss
Thrill'd every bosom, and the family
Of man, for once, partook one common joy.

24.

Full of the bliss, yet still awake
To wonder, on went Thalaba;
On every side the song of mirth,
The music of festivity,
Invite the passing youth.
Wearied at length with hunger and with heat,
He enters in a banquet room,
Where, round a fountain brink,
On silken carpets sate the festive train.
Instant through all his frame
Delightful coolness spread;
The playing fount refresh'd
The agitated air;
The very light came cool'd through silvering panes
Of pearly shell, like the pale moon-beam tinged;
Or where the wine-vase fill'd the aperture,
Rosy as rising morn, or softer gleam
Of saffron, like the sunny evening mist
Through every hue, and streak'd by all,
The flowing fountain play'd.
Around the water-edge
Vessels of wine, alternate placed,
Ruby and amber, tinged its little waves.
From golden goblets there
The guests sate quaffing the delicious juice
Of Shiraz' golden grape.

25.

But Thalaba took not the draught;
For rightly, he knew, had the Prophet forbidden
That beverage, the mother of sins;
Nor did the urgent guests
Proffer a second time the liquid fire,
When in the youth's strong eye they saw
No movable resolve.
Yet not uncourteous, Thalaba
Drank the cool draught of innocence,
That fragrant from its dewy vase
Came purer than it left its native bed;
And he partook the odorous fruits,
For all rich fruits were there;
Water-melons rough of rind,
Whose pulp the thirsty lip
Dissolved into a draught;
Pistachios from the heavy-cluster'd trees
Of Malavert, or Haleb's fertile soil;
And Casbin's luscious grapes of amber hue,
That many a week endure
The summer sun intense,
Till, by its powerful heat,
All watery particles exhaled, alone
The strong essential sweetness ripens there.
Here, cased in ice, the apricot
A topaz, crystal-set;
Here on a plate of snow,
The sunny orange rests;
And still the aloes and the sandal-wood,
From golden censers, o'er the banquet-room
Diffuse their dying sweets.

26.

Anon a troop of females form'd the dance,
Their ankles bound with bracelet-bells,
That made the modulating harmony.
Transparent garments to the greedy eye
Exposed their harlot limbs,
Which moved, in every wanton gesture skill'd.

27.

With earnest eyes the banqueters
Fed on the sight impure
And Thalaba, he gazed,
But in his heart he bore a talisman,
Whose blessed alchemy
To virtuous thoughts refined
The loose suggestions of the scene impure.
Oneiza's image swam before his sight,
His own Arabian Maid.
He rose, and from the banquet-room he rush'd;
Tears coursed his burning cheek;
And nature for a moment woke the thought,
And murmur'd, that, from all domestic joys
Estranged, he wander'd o'er the world,
A lonely being, far from all he loved.
Son of Hodeirah, not among thy crimes
That momentary murmur shall be written!

28.

From tents of revelry,
From festal bowers, to solitude he ran;
And now he came where all the rills
Of that well-water'd garden in one tide
Roll'd their collected waves.
A straight and stately bridge
Stretch'd its long arches o'er the ample stream.
Strong in the evening and distinct its shade
Lay on the watery mirror, and his eye
Saw it united with its parent pile,
One huge, fantastic fabric. Drawing near,
Loud from the chambers of the bridge below,
Sounds of carousal came and song,
And unveil'd women bade the advancing youth
Come merry-make with them!
Unhearing, or unheeding, he
Past o'er with hurried pace,
And sought the shade and silence of the grove.

29.

Deserts of Araby!
His soul return'd to you.
He cast himself upon the earth,
And closed his eyes, and call'd
The voluntary vision up.
A cry, as of distress,
Aroused him; loud it came, and near!
He started up, he strung his bow,
He pluck'd an arrow forth.
Again a shriek — a woman's shriek!
And lo! she rushes through the trees;
Her veil is rent, her garments torn!
The ravisher follows close.
" Prophet, save me! save me, God!
Help! help me, man! " to Thalaba she cried:
Thalaba drew the bow.
The unerring arrow did its work of death.
Then, turning to the woman, he beheld
His own Oneiza, his Arabian Maid.