PART THE FIRST.

WHERE YEMEN, or Arabia the happy, borders on Arabia the desert^*, among the BEDOWEENS, or pastoral Arabs, Ahmed Kais was a distinguished Schieck. His nu­merous [Page 2] tents were stretched through many a green valley, while his innumerous herds told their master was now old, and in peace with the world. Ahmed in youth had been the most enterprising and predatory adventurer; Want had conducted him to Opulence, and Valour to Power: but in his Opulence there was no avarice, and in his Power there was no tyranny. His former life had consisted but of two kinds of days, the days of council and the days of combat; the hospitable man now found no other than festal days. Unknown to fame during his erratic youth, when his virtues became sta­tionary, his magnanimous soul diffused itself in the domestic enchantments of peace; nor with the penurious feeling of age, was he negligent of that creative benevolence, that prodigality of mind, which is felt by the next generation. Old as he was, he still planted young trees; and, full of glory, he still sought for solitary spots to open new foun­tains. [Page 3] He was described by the poets to be bountiful as the rains of spring, warm as the sun, and cheerful as the moon; the heart of Ahmed (they said) has espoused the whole Earth, and when he dies she will wail in wi­dowhood.

Ahmed, without offspring, sighed to per­petuate himself in his descendants; and mourned to think that the populous felicity his princely and solitary hand had created, should be dispersed with his last breath. At length he had a son, the solitary hope of his tribe. To this cherished child he sought to give all that instruction can communicate, and all that humanity can feel. He invited the ingenious and the learned to his tent. Shewing his boy to his people, he would exclaim, Enter, ye sages, and bring your instruction; it is the only tribute we claim from sages; or tell me where the prince can discover a sage, and majesty shall prostrate itself before wisdom!

[Page 4] The revered name of the Effendi Lebid, the Persian student, reached the ear of the Arabian chief. Lebid had chosen the tran­quillity of retirement; and when his name became every where celebrated, his person was unknown. He might have been seated with indolent glory in the chair of the royal Medrasseh^* at Ispahan, but he preferred to interrogate Nature in a sublime Solitude. In the plains of Shinaar he had accurately measured a degree of the great circle of the earth; on the shores of the Bosphorus he had taught the despised inhabitants the arts of an invaluable fishery, and the voice of population broke along those solitary skies. In benighted deserts he discovered a path for the caravan, by the guidance of a friendly star; and the same eye that traced the course of a star, watched the growth of a flower. He gave to chemistry the alembic [Page 5] which still retains its Arabian extraction in its name. He had composed one of the Moallakat, or poems suspended in the tem­ple of Mecca, and Arabia was delighted by the novelty of his diction, which was a fine unison of picture and of melody; it flowed with the confluent richness of the various tribes of Arabia; and selecting from every dialect its felicitous expressions, he poured an enchantment over every period. He en­riched the copiousness of the Arabic, by the delicacy of the Persian, and the fire of the Turkish muse; and received the secret graces and the fine conceptions of his favourite poets, as iron often, attracted by the load­stone, catches some particles of the magnetic influence; and in touching the magnet be­comes itself a magnet.

Such was the Effendi Lebid, to whose Persian academy resorted those young Ara­bians who were ambitious of acquiring Per­sian literature, and habituating themselves [Page 6] to Persian urbanity. Kais, the son of Ah­med, proved a pupil worthy of the precep­tor. About the same time, and nearly of the same age, was there placed the lovely Leila, the only daughter of an Emir^*.

The Effendi discovered in these early as­sociated children that facility of disposition which at once characterises genius, and a tender heart. Soon, without rivals in the academy, each was attracted to the other by a mutual admiration. Leila instructed her­self by fondly repeating the lessons of Kais, and Kais taught himself to retain whatever charmed Leila. With easy grace the stu­dious youth disclosed the most solemn truths, while the more touching and deli­cate ideas were discriminated by the quick susceptibility of Leila. They loved to min­gle in the same tasks, and in the arts of imagination their gentle spirits perpetuated [Page 7] their finest emotions. The verse of Kais treasured their most delicious sensations; from the wild intonations of Leila he often caught the air he composed; and when they united to paint the same picture, it seemed as if the same eye had directed the same hand.

They saw each other every day, and were only sensible to this pleasure. Their mu­tual studies became so many interchanges of tenderness. Every day was contracted to a point of time; months rolled away on months, and their passage was without a trace; a year closed, and they knew it but by its date. Already the first spark of love opened the heart of Kais; already he sighed near the intendering form of Leila; already he listened for her voice when she ceased to speak, while her soft hand, passing over his own, vibrated through his shivering nerves.

Endearment was his occupation. He loved to consider himself as her slave, and [Page 8] playfully intreated to be chided by her charming voice. In the winter, as she sat beside him, he burned the costly wood of aloes, and hung around perfumed tapers. The nails of her fingers he tinted with the softest blush of the rose, and drew the dark line of the brilliant surmeh^* under her lids; which gave her eyes a shining and tremu­lous languor. He sprinkled the ottar-gul^†, more precious than fluid gold, on her tis­sued caftan^‡. He pounded rubies to mingle with her rich confection^§, and infused in [Page 9] her repast the seed of the poppy, that she might enjoy light slumbers, and awake with eyes luminous with pleasure, and a glowing cheek that bore the soft vestige of a soft dream.

In summer he blended the Turkish mag­nificence with the Persian amenity. In his garden he had raised a fountain paved with the verdurous jasper, and adorned with pillars of the red porphyry, and lead­ing up the waters over masses of white marble, they lightly tumbled along, fling­ing their spray in a soft cascade. Near its cooling murmurs he built a pleasant KIOSQUE^*. The water from the fountain was conveyed into conchs, fixed in the gilded fret-work of the ceiling, and now melodiously chimed along, and now fell dashing from shell to shell. The columns were embellished with moral sentences from the Koran; while through the green trel­lises he had so thickly woven a living ta­pestry [Page 10] of vines, of woodbines, of passion-flowers, and the triple-coloured roses of Persia, that the tender obscurity of its chastised light threw over the garden-pav­lion something like enchantment. Often our lovers felt there the charm of a deli­cious reverie, amidst the flowers, the wa­ters, and the shades.

In this retreat he presented her with sher­bets covered with snows, and flavoured with the distilled dews of roses; and spread before her those pomegranates whose impalpable kernels dissolved at the touch in a refresh­ing and dulcet water^*. His garden ex­hausted the splendid year of the Persian Flora, and through the umbrageous wil­derness of flowers the eye could not find a passage to escape. Arbours, fountains, grottos, fruit-trees, and a labyrinth of walks, were all thrown together in a play­ful confusion. The Zephyrs there wasted [Page 11] a cloud of odours and a snow of blossoms. Beautiful spot! where, while the mind was occupied with meditating on some flowers and fruits, other flowers and fruits rose to the eye, alternating the pleasant thoughts. Beautiful spot! where no other regret was known than the thought of quitting thee!

