"Her native tents of Himiar!" "Nay!" rejoins His comrade," a love-pageant! for the man "Mimics with that fierce eye and knotty club "Some savage lion-tamer, she forsooth

"Must play the heroine of the years of old !"

Radiant with gems upon his throne of gold
Sate Aloadin; o'er the Sorcerer's head
Hovered a Bird, and in the fragrant air
Waved his wide winnowing wings,

A living canopy.

Large as the plumeless Cassowar

Was that o'ershadowing Bird;

So huge his talons, in their grasp
The Eagle would have hung a helpless prey.
His beak was iron, and his plumes

Glittered like burnish'd gold,

And his eyes glow'd, as though an inward fire

Shone through a diamond orb.

The blinded multitude

Ador'd the Sorcerer,

And bent the knee before him,

66

And shouted out his praise,

Mighty art thou, the Bestower of joy, "The Lord of Paradise!"

Aloadin waved his hand,

And they stood mute, and moveless,

In idolizing awe.

"Children of Earth," he cried,

"Whom I have guided here

"By easier passage than the gate of Death; "The infidel Sultan, to whose lands

66

66

My mountains reach their roots,
Blasphemes and threatens me.

Strong are his armies, many are his guards, "Yet may a dagger find him.

"Children of Earth, I tempt ye not "With the vain promise of a bliss unseen, "With tales of a hereafter Heaven

"Whence never Traveller hath return'd!

"Have ye not tasted of the cup of joy, "That in these groves of happiness

"For ever over-mantling tempts

"The ever-thirsty lip?

"Who is there here that by a deed
"Of danger will deserve

"The eternal joys of actual paradise?

"I!" Thalaba exclaim'd,

And springing forward, on the Sorcerer's head He dash'd the knotty club.

He fell not, though the force

Shattered his skull; nor flow'd the blood,

For by some hellish talisman

His life imprison'd still

Dwelt in the body. The astonish'd crowd

Stand motionless with fear, and wait

Immediate vengeance from the wrath of Heaven.

And lo! the Bird.. the monster Bird,

Soars up

then pounces down

To seize on Thalaba!

Now, Oneiza, bend the bow,

Now draw the arrow home!...

True fled the arrow from Oneiza's hand;
It pierced the monster Bird,

It broke the Talisman,..

Then darkness cover'd all,..

Earth shook, Heaven thunder'd, and amid the yell's

Of Spirits accurs'd, destroy'd

The Paradise of Sin.

At last the earth was still;

The yelling of the Demons ceas'd;
Opening the wreck and ruin to their sight,
The darkness roll'd away. Alone in life,
Amid the desolation and the dead,
Stood the Destroyer and the Arabian Maid.

They look'd around, the rocks were rent,
The path was open, late by magic clos'd.
Awe-struck and silent down the stony glen
They wound their thoughtful way.

Amid the vale below

Tents rose, and streamers play'd

And javelins sparkled in the sun,

And multitudes encamp'd,

Swarm'd, far as eye could follow, o'er the plain.

There in his war-pavilion sate

In council with his Chiefs

The Sultan of the Land.

Before his presence there a Captain led
Oneiza and the appointed Youth.

"Obedient to our Lord's command,” said he, "We past toward the mountains, and began "The ascending strait; when suddenly Earth shook, "And darkness, like the midnight, fell around, "And fire and thunder came from Heaven "As though the Retribution day were come. "After the terror ceas'd, and when with hearts " Somewhat assur'd, again we ventured on, "This youth and woman met us on the way. "They told us, that from Aloadin's haunt

"They came, on whom the judgment-stroke hath fallen "He and his sinful Paradise at once

"Destroy'd by them, the agents they of Heaven.
"Therefore I brought them hither, to repeat
"The tale before thy presence; that as search
"Shall prove it false or faithful, to their merit