When Thalaba from adoration rose,

The air was cool, the sky

With welcome clouds o’ercast,

That soon came down in rain.

He lifted up his fevered face to heaven,

And bared his head and stretched his hands

To that delightful shower,

And felt the coolness flow thro’ every limb

Freshening his powers of life.

A loud quick panting! Thalaba looks up,

He starts, and his instinctive hand

Grasps the knife hilt: for close beside

A Tyger passes him.

An indolent and languid eye

The passing Tyger turned;

His head was hanging down,

His dry tongue lolling low,

And the short panting of his fevered breath

Came thro’ his hot parched nostrils painfully.

The young Arabian knew

The purport of his hurried pace,

And following him in hope

Saw joyful from afar

The Tyger stoop and drink.

The desert Pelican had built her nest

In that deep solitude.

And now returned from distant flight

Fraught with the river stream,

Her load of water had disburthened there.

Her young in the refreshing bath

Sported all wantonness;

Dipt down their callow heads,

Filled the swoln membrane from their plumeless throat

Pendant, and bills yet soft,

And buoyant with arched breast,

Plied in unpractised stroke

The oars of their broad feet.

They, as the spotted prowler of the wild

Laps the cool wave, around their mother croud,

And nestle underneath her outspread wings.

The spotted prowler of the wild

Lapt the cool wave,[86] and satiate from the nest,

Guiltless of blood, withdrew.

The mother bird had moved not

But cowering o’er her nestlings,

Sate confident and fearless,

And watched the wonted guest.

But when the human visitant approached,

The alarmed Pelican

Retiring from that hostile shape,

Gathers her young, and menaces with wings,

And forward thrusts her threatening neck,

Its feathers ruffling in her wrath,

Bold with maternal fear.

Thalaba drank and in the water-skin

Hoarded the precious element.

Not all he took, but in the large nest left

Store that sufficed for life.

And journeying onward blest the Carrier Bird,

And blest in thankfulness,

Their common Father, provident for all.

With strength renewed and confident in faith

The son of Hodeirah proceeds;

Till after the long toil of many a day,

At length Bagdad appeared,

The City of his search.

He hastening to the gate

Roams o’er the city with insatiate eyes,

Its thousand dwellings o’er whose level roofs

Fair cupolas appeared, and high-domed mosques

And pointed minarets, and cypress groves

Every where scattered[87] in unwithering green.

Thou too art fallen, Bagdad! City of[88] Peace,

Thou too hast had thy day!

And loathsome Ignorance and brute Servitude

Pollute thy dwellings now,

Erst for the Mighty and the Wise renowned.

O yet illustrious for remembered fame,

Thy founder the [89]Victorious, and the pomp

Of Haroun, for whose name by blood defiled,

Jahia’s, and the blameless Barmecides’,

Genius hath wrought salvation; and the years

When Science with the good Al-Maimon dwelt;

So one day may the Crescent from thy Mosques

Be plucked by Wisdom, when the enlightened arm

Of Europe conquers to redeem the East.

Then Pomp and Pleasure dwelt within her walls

The Merchants of the East and of the West

Met in her arched[90] Bazars;

All day the active poor

Showered a cool comfort o’er her thronging streets;

Labour was busy in her looms;

Thro’ all her open gates

Long troops of laden Camels lined her roads,

And Tigris on his tameless[91] current bore

Armenian harvests to her multitudes.

But not in sumptuous Caravansary

The adventurer idles there,

Nor satiates wonder with her pomp and wealth;

A long day’s distance from the walls

Stands ruined Babylon!

The time of action is at hand,

The hope that for so many a year

Hath been his daily thought, his nightly dream,

Stings to more restlessness.

He loathes all lingering that delays the hour

When, full of glory, from his quest returned,

He on the pillar of the Tent beloved

Shall hang Hodeirah’s sword.

The many-coloured[92] domes

Yet wore one dusky hue,

The Cranes upon the Mosque

Kept their night-clatter[93] still,

When thro’ the gate the early Traveller past.

And when at evening o’er the swampy plain

The Bittern’s[94] Boom came far,

Distinct in darkness seen

Above the low horizon’s lingering light

Rose the near ruins of old Babylon.

Once from her lofty walls[95] the Charioteer

Looked down on swarming myriads; once she flung

Her arches o’er Euphrates conquered tide,

And thro’ her brazen portals when she poured

Her armies forth, the distant nations looked

As men who watched the thunder-cloud in fear

Lest it should burst above them. She was fallen,

The Queen of Cities, Babylon was fallen!

Low lay her bulwarks; the black scorpion basked

In the palace courts, within her sanctuary

The She Wolf hid her whelps.