Seated in the KIOSQUE, they would read the Persian Tales. The tender eyes of Leila were sometimes for a moment fixed on Kais, while a warm modest suffusion coloured his ingenuous cheek. What taste thou hast displayed, Kais, (would Leila say) in the composition of this delicious scene; and how thou charmest me with thy tales! Thou makest my hours so pleasant! Ah! what were life without romances and with­out a garden! Indeed, Leila, (would Kais reply) I have done little more than borrow those hints from Nature, which to those who study Nature she indicates. The earth has been at once my canvass and my co­lours; and I have made it my PICTURE. [Page 12] Where I found an amiable scenery, I opened the soliciting luxuriance; where, an em­bowering shade, I placed a seat; and where Nature wantoned with irregular fancies, I was careful not to baulk the charming ca­price: I have drawn no straight lines, no formal squares, no smooth insipidities. The heart, Leila, claims one spot in this universe for its attachment; and let it be an embel­lished garden, and rich fields of cotton and rice shall never cause me a sigh.—Thou art right, Kais; in a garden it's labours are concealed by its pleasures, and Art, which has touched every thing, never points its visible finger. The senses feel nothing but enjoyment. And I do think that gardens are favourable to lovers; for thou mayest ob­serve how, in thy tales, it is ever in a gar­den that lovers converse with extreme ten­derness.—True, replied Kais; CASHMERE, the land of love, is one wondrous garden. It is haunted by the delicate forms of the PEIRI, ‘"gay creatures of the elements,"’ [Page 13] whose pure natures are created of odorous substances; who vest themselves in the lu­cidity of light; adorn their heads with rainbow hues; bathe in the dews of the morning; and touch nothing more gross than the vapour of fragrance. It is said, that should a lovely Peiri suffer one drop of her ambrosial saliva to fall on the earth, no human sense could live in the poignancy of its perfume^*.—I have heard much (said Leila) of Cashmere; dost thou be­lieve that the place exists?—Assuredly it does; but who equals Leila? I have never seen a Peiri! Thou knowest it is difficult [Page 14] to gain admittance there; a happy man, who once did, gave me this description of the Paradise of Love.

The Effendi was not insensible to the progress of a passion of which the lovers were too young to conceal the sentiment, [Page 26] and too innocent to fear the indulgence. Age had not chilled the gentle soul of Lebid, he renewed a delicious remembrance of the pleasures of his youth in those of our lovers; and enjoying their happiness, fre­quently for the remuneration of Kais, he decreed a kiss from the lips of Leila. He recited to them the tenderest tales, where the divine passion of love prevailed over the sense of death.

He thus narrated the tender story of MES­RI and DELILAH. Mesri, that affectionate youth, was betrothed to the lovely Delilah. They were the GRACE of the classic SCHI­RAUZ; and the tender choir of SCHIRAUZ only sang of them. Already the rich PAVI­LION flames; the BOWER is festooned, and the HYMENIAL AIR has preluded, to shame the protraction of the half-reluctant maid. On their nuptial day they were sailing on the sea. The crimson veil of marriage co­vered the face of the maiden; the crimson [Page 27] veil at once tells THE HOUR OF JOY and THE BLUSH OF LOVE^*. Their friends, their parents, rush to the shore: their choral voices resound hymns of love; and the lute, and the cymbal, and the harp, melt in varieties of harmony. The dancers, toil­ing to the timbrel, bound along the shore. How the wave laughs joyous to the fan­ning gale! How the painted bark glides continuous on the water! Never was the sea so smooth, never was the sun so bright! Ah! the songs, the dances cease!—A WHIRLPOOL IS IN THE SEA!—Wheel­ing the flashing waves, the light bark darts round and round, and drops! THE LOVERS ARE IN THE SEA!—A friend toils to stretch the saviour hand to Mesri.—Alas! the beauty floats on the distant waves! and THE SAVIOUR HAND IS STRETCHED! But MESRI TURNS FROM LAND! He points to his beloved; he cries ‘"Learn not the tale [Page 28] of love from the wretch who flies his mis­tress in the hour of danger. LEAVE ME, AND SAVE MY MAID!"’ He meets her in the midst of the sea; his arms embrace her on the deep; one farewell gleam played on her opening eyelids. THEY DRINK ONE WAVE ON THEIR BRIDAL BED! The whole world admires the speech of Mesri.

With such tales he nourished their youth­ful hearts, and taught them the enthusiasm of passion. With the aged Effendi beside them, they would stroll to gather THE FIRST ROSE OF SPRING, and watch its virgin and glowing bud, and gaze in fondness on its maturer bloom, and sigh with the last breath of its departing sweetness.^* With [Page 29] roses they wreathed the hoary head of the Effendi, and his dimmed eyes would then sparkle with a lambent radiance like that of youth. He pressed the young lovers to his heart, and exclaimed, looking on Leila, ‘"Ah, to whom will the smiling rosebuds of thy lips give delight! Oh sweet branch of a tender plant, for whose use dost thou grow^*?"’ Are they not mine? would Kais quickly reply, while his young eyes beamed with joy. Yes, they are mine! are they not, Leila?—Yes, the blushing maid re­plied; thine and the Effendi's.—As Leila stood near Kais, frequently the bloom of her complexion was flushed with a vermil glow, and the Effendi would compare the fair cheek of Leila, as she stood near her lover, to the lily, that, placed too near the rose, is crimsoned by its warm reflection.

[Page 30] The mother of Leila observed that when she quitted the academy of the Effendi, she paced pensively, with reluctant feet; but on the day of her return, she was seen tripping as she went, with opening smiles, and light steps. Leila (she said) will become a cele­brated student; to me she brings only a silent form embellished by new graces; in the academy she leaves her whole soul. At length the beauteous Leila seemed to mourn in the tents of her father, and, to concen­trate her thoughts, sought a solitude of palm trees. The cautious mother com­manded the slaves, who accompanied her, to be vigilant over their mistress, even to her eyes. Ah! the discovery was too easy! All was too faithfully reported to the pa­rents of Leila. They were told how the eyes of Kais were only occupied by the face of Leila, and how Leila never wan­dered from his side; and that in a magni­ficent Kiosque they passed their evenings reciting Romances.

[Page 31] The father of Leila was a haughty Emir. The green turban which he wore as the descendant of Fatima, was incessantly before his eyes, and rendered his heart obdurate. He heard with indignation of the affection of our lovers, and considered that the vulgarity of the blood of Ahmed was not yet purified through an age of nobility. Poetry he conceived was a diabolical magic, of which though his sanctity and his igno­rance preserved him from the influence, he had heard was potent over the feeble heart of a woman. He recalled Leila; severely repri­manded the sufferer for cherishing an ignoble passion for a poet without a green turban; and asserting that no woman should aspire to be poetical: he added that terrible Persian proverb used on these occasions, ‘"When the hen crows like the cock, we must cut its throat^*."’ He hired a Dervise to admo­nish [Page 32] her of the fate of an imprudent passion, and to remind her of her father's green turban; but the pompous admonition was unfelt by the enamoured beauty. The learned doctor was more skilled in genealogy than in eloquence; he received no other reply than the warmest tears, which he per­sisted to say were no arguments.

Kais, who adored his mistress till her presence had become a portion of his exist­ence, and whose soul beat with the pecu­liar vehemence of genius, had not been long separated from Leila, when he found him­self incapacitated to pursue his studies. He who, at the feet of his master, had stood with his hands folded on his breast, to listen with reverence to his dictates, now voluntarily rejected the studious glories of the Medrasseh. He wandered at times in his mind, and remembered nothing of the college but the affection he felt for the re­gent. He neglected his food; his whole frame was debilitated, and at times his [Page 33] actions were extravagant: as if awakening from a long reverie, he seemed desirous of escaping from his mental irritation by the efforts of his corporeal powers. The Ef­fendi saw, not without alarm, the energy of his passion; his pulse was accelerated, his nights were sleepless, and his whole frame was shaken by chilly fits or glowing heats, in the variation of his passions. To mention even the name of Leila was dan­gerous. He sent Kais to his father, and warned him of his passion for Leila, but Ahmed solemnly forbid the alliance. The green-turbaned Emir was haughty for his descent; but Ahmed was haughty be­cause he was glorious without nobility, and derived his renown, not from men extinct in their graves, but from the living men around him.

In vain Ahmed forbid the passion of Kais; his nights only yielded dreams of love, and his voice only repeated amatory verses. [Page 34] Every day he composed some intendering poem, which was soon treasured in the memories of his admiring Bedoweens. As he wandered among his tents, he listened to the recitation of his own verses; the world seemed occupied by his passion. The name of Leila was echoed through a wide extent of country, and the polished poetry of Kais then promised the immortality it has since obtained. His eminence as a poet was known to distant tribes; and in her paternal imprisonment Leila listened with complacency to verses painting her beauties and resounding her virtues; the immortal rhimes wasted his eternal sighs, and as they were carolled by the traveller, to her the whole world seemed to be the witnesses of his affection.

