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.

6.

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 ceas'd, 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 mov'd
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 mov'd,

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,

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 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 receiv'd Lightness and supple strength.

O'erjoy'd, and deeming the benignant Power,
Who sent the reinless steed,

Had blest the 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 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 had channell❜d 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 ethereal ocean circling each, And insulating all.

11.

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 gush'd the fountains up,

Alternate light and blackness, like the play

Of sunbeams on the warrior's burnish'd arms.

Yonder the river roll'd, whose bed,
Their labyrinthine lingerings o'er,
Received the confluent rills.

12.

This was a wild and wonderous scene,
Strange and beautiful, as where

By Oton-tala, like a sea of stars,
The hundred sources of Hoangho burst.
High mountains clos'd 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.

13.

Thither towards those mountains Thalaba

Advanced, for well he ween'd that there had Fate

Destin'd the adventure's end.

Up a wide vale winding amid their depths,