Is yonder huge and shapeless heap, what once

Had been the aerial[96] Gardens, height on height

Rising like Medias mountains crowned with wood,

Work of imperial dotage? where the fame

Of[97] Belus? where the Golden Image now,

Which at the sound of dulcimer and lute,

Cornet and sackbut, harp and psaltery,

The Assyrian slaves adored?

A labyrinth of ruins, Babylon

Spreads o’er the blasted plain:

The wandering Arab never sets his tent

Within her walls; the Shepherd[98] eyes afar

Her evil Towers, and devious drives his flock.

Alone unchanged, a free and bridgeless tide

Euphrates rolls along,

Eternal Nature’s work.

Thro’ the broken portal,

Over weedy fragments,

Thalaba went his way.

Cautious he trod, and felt

The dangerous ground before him with his bow.

The Chacal started at his steps,

The Stork, alarmed at sound of man,

From her broad nest upon the old pillar top,

Affrighted fled on flapping wings.

The Adder in her haunts disturbed

Lanced at the intruding staff her arrowy tongue.

Twilight and moonshine dimly mingling gave

An aweful light obscure,

Evening not wholly closed,

The Moon still pale and faint.

An aweful light obscure,

Broken by many a mass of blackest shade;

Long column stretching dark thro’ weeds and moss,

Broad length of lofty wall

Whose windows lay in light,

And of their former shape, low-arched or square,

Rude outline on the earth

Figured, with long grass fringed.

Reclined against a column’s broken shaft,

Unknowing whitherward to bend his way

He stood and gazed around.

The Ruins closed him in,

It seemed as if no foot of man

For ages had intruded there.

Soon at approaching step

Starting, he turned and saw

A warrior in the moon beam drawing near.

Forward the Stranger came

And with a curious eye

Perused the Arab youth.

“And who art thou,” he cried,

“That at an hour like this

“Wanderest in Babylon?

“A way-bewildered traveller, seekest thou

“The ruinous shelter here?

“Or comest thou to hide

“The plunder of the night?

“Or hast thou spells to make

“These ruins, yawning from their rooted base

“Disclose their secret[99] wealth?”

The youth replied, “nor wandering traveller

“Nor robber of the night

“Nor skilled in spells am I.

“I seek the Angels here,

“Haruth and Maruth. Stranger in thy turn,

“Why wanderest thou in Babylon,

“And who art thou, the Questioner?”

The man was fearless, and the tempered pride

That toned the voice of Thalaba

Displeased not him, himself of haughty heart.

Heedless he answered, “knowest thou

“Their cave of punishment?”

THALABA.

Vainly I seek it.

STRANGER.

Art thou firm of foot

To tread the ways of danger?

THALABA.

Point the path!

STRANGER.

Young Arab! if thou hast a heart can beat

Evenly in danger, if thy bowels yearn not

With human fears, at scenes where undisgraced

The soldier tried in battle might look back

And tremble, follow me!... for I am bound

Into that cave of horrors.

Thalaba

Gazed on his comrade, he was young, of port

Stately and strong; belike his face had pleased

A woman’s eye, yet the youth read in it

Unrestrained passions, the obdurate soul

Bold in all evil daring; and it taught,

By Nature’s irresistible instinct, doubt

Well timed and wary. Of himself assured,

Fearless of man, and confident in faith,

“Lead on!” cried Thalaba.

Mohareb led the way;

And thro’ the ruined streets,

And thro’ the farther gate

They past in silence on.

What sound is borne on the wind?

Is it the storm that shakes

The thousand oaks of the forest?

But Thalaba’s long locks

Flow down his shoulders moveless, and the wind

In his loose mantle raises not one fold.

Is it the river’s roar

Dashed down some rocky descent?

Along the level plain

Euphrates glides unheard.

What sound disturbs the night,

Loud as the summer forest in the storm,

As the river that roars among rocks?

And what the heavy cloud

That hangs upon the vale,

Thick as the mist o’er a well-watered plain

Settling at evening, when the cooler air

Lets its day-vapours fall;

Black as the sulphur-cloud

That thro’ Vesuvius, or from Hecla’s mouth

Rolls up, ascending from the infernal fires.

From Ait’s bitumen[100] lake

That heavy cloud ascends;

That everlasting roar

From where its gushing springs

Boil their black billows up.

Silent the Arab youth,

Along the verge of that wide lake,

Followed Mohareb’s way

Towards a ridge of rocks that banked its side.

There from a cave with torrent force,

And everlasting roar,

The black bitumen rolled.

The moonlight lay upon the rocks.