One of his smaller poems, composed about this time, was the following one, in which the Nightingale personifies the Poet:

[Page 38] At a solemn banquet held in the tents of Ahmed, to celebrate the rising geniuses of his tribe, and at which the Effendi assisted, the Chief presided. Although a military man, he patronized these exercises of genius and intellectual combats, in which Arabia gloried. He sat on an elevated seat, under an umbra­geous [Page 39] geous platane, surrounded by the judges. On each side were four copious vases filled with gold and silver; and as he was pleased, and they approved, he put his hands into the vases and distributed his rewards in propor­tion to the merit of each candidate. To some he conveyed a handful of silver for their encouragement; to others he measured his gold, to excite their emulation; while sometimes he would rise from his seat, and empty, in the rapture of pleasure, an over­flowing vase^*. But when the public shouts distinguished Kais among his peers, Ahmed slowly raised his venerable form, a tear glim­mered in the old warrior's eye, he stroked his beard, and spoke;—Alas, my friends! why do ye celebrate the glory of my son? Ill is the divinity of poetry obtained, if its inspired possessor is miserable in proportion to his glory. Ye, too cherished sensibilities, [Page 40] whose fine point is agony! ye dwell not with peace! Kais is indeed a nightingale, and Leila his Rose; but ye have seen the minstrel of Spring inhaling to ebriety its fragrant soul; the more mellifluous his pa­thetic song, the more his bosom leant on the piercing thorns: ah! he sings but to bleed, he leans but to faint; he

Believe me, my friends, the poet, the tender poet, is like the rich perfume, which, the more it is crushed, the more deliciously yields its odours. Is Kais a superior genius? Envy will darken the path of his glory. Is it not the tree luxuriant in fruit at which we throw stones?—Ahmed, replied the Ef­fendi, the glory of Yemen is Kais. Behold him! a herald of fame arises to immortalise your tribe. Already inscribed in characters of gold, his poems are suspended on the Caaba; and who, having read them, shall dare to place his own rhymes on the same [Page 41] column? The people echoed, Happy, thrice happy Ahmed! the verses of Kais give grace to thy name!—But Ahmed felt as a father, and dropt another tear at the glory of his son.

The acclamations of the people covered the declining face of Kais with one blush, but the pulse of his heart throbbed with a tumultuous sensation. That night the sensi­bilities of love and fame gave to his bed a disturbed repose, a thousand dreams. Deep in his ear yet resounded the echoes of the multitude, when the glare of the sun dis­persed the grateful darkness, and with the darkness his thousand dreams.

The exanimate frame of Kais had wasted in silence. He could no longer suffer sepa­ration from Leila, and projected means by which he could be admitted into her tent. Leila, he well knew, loved to be her own almoner, and when her hand relieved, her voice consoled. Misery had sufficiently dis­guised his features, and Melancholy had [Page 42] shaded his face with a religious semblance; he dressed himself in the humble garb of a Mevleheh dervise, whose practices he had learnt^*, and approached the tent of Leila. To attract the attention of her slaves, he whirled himself with great velocity on one foot, and held a red hot iron between his teeth; and sometimes with the Neh, or tra­verse flute, so musically warbled his wild and enthusiastic notes, that the slaves soon approached him. They pitied his piety and admired his music; till exhausted by pain and fatigue, he fell on the earth, and seemed to faint. They raised the prostrate dervise; and although they well remembered the blooming Kais, they knew not the despond­ing lover. The dervise said, he was more faint with his toiling march than his pious [Page 43] rite.—Our mistress (said one of the slaves) has commanded us to make her abode the tent of those who have no tent.—Who is thy mistress?—Hast thou not heard of Leila, the beloved of Kais, the son of Ahmed? His verses have resounded in thine ear, or thou hast no ear for verses.—Tell thy mis­tress I heard one singing the name of Leila in the desert as I passed.—Oh! as for that, they are sung every where; every one who has a heart, soon finds a memory for the verses of Kais.

The slaves returned with Leila, who in one hand held some pillau in a wooden platter, with hot cakes taken from the living embers, and in the other a bardak^* of fair and gelid water. Presenting the alms to the pilgrim, the dervise turned aside, utter­ing a profound sigh. Leila looked in his face; she knew her lover, and tears burst from her eyes.—How thou art miserable, oh [Page 44] dervise! she exclaimed, while turning aside she whispered, Beloved Kais! how are thy features altered! thine eye without a beam of beauty, thy cheek without a shade of colour!—I was perishing for one look from thee (he re­replied); couldst thou but feel my fluttering heart, how faithful its pulse! Do I not find thee constant? Speak, speak! calm me with thy assurance.—We are watched (Leila an­swered):—how terrible is thy suspicion! O Kais! I have heard all thy verses, and thou hast all my sighs. Proceed thy journey, holy dervise (she raised her voice); give a virgin thy prayers, and I will think of thee; 'tis believed the chaste thoughts of virgins are acceptable to Heaven as the prayers of holy men.—In turning away, she presented her hand from behind her; he impressed it with a fervent kiss, and departed, saying, Leila, we shall soon meet again.

This stolen interview restored Kais to himself, and he renewed his invention in another disguise, by which he conceived [Page 45] he might again converse with his mistress. There was, not distant from her tent, a green valley, where the traveller would rest after bathing in its dark grove, where the shining streamlet rolled between banks of oleanders and juniper shrubs. Kais ob­served at that spot, under the shade of an umbrageous plane-tree, at mid-day, the de­vout Mussulman, after his ablutions, issue from the grove, spread his carpet, prostrate himself, and, in ‘"the still small voice"’ of piety, repeat his prayers. Here, under the luxuriant canopy of the tree, he raised a temporary shed, placed a small stove, and dealt out his coffee to refresh the passenger. He spread on his table the largest melons and the most juicy pumpkins. All day our coffee-dealer tinkled a tambourine and touched a santoor or psaltery, singing Ara­bian songs or recounting Persian tales. Never yet had the keeper of a coffee-shed obtained such celebrity; certainly no one was a finer musician. Every one resorted there to drink [Page 46] coffee, to listen to his verses and to his tam­bourine, and to express their surprise, how such a genius should be content to boil cof­fee. Alas! every one came but Leila! She, Kais at length discovered, was a captive, and not permitted to wander from the confines of her father's tents. As soon as he knew this, he instantly left his shed standing, with the coffee-stove and the musical instruments, affixing on it an inscription, purporting, that they were left for that person who, though he might not acquire the glory of a musi­cian, was willing to become useful in boiling good coffee.

Nothing remained but the perilous expe­dient of penetrating into the very tent of Leila. Since his last interview there was a gaiety in his dispositions, which now induced him to assume the character of a perfumer and confectioner. He filled his basket with those delicacies which might serve as bribes for the slaves of Leila. He appeared at the tent. His basket was nicely arranged with [Page 47] perfumed wash-balls, sweet-scented flowers, candied citrons, and crystal phials of ottar­gul. The first slave he met he presented with a perfumed wash-ball.—And how many aspers, said she, dost thou charge for this ball?—It is thine for thy black eyes! Kais replied, and passed on.—What a handsome perfumer this, cried the slave as she kept her eye on the wash-ball. He met a second, whose taste was attracted by his fruit.—I never saw (she exclaimed) citrons so enor­mously beautiful and so deliciously candied; ah! they are not for a slave's tooth!—Take them (said Kais); I give them to thee that thou mayest introduce me to the chief slave. I have silks to offer; the Bazár of Cairo has none such.—I am afraid (she replied) thou art more handsome than generous; but I thank thee for thy citrons: I suppose thou meanest to gain a great deal by thy silks? The old slave appeared; she had a ponder­ous form and a hoarse voice; eyeing the lovely Kais, abruptly she cried, What smil­ing [Page 48] evil bringest thou? Thy handsome face, thy odoriferous essences, and thy candied citrons, are to bewilder the hearts of young slaves, but me thou shalt not pass. My mis­tress is not of those who want thy pernicious luxuries. She was proceeding, when Kais held to her a phial of Schirauz glass filled with the ottar-gul. The eye of the old slave glistened at the costly essence.—That is not the true essence, she cried. He crushed the precious phial, and the liquid odour flowed about her dress.—Unlucky boy! she softly murmured, sighing as the full and fragrant incense crept over her senses; her bulky body sunk gently to the earth, half-closing her swimming eyes, her quivering lips yield the feeble cry of a fainting voluptuary. Kais glides into the tent^*.

