So from the inmost cavern, Thalaba

Retrod the windings of the rock.

Still on the ground the giant limbs

Of Zohak were outstretched;

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.

Oh then, emerging from that dreadful cave,

How grateful did the gale of night

Salute his freshened 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,

Rolled like the billowy and tumultuous sea.

The song of many a bird at morn

Aroused him from his rest.

Lo! by 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 [108]Solomon came down.

The chosen Arab’s eye

Glanced o’er his graceful shape,

His rich caparisons,

His crimson trappings gay.

But when he saw the mouth

Uncurbed, the unbridled neck,

Then flushed his cheek, and leapt his heart,

For sure he deemed that Heaven had sent

The Courser, whom no erring hand should guide.

And lo! the eager Steed

Throws his head and paws the ground,

Impatient of delay!

Then up leapt Thalaba

And away went the self-governed steed.

Far over the plain

Away went the bridleless steed;

With the dew of the morning his fetlocks were wet,

The foam frothed his limbs in the journey of noon,

Nor stayed he till over the westerly heaven

The shadows of evening had spread.

Then on a sheltered bank

The appointed Youth reposed,

And by him laid the docile courser down.

Again in the grey of the morning

Thalaba bounded up,

Over hill, over dale

Away goes the bridleless steed.

Again at eve he stops

Again the Youth descends.

His load discharged, his errand done,

Then bounded the courser away.

Heavy and dark the eve;

The Moon was hid on high,

A dim light only tinged the mist

That crost her in the path of Heaven.

All living sounds had ceased,

Only the flow of waters near was heard,

A low and lulling melody.

Fasting, yet not of want

Percipient, he on that mysterious steed

Had reached his resting place,

For expectation kept his nature up.

The flow of waters now

Awoke a feverish thirst:

Led by the sound, he moved

To seek the grateful wave.

A meteor in the hazy air

Played before his path;

Before him now it rolled

A globe of livid 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

Swayed by the heavy wind;

Anon to Thalaba it moved,

And wrapped him in its pale innocuous fire:

Now in the darkness drowned

Left him with eyes bedimmed,

And now emerging[109] spread the scene to sight.

Led by the sound, and meteor-flame

Advanced the Arab youth.

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 intensly cold

Tempts to a copious draught.

There was a virtue in the wave,

His limbs that stiff with toil,

Dragged heavy, from the copious draught received

Lightness and supple strength.

O’erjoyed, and deeming the benignant Power

Who sent the reinless steed,

Had blessed the healing waters to his use

He laid him down to sleep;

Lulled by the soothing and incessant sound,

The flow of many waters, blending oft

With shriller tones and deep low murmurings

That from the fountain caves

In mingled melody

Like faery music, heard at midnight, came.

The sounds that last he heard at night

Awoke his sense at morn.

A scene of wonders lay before his eyes.

In mazy windings o’er the vale

Wandered a thousand streams;

They in their endless flow[110] had channelled deep

The rocky soil o’er which they ran,

Veining its thousand islet stones,

Like clouds that freckle o’er the summer sky,

The blue etherial ocean circling each

And insulating all.

A thousand shapes they wore, those islet stones,

And Nature with her various tints

Varied anew their thousand forms:

For some were green with moss,

Some rich with yellow lichen’s gold,

Or ruddier tinged, or grey, or silver-white,

Or sparkling sparry radiance to the sun.

Here gushed the fountains up,

Alternate light and blackness, like the play

Of sunbeams, on the warrior’s burnished arms.

Yonder the river rolled, whose bed,

Their labyrinthine lingerings o’er

Received the confluent rills.

This was a wild and wonderous scene,

Strange and beautiful, as where

By Oton-tala, like a sea[111] of stars,

The hundred sources of Hoangho burst.

High mountains closed the vale,

Bare rocky mountains, to all living things

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.

Thither towards those mountains, Thalaba

Advanced, for well he weened that there had Fate

Destined the adventures end.

Up a wide vale winding amid 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 blossom, where to fix.

Still Thalaba holds on,

The winding vale now narrows on his way,

And steeper of ascent

Rightward and leftward rise the rocks,

And now they meet across the vale.

Was it the toil of human hands

That hewed a passage in the rock,

Thro’ whose rude portal-way

The light of heaven was seen?

Rude and low the portal-way,

Beyond the same[112] ascending straits

Went winding up the wilds.

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

Stretched o’er the narrow vale.

There also was a portal hewn,

But gates of massy iron barred the way,

Huge, solid, heavy-hinged.

There hung a horn beside the gate,

Ivory-tipt and brazen mouthed,

He took the ivory tip,

And thro’ the brazen mouth he breathed;

From rock to rock rebounding rung the blast,

Like a long thunder peal!

The gates of iron, by no human arm

Unfolded, turning on their hinges slow,

Disclosed the passage of the rock.

He entered, and the iron gates

Fell to, and closed him in.

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 the horn beside

Of ivory tip and brazen mouth,

Again he took the ivory tip

And gave the brazen mouth his voice again.

Not now in thunder spake the horn,

But poured a sweet and thrilling melody:

The gates flew open, and a flood of light

Rushed on his dazzled eyes.

Was it to earthly Eden lost so long,

The youth had found the wonderous way?