Their crags were visible,

The shade of jutting cliffs,

And where broad lichens whitened some smooth spot,

And where the ivy hung

Its flowing tresses down.

A little way within the cave

The moonlight fell, glossing the sable tide

That gushed tumultuous out.

A little way it entered, then the rock

Arching its entrance, and the winding way,

Darkened the unseen depths.

No eye of mortal man

If unenabled by enchanted spell,

Had pierced those fearful depths.

For mingling with the roar

Of the portentous torrent, oft were heard

Shrieks, and wild yells that scared

The brooding Eagle from her midnight nest.

The affrighted countrymen

Call it the Mouth of Hell;

And ever when their way leads near

They hurry with averted eyes,

And dropping their beads[101] fast

Pronounce the holy name.

There pausing at the cavern mouth

Mohareb turned to Thalaba,

“Now darest thou enter in?”

“Behold!” the youth replied,

And leading in his turn the dangerous way

Set foot within the cave.

“Stay Madman!” cried his comrade. “Wouldst thou rush

“Headlong to certain death?

“Where are thine arms to meet

“The Guardian of the Passage?” a loud shriek

That shook along the windings of the cave

Scattered the youth’s reply.

Mohareb when the long reechoing ceased

Exclaimed, “Fate favoured thee,

“Young Arab! when she wrote[102] upon thy brow

“The meeting of to-night;

“Else surely had thy name

“This hour been blotted from the Book of Life!”

So saying from beneath

His cloak a bag he drew;

“Young Arab! thou art brave,” he cried,

“But thus to rush on danger unprepared,

“As lions spring upon the hunter’s spear,

“Is blind, brute courage. Zohak[103] keeps the cave,

“Giantly tyrant of primeval days.

“Force cannot win the passage.” Thus he said

And from his wallet drew a human hand

Shrivelled, and dry, and black,

And fitting as he spake

A taper in its hold,

Pursued: “a murderer on the stake had died,

“I drove the Vulture from his limbs, and lopt

“The hand that did the murder, and drew up

“The tendon-strings to close its grasp,

“And in the sun and wind

“Parched it, nine weeks exposed.

“The Taper,... but not here the place to impart,

“Nor hast thou done the rites,

“That fit thee to partake the mystery.

“Look! it burns clear, but with the air around

“Its dead ingredients mingle deathiness.

“This when the Keeper of the Cave shall feel,

“Maugre the doom of Heaven,

“The salutary[104] spell

“Shall lull his penal agony to sleep

“And leave the passage free.”

Thalaba answered not.

Nor was there time for answer now,

For lo! Mohareb leads,

And o’er the vaulted cave

Trembles the accursed taper’s feeble light.

There where the narrowing chasm

Rose loftier in the hill,

Stood Zohak, wretched man, condemned to keep

His Cave of punishment.

His was the frequent scream

Which far away the prowling Chacal heard

And howled in terror back:

For from his shoulders grew

Two snakes of monster size,

That ever at his head

Aimed eager their keen teeth

To satiate raving hunger with his brain.

He in the eternal conflict oft would seize

Their swelling necks, and in his giant grasp

Bruise them, and rend their flesh with bloody nails,

And howl for agony,

Feeling the pangs he gave, for of himself

Inseparable parts, his torturers grew.

To him approaching now

Mohareb held the withered arm

The Taper of enchanted power.

The unhallowed spell in hand unholy held

Now ministered to mercy, heavily

The wretche’s eyelids closed,

And welcome and unfelt

Like the release of death

A sudden sleep fell on his vital powers.

Yet tho’ along the cave

Lay Zohak’s giant limbs,

The twin-born serpents kept the narrow pass,

Kindled their fiery eyes,

Darted their tongues of terror, and rolled out

Their undulating length,

Like the long streamers of some gallant ship

Buoyed on the wavy air,

Still struggling to flow on and still withheld.

The scent of living flesh

Inflamed their appetite.

Prepared for all the perils of the cave

Mohareb came. He from his wallet drew

Two human heads yet warm.

O hard of heart! whom not the visible power

Of retributive Justice, and the doom

Of Zohak in his sight,

Deterred from equal crime!

Two human heads, yet warm, he laid

Before the scaly guardians of the pass.

They to their wonted banquet of old years

Turned eager, and the narrow pass was free.

And now before their path

The opening cave dilates;

They reach a spacious vault

Where the black river fountains burst their way.

Now as a whirlwind’s force

Had centered on the spring,

The gushing flood rolled up;

And now the deadened roar

Echoed beneath them, as its sudden pause

Left wide a dark abyss,

Adown whose fathomless gulphs the eye was lost.