[Page 49] Entering he beholds Leila; she is recit­ing aloud one of his poems, whose volume, embellished with some fanciful arabesques painted by her own hand, lies unrolled be­fore her. A fine tremor runs through his frame in gazing on her, and it is some mo­ments before he can find a voice, to continue the verse she begins. She starts, she turns, [Page 50] she views her Kais! He tells her all, inter­rupting his narrative by many an enamour­ing kiss. The eyes of Kais are brilliant with love; but Leila trembled with sad forebod­ings, and she lamented how the ardour of genius had, in this instance, prevailed over its sagacity.

Beloved Kais, she cried, thy gay magnifi­cence betrays thy humble concealment; and thou hast been more generous, than inge­nious.—But Kais in the presence of his mis­tress forgets all danger, and Leila, as her eyes dwelt on the long-absent face of Kais, talked of the peril, till her words, in a soft confusion, murmured without meaning.

In the mean while the slaves assemble round their half-fainting chief, who scarcely retains her senses in a reverie of odour. This last mu­nificence explained the mysterious liberali­ties of the unknown perfumer; they now re­collect his features, and the alarm is spread.

The green-turbaned Emir rushes into the tent. He views the amiable Kais support­ing [Page 51] Leila; one glance attaches their eyes. The poem, Leila had been reading, lies aban­doned with the basket of perfumery. A harsh thunder breaks over the lovers, ab­sorbed in passion; it was the Emir's voice. They awake into consciousness; scarcely has the delicious phantom of happiness taken a form, ere it perishes! Leila shrieks; her slender arms tremble round the neck of Kais, and her face conceals itself in his bosom, while Kais raises a humble, yet firm regard, on the Emir. The green-turbaned despot at first could only indicate his passion by ferocious gestures, and with eyes red with rage, and lips quivering without articula­tion, his foot violently spurned at the basket of perfumery that lay at the feet of Leila; while his hand grasping the immortal poem, tore the roll, powdered with gold dust, and scattered the perfumed and painted manu­script in the air^*.

[Page 52] At length his foaming lips found a voice. Is it then with perfumes that the magnifi­cent Kais bribes? Is it with a song that he deludes a simple virgin? And thou hast dared to steal into the tent of an Emir? Shall the plunderer of caravans pollute, with his impious embraces, the descendant of Fatima? Spirit of Mahomet, wilt thou that our glory end in a foolish maiden, a soul-less being, who has yielded her heart because her ear is musical?

Leila had fallen to the ground; she co­vered her face with her hands, and her lips touched the sandals of her father. Impelled by sympathy, Kais inconsciously prostrated himself; but with an air of dignity, and in [Page 53] a tone not accordant with his softening words, the suppliant lover spoke:—

Noble Emir! deem not that the passion of thy daughter has been obtained by the incantation of words. Ere I yet knew to give cadence to a verse, our sighs responded; believe me, we are none of those who have spoken of love, ere we loved. Our passion was not kindled by the lightning of a glance, nor maddened by a set of features; it was a pure pleasure, that we first caught from the perfection of mind. Our thoughts mingled, and our hopes rose, ere we felt the distinc­tion of sex; and Leila was as my sister, ere I loved her as my mistress. Is there a passion so invincible as that of love, formed almost in childhood? Nature then adds to our in­clinations her own sweet habitudes; and it becomes, as it were, a double passion. And shall a father tear his daughter from an em­brace that Nature has made holy?—De­scendant of Fatima! Is humility held to be [Page 54] a vice in thy race? Come not the noblest race from the humblest origin? The lovely fountain of Juvencia hides not its head among flowers and sunshine, but amidst rushes and darkness. The great Prophet, like myself, was of an obscure birth; and arrogance never marked the camel-driver. Noble Emir! thy father was a son of peace, my father is a son of war; Honour wreathed thy cradle, Opulence pillowed the bed of my infancy: Thou wert born illustrious, I to become illustrious; the glory of thy race devolved to thee, the glory of mine proceeds from me.—Is the difference essential? Smile but on the son of Ahmed, and behold we are both illustrious.

The haughty Emir disdainfully glanced on the pleading lover, and marking his per­fumer's dress, replied,—Deceiver of the eye! thou canst only triumph over a woman: nor honour nor dishonour proceed from the sex, who are born only to dress, to prattle, [Page 55] and to procreate. Robber of the desert! return, for ever return to thy father, and tell him that I have suffered thee to exist.

While the proud father spoke, Kais had gradually changed his supplicatory posture, and when his invective closed, stood before him erect in dignity. He replied but by a silent glance so fraught with a conscious su­periority, that the appalled despot shrunk with receding steps into the midst of his people. There he ordered to secure Leila. She lay on the ground abandoned to grief, and uttered a loud shriek. Kais turning towards her, they exchanged glances. De­spair writhed the soft features of Leila; her eyes were haggard, and her arms stretched to her lover; passion, pity, and indignation, struggled in the breast of Kais. He grasped her hand; once more he felt it on his lips. Torn from his contending arms, their eyes parted not, till at the extremity of the tent he saw her disappear, and in silent agony [Page 56] he for some time fixed his eyes on that ex­tremity, watching the wavy motions of the tent, and catching every dancing shadow, every undulation of light. His fixed glance was terrible; and one might perceive by its ardour, and the emotions of his gestures, that he still thought he was conversing with the departed Leila.

At length a slow and deep sigh heaved his breast. He struck with his clenched hands his burning temples, that throbbed as he pressed them; he paced vehemently around the tent, and then pausing as if a sudden passion had changed his emotions, he flung himself on the ground; and there more mild, more subdued, more tender, he poured copious tears; and all-conscious of the past scene, he again prostrated himself, and again stretched his suppliant hands. He shuddered, as the horrid silence only re­turned his melancholy voice: he raised his eyes, and beheld himself in solitude!

[Page 57] Already through the tents of the Emir the fate of our lovers was known. The fame of Kais accompanied him wherever he went, and wherever the poet wandered he found in his admirers, sympathising companions. Scarcely was the event known, than the public anxiety turned entirely on their che­rished bard. They assembled in haste, and were divided into little knots of people. Among them was an hoary traveller, who was distinguished by a tuft of plaited hair, which, when it hung loose, trailed on the ground, and he wore it wrapt about his head instead of a turban. What was re­markable, it was not his own hair, but formed of the relics of his friends, from every one of whom he had affectionately collected a handful of hair, which he had interwoven with his own. It was in this manner the traveller had memorised their affections^*.

[Page 58] Whenever this old man spoke every one was silent; and now being observed to have risen, the little knots of people immediately melted into one crowd, and assembled around him. He waved his hand, and stilled their generous confusion. He spoke.—Let us weep for Leila all our days; for what hope awaits the daughter of a merciless sire? But for Kais we must do something more than weep; for he is so much the unhap­pier, that he is at liberty to wander. Ah! where will Kais wander? He will lie down in the stony desert, till ‘"he forgets himself to stone."’ But he has all the vehemence of genius: Ah, then, he may grow wild! Kind Heaven preserve the poet from mad­ness!—A hundred voices exclaimed, ‘"Let us hasten to Kais!"’—Friends (continued the venerable man), if ye crowd around the en­thusiast, ye will seem to intrude on his grief; he will gaze on ye as if ye came in mockery; ye will make wildness more wild. Such is the tremulous bosom of genius! when once [Page 59] its generous feelings are injured, it becomes suspicious and misanthropical. Trust me, I was once the companion of a Poet, and I have learnt to reverence the sorrows of divine men. Solitude alone soothes their sublime souls. Would ye heal his hurted spirit? indulge it. Would ye soften his melan­choly? let a friend participate it. Would ye console the wretchedness of the sensitive being? let him feel that there is one who has made that wretchedness his own. I am old, but the nerves of my heart are tender as infancy when it first receives the ambient air that wounds it. I too have been a poet; I too have had my griefs. Let me conduct the wanderer to the tents of his father: he will not quit me, though my steps are feeble and the journey long. No, he will not quit me; for he shall take no perception of time, while over the toiling path of the enthusiast my tongue shall spread its innocent deceit in discoursing of Leila and of Nature, the inspirers of his verse!