But earthly Eden boasts

No terraced palaces,

No rich pavilions bright with woven[113] gold.

Like these that in the vale

Rise amid odorous groves.

The astonished Thalaba

Doubting as tho’ an unsubstantial dream

Beguiled his passive sense,

A moment closed his eyes;

Still they were there ... the palaces and groves,

And rich pavilions glittering golden light.

And lo! a man, reverend in comely age

Advancing meets the youth.

“Favoured of Fortune,” he exclaimed,

“Go taste the joys of Paradise!

“The reinless steed that ranges o’er the world

“Brings hither those alone for lofty deeds

“Marked by their horoscope; permitted here

“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.

“Favoured of Fortune thou,

“Go taste the joys of Paradise!”

This said, he turned away, and left

The Youth in wonder mute;

For Thalaba stood mute

And passively received

The mingled joy that flowed on every sense.

Where’er his eye could reach

Fair structures, rain bow-hued, arose;

And rich pavilions thro’ the opening woods

Gleamed from their waving curtains sunny gold;

And winding thro’ the verdant vale

Flowed streams of liquid light;

And fluted cypresses reared up

Their living obelisks;

And broad-leaved[114] Zennars in long colonades

O’er-arched delightful walks,

Where round their trunks the thousand-tendril’d vine

Wound up and hung the bows 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[115] evening streaked,

And here the lily hangs her head of snow,

And here amid her sable[116] cup

Shines the red eye-spot, like one brightest star

The solitary twinkler of the night,

And here the rose expands

Her paradise[117] of leaves.

Then on his ear what sounds

Of harmony arose!

Far music and the distance-mellowed song

From bowers of merriment;

The waterfall remote;

The murmuring of the leafy groves;

The single nightingale

Perched 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[118] hear a sweeter song;

Tho’ there the Spirit of the Sepulchre

All his own power infuse, to swell

The incense that he loves.

And oh! what odours the voluptuous vale

Scatters from jasmine bowers.

From yon rose wilderness,

From clustered 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[119] food.

Such odours flowed 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

Thrilled every bosom, and the family

Of man, for once[120] partook one common joy.

Full of the joy, 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[121] carpets sate the festive train.

Instant thro’ all his frame

Delightful coolness spread;

The playing fount refreshed

The agitated air;

The very light came cooled thro’ silvering panes

Of pearly[122] shell, like the pale moon-beam tinged;

Or where the wine-vase[123] filled the aperture,

Rosy as rising morn, or softer gleam

Of saffron, like the sunny evening mist:

Thro’ every hue, and streaked by all

The flowing fountain played.

Around the water-edge

Vessels of wine, alternate placed,

Ruby and amber, tinged its little waves.

From golden goblets there[124]

The guests sate quaffing the delicious juice

Of Shiraz’ golden grape.

But Thalaba took not the draught

For rightly he knew had the Prophet forbidden

That beverage the mother[125] of sins.

Nor did the urgent guests

Proffer a second time the liquid fire

For in the youth’s strong eye they saw

No moveable resolve.

Yet not uncourteous, Thalaba

Drank the cool draught of innocence,

That fragrant from its dewy[126] 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-clustered trees

Of Malavert, or Haleb’s fertile soil,

And Casbin’s[127] luscious grapes of amber hue,

That many a week endure

The summer sun intense,

Till by its powerful fire

All watery particles exhaled, alone

The strong essential sweetness ripens there.

Here cased in ice, the [128]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.

Anon a troop of females formed the dance

Their ancles bound with [129]bracelet-bells

That made the modulating harmony.

Transparent[130] garments to the greedy eye

Gave all their harlot limbs,

That writhed, in each immodest gesture skilled.

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 rushed,

And tears ran down his burning cheek,

And nature for a moment woke the thought

And murmured, that from all domestic joys

Estranged, he wandered o’er the world

A lonely being, far from all he loved.

Son of Hodeirah, not among thy crimes

That murmur shall be written!

From tents of revelry,

From festal bowers, to solitude he ran,

And now he reached where all the rills

Of that well-watered garden in one tide

Rolled their collected waves.

A straight and stately bridge

Stretched its long arches o’er the ample stream.

Strong in the evening and distinct its shade

Lay on the watry mirror, and his eye

Saw it united with its parent pile

One huge fantastic fabric. Drawing near,

Loud from the chambers[131] of the bridge below,

Sounds of carousal came and song,

And unveiled women bade the advancing youth

Come merry-make with them.

Unhearing or unheeding, Thalaba

Past o’er with hurried pace,

And plunged amid the forest solitude.

Deserts of Araby!

His soul returned to you.

He cast himself upon the earth

And closed his eyes, and called

The voluntary vision up.

A cry as of distress

Aroused him; loud it came, and near!

He started up, he strung his bow,

He plucked the arrow forth.

Again a shriek ... a woman’s shriek!

And lo! she rushes thro’ the trees,

Her veil all rent, her garments torn!

He follows close, the ravisher....

Even on the unechoing grass

She hears his tread, so close!

“Prophet save me! save me God!

“Help! help!” she cried to Thalaba,

Thalaba drew the bow.

The unerring arrow did its work of death.

He turned him to the woman, and beheld

His own Oneiza, his Arabian Maid.