Blue flames that hovered o’er the springs

Flung thro’ the Cavern their uncertain light

Now waving on the waves they lay,

And now their fiery curls

Flowed in long tresses up,

And now contracting glowed with whiter heat.

Then up they poured again

Darting pale flashes thro’ the tremulous air;

The flames, the red and yellow sulphur-smoke,

And the black darkness of the vault

Commingling indivisibly.

“Here,” quoth Mohareb, “do the Angels dwell,

“The Teachers of Enchantment.” Thalaba

Then raised his voice and cried,

“Haruth and Maruth, hear me! not with rites

“Accursed, to disturb your penitence

“And learn forbidden lore,

“Repentant Angels, seek I your abode.

“Me Allah and the Prophet mission here,

“Their chosen servant I.

“Tell me the Talisman.”...

“And dost thou think”

“Mohareb cried, as with a scornful smile

He glanced upon his comrade, “dost thou think

“To trick them of their secret? for the dupes

“Of human-kind keep this lip-righteousness!

“’Twill serve thee in the Mosque

“And in the Market-place,

“But Spirits view the heart.

“Only by strong and torturing spells enforced,

“Those stubborn Angels teach the charm

“By which we must descend.”

“Descend!” said Thalaba.

But then the wrinkling smile

Forsook Mohareb’s cheek,

And darker feelings settled on his brow.

“Now by my soul,” quoth he, “and I believe

“Idiot! that I have led

“Some camel-kneed prayer-monger thro’ the cave!

“What brings thee hither? thou shouldest have a hut

“By some Saint’s[105] grave beside the public way,

“There to less-knowing fools

“Retail thy Koran[106] scraps,

“And in thy turn, die civet-like at last

“In the dung-perfume of thy sanctity!...

“Ye whom I seek! that, led by me,

“Feet uninitiate tread

“Your threshold, this atones!

“Fit sacrifice he falls!”

And forth he flashed his scymetar,

And raised the murderous blow.

Then ceased his power; his lifted arm,

Suspended by the spell,

Hung impotent to strike.

“Poor Hypocrite!” cried he,

“And this then is thy faith

“In Allah and the Prophet! they had failed

“To save thee, but for Magic’s stolen aid;

“Yea, they had left thee yonder Serpent’s meal,

“But that, in prudent cowardice,

“The chosen Servant of the Lord came in,

“Safe follower of my path!”

“Blasphemer! dost thou boast of guiding me?”

Kindling with pride quoth Thalaba,

“Blindly the wicked work

“The righteous will of Heaven.

“Sayest thou that diffident of God,

“In magic spell I trust?

“Liar! let witness this!”

And he drew off Abdaldar’s Ring

And cast it in the gulph.

A skinny hand came up

And caught it as it fell,

And peals of devilish laughter shook the Cave.

Then joy suffused Mohareb’s cheek,

And Thalaba beheld

The blue blade gleam, descending to destroy.

The undefended youth

Sprung forward, and he seized

Mohareb in his grasp,

And grappled with him breast to breast.

Sinewy and large of limb Mohareb was,

Broad-shouldered, and his joints

Knit firm, and in the strife

Of danger practised well.

Time had not thus matured young Thalaba:

But now the enthusiast mind,

The inspiration of his soul

Poured vigour like the strength

Of madness thro’ his frame.

Mohareb reels before him! he right on

With knee, with breast, with arm,

Presses the staggering foe!

And now upon the brink

Of that tremendous spring,

There with fresh impulse and a rush of force

He thrust him from his hold.

The upwhirling flood received

Mohareb, then, absorbed,

Engulphed him in the abyss.

Thalaba’s breath came fast,

And panting he breathed out

A broken prayer of thankfulness.

At length he spake and said,

“Haruth and Maruth! are ye here?

“Or has that evil guide misled my search?

“I, Thalaba, the Servant of the Lord,

“Invoke you. Hear me Angels! so may Heaven

“Accept and mitigate your penitence.

“I go to root from earth the Sorcerer brood,

“Tell me the needful Talisman!”

Thus as he spake, recumbent on the rock

Beyond the black abyss,

Their forms grew visible.

A settled sorrow sate upon their brows,

Sorrow alone, for trace of guilt and shame

No more remained; and gradual as by prayer

The sin was purged away,

Their robe[107] of glory, purified of stain

Resumed the lustre of its native light.

In awe the youth received the answering voice,

“Son of Hodeirah! thou hast proved it here;

“The Talisman is Faith.”

END OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

Thalaba the Destroyer.

by

Robert Southey.

 

Ποιηματων αϰρατης η ελευϑερια, ϰαι νομος εις, το δοξαν τω ϖοιητη.

Lucian, Quomodo Hist. scribenda.