[Page 60] The hoary sage enters the tent. He views Kais on the ground, his hands covering his face, his arms resting on one knee, while the other was violently writhed behind him; tor­ture and despair were in his attitude. The old man crept along in silence, and stood be­fore him; Kais raised his eyes on the reverend form. He spoke not; the old man was silent. Kais again covered his face with his hands, and the old man sighed. Kais looked in his face, there were tears in the wrinkles of his cheek. Kais stretched his hand to the old man, and their hands were joined.—Is not Age spared in these ruthless tents? said Kais. I have grief enough to make Youth grow old in a day. But what grief is thine, venerable man! that can give to thy pithless age the scalding tear of youth?

The venerable man replied,—Kais, divine youth! I am a lover of thy verses; often have thy emotions made my breast more capacious. And now I see thee, how must I weep for thee! Thou knowest the eyes [Page 61] of age distil not artificial tears; whom has an old man to flatter? We have nothing more to hope: but, Alla be praised! I have not outlived my humanity. It is for Kais I sigh.

Good old man, I thank thee: never till now have I found pleasure in the sigh of an old man. Dost thou know where they have hurried Leila?—The eyes of Kais turned wildly to the extremity of the tent.

Kais, wilt thou accept the consolation of a fraternal heart? Who knows not Leila? Who remembers not thy verses? And much have I to talk of the blooming maid. But rest not in these tents; thy father mourns thy absence.

Thou hast spoken well, said Kais: already had I forgotten my father and my friends! A mild, subdued tone of sorrow express­ed his gratitude.—Thou hast spoken well; it befits me not to rest here a helpless suf­ferer.—Waving his hand, he rose slowly, his eye kindled, and pausing as he stept along, [Page 60] [...] [Page 61] [...] [Page 62] he cried,—I will hasten to my tents; I will call three thousand faithful Bedoweens; their sabres will fly from their sheaths. Sabres! Ah! what have I said? Leila would never pardon the murderer of her father! The father of Leila may spurn at the degraded Kais; for while he treats me as he treats Leila, shall I murmur? Love has made me like the sandal tree, which sheds sweetness on the axe that wounds it. I thank thee, old man; I will not return to my father: I will sit here, contemned and abandoned.

Indulging the rapid changes of his disor­dered mind, the old man at length lured him from the tent of the haughty Emir. He talked as he journeyed of Leila and his verses; and through the solaced ear of Kais awoke the finest vibrations of his harmoni­ous heart. Love and glory seemed to ac­company the steps of the enamoured poet. The old man one day pulled down his lengthened hair, and telling him at times, as he pointed at the intermingled tresses, of [Page 63] the many histories it remembered him, he entreated a handful from the locks of Kais, that he might still add another relic to the ten­der memorial of friendship.—I have chosen (he said) a pilgrim's path in life, because it is pleasantly diversified; and I did not choose that the stream of my life should be a stag­nant pool, but a river wandering in sunshine and in shade. The occupation of my life has been to acquire the friendship of great and of good men: with every one I found some new talent of the mind, or virtue of the heart; and my intelligence was enlarged, and my emotions became more pure. I have repeated my existence in that of my friend; and I have preferred the passion of friendship to that of love; for Friendship can be participated, but Love has but one object. Friendship is a torch, which will light other torches without wasting itself; but Love, like a sepulchral lamp, is extin­guished in the solitary tomb.—Kais sighed, [Page 64] and, after a pause of thought, replied:—I had a HEART, and I could not help loving the most lovely. She was as AMBER, and I but as STRAW; she TOUCHED me, and I shall ever CLING to her^*. Thou canst not blame my affection for Leila. She took my young heart in her hand, and breathed over it; her mind created my mind; and to render me worthy of herself, she first taught me the love of glory. I was once in the bath, and they gave me a piece of scented clay^†. It was more than fragrant. And I asked of it,—Art thou pure musk, or ambergris? for thy scent delights my soul. It answered,—I was but COMMON EARTH till I lived in the company of my ROSE; then every day I be­came sweeter, till all her aromatic spirit was [Page 65] infused into mine. Oh! had I not lived WITH MY ROSE, I should still have been but A LUMP OF EARTH!

They reach the tents of Ahmed, and the rejoicing Bedoweens crowd around their returning lord, while the old man hastens to the venerable chief to relate the afflictions of Kais. The eyes of the mother of Kais are filled with maternal tears. Ahmed frowned at the ignoble artifice of his son; he starts at the contumely he suffered, and impatiently draws his sabre; but his aged arm trembles with feebleness and anger, and the sabre drops. He calls his son:—Kais! Kais! Hast thou lost the glory of our tribe for a woman? Avenge me on an insulting enemy; take the sabre my childish arm can no more wield.

Kais sighed,—I cannot strike at the father of Leila!

Degenerate youth! in the balance of life thou weighest beauty against honour! Thou hast become a METIM^*. Mahomet! hast [Page 66] thou given me a son to crush thy servant to his grave? What ablution have I neglected? what ramazan have I broken, when I have trod a parched soil with parched lips? I made myself a race, and lo! a son has come like the pestilence of Cairo! I will strike my tents! Disperse, ye happy Bedoweens! seek other vales! for here your lord was born, and here first ye have known dishonour!

Distraction was in the soul of Kais. The reproaches of his father, and the inalterable affection for Leila, raged with a force equal and opposed. He sunk before him; he em­braced his knees: the voice of Ahmed was stifled by his emotions: he raised his hand to repulse his fainting son, but in touching his face, it trembled, and it dwelt there. The mother of Kais bent on one knee to support her son, while one hand was locked in the hand of her venerable hero. The [Page 67] crowded tent was moved. The low hollow murmurs of the sympathising Bedoweens were heard: it was an electrified silence. They gently separate the son from the father and the mother; themselves clung to each other without motion, like a sculptured groupe.

Retired, the sensibilities of Kais assumed all their energy, and the passions divided his soul. Love, with seducing blandishment; Honour, with a more solemn, but feebler power; and Glory obscurely breaking in a distant age. But Memory, affectionate me­mory, awoke that domestic tenderness which is the rival of Love itself. As he thought of his parents, he paused in the tumult of his heart.—Have ye not adored my infancy! (he cried) Have ye not reared me to glory! Was I not the treasured hope of your age? Yes; I was that futurity to ye which can render every passing day even precious to old age. I was the pride of a brave father, the existence of a tender mother; and now [Page 68] shall one passion eradicate all passions?—He recoils from the terrible thought; he hastens to throw himself on the paternal bosom. Leila rises in his reverie, imaged in softness, constant in affection, and celes­tial in her virgin beauty. He groans, he weeps, and throws himself on the earth.

He sat motionless, and mute, and ab­stracted. His companions glided into his tent, each studious to win him from de­jection; but with various men he was still the same man. There was no life in his fixed and glazed eye, save at times a lin­gering tear, that, hermit-like, stole soli­tary from its cell. His mother sat beside him in silence; her eye followed his eye. Sometimes he sat in the vertical sun, insen­sible of the unmitigated day, till his mo­ther with his favourite gazel followed him; while often, unobserved by Kais, above his head she twined the adorning tamarind, that waved its shade before his tent, with the luxuriant boughs of the In­dian [Page 69] fig-tree. The gazel would frequently lift her tender eyes on him; but her looks were unnoticed: she would lick his hand till she awakened him from his reverie; for a moment he fixed his eyes on her, waved his head, and gently turned her away. At times he chaunted incoherent verses, ram­bling from thought to thought with a wild and pathetic sweetness. Ever he descanted on the eternity of Love, while the sad return of his lay still repeated the ruthless nature of fathers. His melancholy was yet mild, and while his heart bled, it seemed patient.

Another change succeeded. From a total stupor to the passing scene, he awoke to its minutest perception. He not only saw what was before him, but through the vividness of imagination he saw more; of every one suspicious, but most of his suffering mother, ever beside him. He remembers syllables, he meditates on gestures; sometimes a sense of his dishonour stole across his mind; he felt how Love had defrauded him of Glory. [Page 70] Every passion however was transient, but that passion; every object failed to impress his mind, but the image of Leila; to his visionary eye that form was brilliant in the light of the sun, and that form moved among the waving shadows of the moon.

He could no longer support the eye of the world. In his tortured sensations, his language was inhuman. He called his mo­ther the wife of his father, but no relative of her child; and he surlily dismissed his friends, one by one, for capricious, but in­veterate dislikes. Sometimes his anger was loquacious, his taunt bitter, his repartee caustic, while at times he was obstinately mute; but his silence concealed not the dis­order of his intellect, for then the vacillations of his countenance, and the glistening and rapid movements of his eye, expressed his phrenzy.

Restless even to agony, melancholy even to fondness, romantic even to delirium, the world weighed heavy on his heart; that [Page 71] world he shook off lightly, and, in a quiet despair, stole away from all humanity.

The full moon hung over the tent of Kais in a flood of light. He stole from his tent, listening to his own footsteps. He gazed; nothing moved but the gliding sha­dows. In the vast silence Heaven and Earth reposed. The moonlight scenery touched his melancholy heart. In its semi-day he views the tall tents, part frosted over by its white beams, part illumined by a yellower light.—Blessed MOON! (cried Kais) in thy reposing light every thing is perceptible, while I am unperceived! Sweet and tem­pered LIGHT! how thou penetratest my heart! how thou drawest the tears from mine eyes!

He starts; he hears approaching sounds.—'Tis (exclaimed the melancholy and fanciful Kais) but the Zephyr kissing the reverend head of that tall palm-tree that nods, while each solitary leaf finds a voice in such a silence!

[Page 72] Still some footsteps disturb the visionary.—They have tracked me! he cried. He turned round, he beholds his favourite gazel, that had followed him. He kisses her beautiful eyes, he gazes on the sensi­bility of her physiognomy, he fancies she sighs, and he weeps over her neck.

Tender companion! (he cries) return to the abandoned tent of thy master! O! thou who hast the eyes of Leila, pierce not my soul with thy intendering look; entice me not to return. Domestic beauty! dwell in the hollow and green bosom of the valley: Ah! let not thy form of delicate elegance, thy slender silver feet, thy dark brilliant eyes, lively and timid as thou art, follow an exile; for, trust me, Beauty will perish with Despair for its fellow-wanderer.—Again he embraces his mute friend: a big tear rolled down the brown forehead of the antelope.—Thou weepest! Who weeps for Kais but his gazel? Let us part. Fly me! Thou wert created to live the day of pleasure: mine [Page 73] has closed! The antelope persisted in fol­lowing the footsteps of his delirious master; and they escape from the pastoral scenes of the happy Arabia, and wander in the stony soil of the desert.

Scarcely had the sun risen ere the wakeful mother of Kais hastened, as of late accus­tomed, to her son's tent. She enters, and she shrieks. They fly to her from the near tents, and the venerable Ahmed was not among the last.

Miserable being! (cried the mother to Ahmed) behold thy son flown from thy ruthless austerity! Hast thou murdered my child? Yet, yet be kind, and send thy sabre to my bosom. A mother should not survive the loss of her adored child. Alas! all has past for me! I bear no other children in my womb. Hot are the tears that scorch the cheeks of a mother left without offspring; but I weep not. Oh, Ahmed! thou hast given me the grief, that is not relieved by tears.

[Page 74] Fond, despairing woman! feebly exclaimed the old chief, sobbing convulsively, as the ideas of his own austerity, and his son's de­spair, fell on his mind like repeated concus­sions. He turned aside to pray to the pro­phet, but his gestures only were his orisons. Tears welled on his pale cheeks; and all that he was heard to say was, Alla! thou art great! it is now a month I have not seen my son!

And I have watched my son hour by hour! exclaimed the distracted mother.—Yesterday, as I marked the moving vacancy of his eye, suddenly he uttered a scream of laughter, (my heart died within me;) and he turned to me with a bitter smile. My son! I cried, and he turned from me: he turned from me! Kais is delirious! my son is lost! Cruel fathers! ye have not the hearts of mothers: ye have not known what it was to kiss the infant being that formed a part of your existence, that lived on your own bosom. Where wanders my child? Give [Page 75] me my child! Lead me to Kais! Let me perish, but let my child live!

They convey the distracted mother to her tent; while Ahmed instantly sent a messen­ger to the retreat of the Effendi. Before he could give orders to his faithful Bedoweens to seek after Kais, their zeal had already dis­persed them in every direction. Ahmed now withdrew to his tent, to preserve rigid fasts and uninterrupted prayer, that he might win, with the gentle violence of de­votion, the prophet, who seemed to have forsaken him.

Scarcely had the Effendi listened to the messenger of Ahmed, than, clasping his hands, he would not suffer him to conclude the recital of his message.—I understand (he cried) more than thou canst relate: pre­pare thy dromedary! He was silent during the journey; and although the dromedary went on with its painful gallop, several times he complained of the sluggishness of the animal.

[Page 76] He arrives; he falls at the feet of Ahmed. He looks in his face, and gently waves his head. The venerable Chief understood him. Raising him, he exclaimed,—Virtuous sage! speak, enlighten, but do not silently re­proach.—Alas! I only can feel for thee.—Such a son! the flower and the sabre of my tribe Lebid! Is the fault mine, that the green-turbaned Emir is no father? Could I mitigate the immitigable? I have lived a life of honour; could I suffer a day of ob­loquy? As for myself, my days are but few; yet, if the cold blood that heavily creeps round my heart, could satiate the imperious Emir, I would spill it at his feet, would he but write the contract of my son's nuptials with the blood of the father.

The aged Effendi grasped the hand of the veteran Chief.—We are (said he) both old men, but we will both die for Kais. My heart is feeble now, my head is white, and my eye weeps: but this is not strange; [Page 77] it is the falling of the snow on the hills, that makes the streams flow^*.

PART THE SECOND.

LET us track the wanderings of the deli­rious and poetic Kais, with his constant gazel, following, and never preceding him. He conversed with it untired; his feeling heart ever wanted something to be kind to; and if he had not found an antelope in the desert, he would have felt an affection for a sheltering tree.

Poor gazel! (cried Kais, affectionately stroking its fallow back, and smoothing its silvery down) thou lovest to course with me a toiling road; and thy slender feet can creep along in the slow steps of a man unblest. I pray thee, look not so pensively tender with the sweet seriousness of thy black eyes; my heart is so full of sorrow, that thy gentle [Page 79] glance, in ruffling it, makes it overflow. Straining his eye-balls, he turns towards home: he cries,—Cherished Valley! I quit thee; I hurry from thee; I have madly left thee! yet, thou hast my tears. I cannot any more see thee, but I weep over thee. Oh! there I had friends, there I was loved, and there—No! there I could love no one. Oh! Leila, Leila! soul of my body! I nei­ther fly from thee, nor to thee, but I am tossed in distraction. Sweet native soil! how my heart outjourneys my eye, and how it lingers about thee, while every step removes me still farther and farther into a desert!

To elude his pursuers, he had left the open desert and climbed among the rocks, making himself paths where eagles rested. As yet, mild in his volitions, and yet not insensible to the pointed flint; to the sultry thirst of his parched lips; to the rage of hunger; and to the exhaustion of travel in the grey and briny sands. But every day [Page 80] his withering frame became less penetrable to the terrible elements: his feet acquired the stoniness of the rocks he trod, and he leaped careless, from abyss to abyss, while the torrid sun burnt on his naked head, and his tongue, often hanging from his mouth, felt no thirst. Sensation in him had reached that exquisite degree of pain, in which pain ceases to be felt. Deliriously he sat on the pyramid of some rock, where he seemed to inhabit the solitude of Heaven, viewing no­thing but the desert of air.

Yet on earth, the desert frequently was not a solitude. There sometimes he imagined he heard at distance human voices, laughing and mocking at him; and often he raged indignant at their cruelty; nor seemed to know that these were the howlings and shrill cries of assembled jackals, who during the night yielded their most distressful and con­tinued tones^*. At times he viewed, wing­ing [Page 81] the air with a rushing sound, the eagles darting from the crags, that soared and screeched above him; he listened to the ravens hoarsely croaking, while sometimes the clangor of a flock of cranes, closely wedged, was heard sailing in the air. When all was quiet, and his exhausted heart itself reposed, his eye would follow the changeful cameleon, that, sensible of its security, slowly changed its natural colour, while, if Kais approached, it escaped with agility, varying its agitated body with rapid and tremulous hues^*. Over the plain, bounded on all sides [Page 82] by the horizon, he found no intervening object to rest on, and his eye ached as it passed over a level and shining waste of grey sand and scorched brambles. In the uniform deadness of the dreary landscape, there was no vestige of animation; no bird flew in the empty air; no animal trod; no lizard crawled on the earth; and he felt himself alone in the universe. Yet some­times was this sultry silence broken, as he listened to a troop of camels, with the tink­ling chimes of their bells mingled with the heavy hum of the drowsy songs of the drivers, and swelling in the stillness of the breeze; while sometimes (an object pleas­ingly picturesque) a caravan took new forms as it wound its slow length along the rocks; at times the whole body disappeared, and then gradually emerged, and then was partly concealed; till the camels, the wag­gon, and the travellers, alike melted away in the aerial distances.

His nerves are shaken; his ideas, through [Page 83] inanition and fatigue, are confused and be­wildered; a fever wastes his adust frame. He grazed on the pale brown herbage of the desert, with his gazel; recited verses at intervals, which marked his unsettled emo­tions; every where he semed to seek de­struction, and could find it no where. At his lucid intervals he examined his form and shuddered; reflecting on the past, he seemed to have performed impossible things; and often he relapsed into delirium, while he reflected he had been delirious.

Meanwhile the Bedoweens returned from the desert in opposite directions; and some assured that they had at times tracked the path of Kais, for they had perceived the small steps of the gazel's slender feet, inter­mixed with those of its master; but these again they had as suddenly lost. The mo­ther of Kais was wild in her sorrow; Ahmed could not support the presence of his be­loved mourner; and he resolved himself to wander with a band of faithful followers [Page 84] till they had discovered the retreat of Kais. Embracing the Effendi, he said,—Thou art not a man of despair, and thou shalt be buried in a valley; for wretches like me, a desert has a charm, for it promises death.—The Effendi pressed his hand, and, without replying, accompanied the unhappy father.

One moon had elapsed, and hitherto the old Ahmed had been only consoled by re­citing passages from the Koran, and listening as he journeyed, to the verses of Lebid.

But age, grief, and fatigue, exhausted the frame of the venerable chief. They had now been travelling on the briny fands, and had not seen a tree or a shrub for many days; while, more than once, they had observed the carcase of a camel, and parched adders, stiff­ened in death. Nothing was heard but their own voices; nothing had life but themselves.—How dead is this earth! (exclaimed Ah­med.) Ah! if I could see but one living tree ^*.

[Page 85] The air was red and fiery, and the sky sparkled, and the hot sands flew about them. They were now the victims of the most parching thirst. At night they stretch their tunics on the earth, that they might be imbued by the night-dews; and which, in the morning, they pressed to moisten their lips. Still to exalt their sufferings in a long series of thirst, their agitated and torturing imaginations recalled to them the ideas of bursting springs and running brooks, till, in their feverish emotions, they called out to each other in agony. At length they heard waters trickling among some whispering bul­rushes. Delicious sound! Some throw them­selves on the earth, and some creep along on bended knees among the reeds, and, with difficulty, collect a little water in a large [Page 86] vase. They bring the cooling wave to slake their old master's parched mouth; his eager hand trembles as it holds the precious draught; he bends his hoary head, and dashes it to the earth: the acrid water hung in bitterness on his baffled lips. Both the old men were fainting in the hot blasts, and they administered to them garlic and dried grapes to revive them^*.

More formidable terrors awoke; the co­lossal horrors of the desert. Columns of sand, which Nature animated, sometimes stalked with a sublime grandeur, and some­times appeared to pursue them with celerity. With hearts coiled by fear, and eyes half­curious and dismayed, they watched these separate whirlwinds. At times they met, they broke, and instantly the convulsed mountains, whose heads were buried in the clouds, dispersed, darkening the heavens, [Page 87] while, at times, the sun seemed a globe of fire in the crimson atmosphere. The little caravan quailed. At length they rejoiced to have reached a new desolation: it was a body of hanging rocks; of which some were broken and spread in vast ruins, while the rude arches shewed only one horrific night. To have entered them might have chilled the heart of a hermit; but they blessed the central darkness which offered them a retreat from the desert-whirlwinds; and some lighting their torches, cautiously en­tered.

Let me rest here! (exclaimed the feeble­toned Ahmed as he grasped the hand of Lebid.) Let the wild lion meet us here, I will grapple with him! Hope is extinct with the spirit of my life. My wife I shall no more embrace; my son I shall never be­hold. Lebid, my skin is dry, my pulse is weak, and my heart is torpid; a cold thirst has seized on my vitals; I have bled in the field, but, with open wounds, never have I [Page 88] felt a thirst like this. Lebid, I am desperate with misery! the light of the day is hateful to my eyes! I see nothing in this vast space but an immense sepulchre!

Venerable Chief! (replied the Effendi) thy heroic spirit is crushed not by the ele­ments, but by thy passions: thy soul is more desolate than the desert: it is the father who unnerves the warrior.

They had now retreated within these tre­mendous masses of rock, and had passed several hours in these unhewed temples of Nature, when a Bedoween discovered on a height a kind of bridge formed by the trunk of a tree, so lightly flung across the scarce­visible points of two projecting precipices, that it seemed to hang in the air. Pointing it out to the Effendi, his aged eyes could not perceive it.—Reverend Effendi, (said the Bedoween) you may observe it if you will look on the sky; the bridge is next to the sky.—I see it; it is a fearful height. A bridge there! Despair only could have been [Page 89] its architect! What man is he who wants a passage on that dizzy point?—Be sure (said the Bedoween) it is not of mortal con­trivance: I will arm, and watch it.

The pallid moon tinged with a disco­loured and uncertain gleam, the vast soli­tude on the acclivities of the rocks, when the watchful Bedoween heard above him the sound of pacing steps. At length a human voice broke out, chaunting in fantastic mea­sures, while, at times, it liquified the heart with many a pathetic tone. On the narrow bridge, hanging next the sky, a naked spec­tre-form flitted along; so wan, so woe-be­gone, so shadowy, it seemed an unblessed spi­rit. A gazel followed the fading apparition.

The trembling and pale Bedoween hast­ened to his lord, and described the vision.—I have seen (he cried) a MEJNOUN^*!

[Page 90] Thou lookest as if thyself wert bewildered, said Ahmed.

Perhaps, my Lord, I am. I am not long­lived, be sure, for I have seen a spirit. 'Twas on the bridge next to the sky! 'Twas a form so transparent the moon-beams pierced it. The tones were not of earth; they were aerial, as the voice of Gabriel to the prophet. A gazel followed. Wondrous! the spirit of a gazel!

Thine eyes are credulous; thou saidst at first he was but a Mejnoun.

True, true, my Lord; he is but a Mej­noun! How came I to think of a spirit? Yet, my Lord, my eyes are not credulous; my ears were witnesses to my eyes. I heard verses from the Mejnoun; and the moon shone so sweetly I could not help weeping.

[Page 91] Be calm and concise.—What verses didst thou hear? inquired the Effendi.

Fine and distracted verses, changing their measures, always beginning, but never finish­ing. He spoke to the moon, and I looked up at the moon; and my ear drank every sound with such ecstasy that I only remember one verse, which describes the Mejnoun him­self:—

Alla is great! (exclaimed the Effendi.) Thy son lives, Ahmed; and the Mejnoun is Kais! Well I remember that verse. It was but an image of fiction! And now, dear youth! thy genuine tears fall over thy fictitious sorrows, enthusiast of Nature! And hast thou become a Mejnoun? Has thy sub­tile spirit preyed on itself; and have thy pas­sions, so vehement and vast, flamed into de­lirium?

The sudden discovery oppressed Ahmed; his lips quivered, the colour left his blanched cheeks, and the word Mejnoun faltered in [Page 92] his throat. He fainted in the arms of an attendant.

The affectionate band assemble at the foot of the rocks which Kais haunted, watching his return in a breathless anxiety. He came stalking over the narrow plank, followed by the gazel with steps as solemn. The moon shone against him, illumining his form, while at his back was a dark sky: he seemed a being not earthly and material.

God of my fathers! (exclaimed Ahmed) it is my son! Aid me, my friends! Let me reach him; let me die at his feet. Shall I see this, and shall I suffer existence?

Let me! (replied the old Effendi, feebly restraining the feeble old Chief) let me listen to him! If he replies not to my voice, and if he knows not this desert, he is delirious: if he knows my voice, and de­scends not, he is insane^*.

[Page 93] Ahmed, abruptly interrupting the Effendi, cried,—Follow me, faithful Bedoweens! or I will go alone! I feel I can perform im­possible things; what the timid cannot con­ceive. I will climb, I will perish! His mother shall not again reproach me with leaving her childless!

The gliding shade of Kais, or THE MEJ­NOUN, as we shall now call him, stood lower among the rocks. He looked down on the valley, unconscious of its objects. His father started, calling on him affectionately. Kais replied not; but, turning to his gazel, patted its downy back, and they both sat down. The Mejnoun broke out into the following soliloquy:

[Page 94] Why were the blue heavens rolled out, and the earth made green, and man an un­happy wanderer? The storm sleeps in the blue heaven, the pestilence sweeps the green earth! Why is not the human fugitive like the fruit-tree; maturing in its cradle, dif­fusing its blossoms in its native air, and dropping its treasures on the earth that nou­rishes it. Lo! the tree lives, its planter pro­tects it, his hand will medicate it, his eye will weep over it. But who hath planted thee, MAN, thou tree of evil growth? Are not the FRUITS thou bearest even poisonous to the roots of thy being? and do not thy PASSIONS circulate in thy veins till they consume that existence to which they gave birth? Foolish man! thou thinkest this world made for THEE, when all around thee bears the image of thy fleeting exist­ence! Canst thou dissimulate this idea? Lo! in the PLEASURE thou graspest thou feelest the beginnings of PAIN! Eternal mockery of PLEASURE! repose in the ver­dant [Page 95] SHADE, and wake with the circling ADDER. Over THE MIDNIGHT BOWER, as they laugh, and drink ‘"unprofaned wine,"’ lo! the invisible PESTILENCE creeps in one little hour, and rages in their nostrils, breath­ing odours, and hangs on their lips, tinged with the liquid purple! And the morning comes, and the sun shines, and THE CITY IS DESOLATE! Oh! heaven and earth! was this creation made in sport? Who art thou, the CREATOR?

He ceased this delirious rhapsody, and Lebid replied:

This HEAVEN, with its softened beauty be­fore thee, and thou askest where is thy God? This glowing EARTH, rejoicing with painted forms, and thou canst not trace HIM! At one touch was this web of being woven! I look around, and KNOW MY GOD; as when I examine the traces left on the sands, I perceive whether a man or an animal has passed. Behold the ETERNAL'S road! Is it not one path of prodigies? Thine eye [Page 96] can view THE VESTIGES OF THE DIVI­NITY!

Meditate on all around thee, and question thy soul? Is it not touched by THE HAR­MONIES OF NATURE? But the great Artist conceals himself, and is only viewed in his work. Art thou, then, not satisfied with the mild glory, so suited and so proportioned to thine eye? Wouldst thou penetrate into the designs of the Divinity? Let MAN, then, ride within the whirlwind, let his HANDS pour out the sunshine, and let his FEET stamp on the unsteady ocean.

Ingenious only in creating thine own in­felicity, it is thy reason which renders thee unreasonable, and thy intelligence, unin­telligent; or rather, it is thy PRIDE that tells thee, thy reason MUST be the reason of God, and thy capacity, HIS power. Thou hast concluded, that THOU art on the height of this vast chain of creation; thou, who knowest not why the tides ebb and flow, how a blade of grass becomes perfect, and [Page 97] why the dead seed thou throwest in the earth becomes an animated being. Trust me, the Spirit of God is too subtile for the spirit of man.

There was one day a sage who sought to discover the ESSENCE OF THE GODHEAD. He began at morn, and in the evening he still leant, not undelighted by the charm of thought. His friend approached him, and softly stealing him from the dream of me­ditation, exclaimed,—How long thou hast loitered in the garden of thy mind! what lovely flowers hast thou collected?—The sage replied,—My soul has been flying to­wards HEAVEN, and for you and my friends I filled my folded robe with celestial flowers, but as I grasped them (for at times I thought I grasped them) I fainted over the too ex­quisite odours, and my folded robe fell from my relaxing hands, and my collected flow­ers are for ever dispersed!—It is thus we lose ourselves in researches after THE SE­CRETS OF GOD. The most curious are not [Page 98] the most knowing. Scarcely do the Sages perceive the Divinity, but Death closes their lips. Yes, believe me, the paths of HEA­VEN are only penetrated by the wings of a SERAPH^*.

The Mejnoun listened and paused, and [Page 99] still recurring in his mind to his own situa­tion, gave his thought in verse:

Lebid sought in his mind for some image to soothe the despairing mourner, and re­plied:

[Page 100] The Mejnoun listened till, in his intense attention, he ceased almost to breathe: it seemed the voice and the verse of Lebid. In an awful pause he appeared collecting his returning ideas. The verses were con­solatory, and the voice was cherished. The tenderest associations of thought melted to­gether at the memory of Lebid: for yet the hermit's heart was not dead to the emotions of friendship; the latent fires of his soul were but covered, and wanted but the lightest air to be awakened.

Surely (he exclaimed) that voice is the voice of Lebid!—A soft shower of tears covered his face. He leant from the rock: in the still and unwavering light of the moon, shone palely the venerable form of his friend and his master. He rushed down the rock, murmuring and exclaiming, in sweet and tender tones, as he went: he reaches the plain, and throws himself at the feet of Lebid.

Lebid stood alone; a little removed behind [Page 101] him was the silent band. The assembly was touched; and a low, tremulous murmur of sympathy just broke the stilness. They sighed at the view of the wan and desolated figure; it was scarcely that of humanity! Of his vestments but a few loose remnants remained, that fluttered as they clung to his skeleton body; his copious tresses, that still covered his shoulders, were matted and clot­ted; his nails had grown hard, sharp, and long, and with them he had armed himself to tear the birds and the smaller prey, which he hunted and fed on by a natural impulse. His once fine physiognomy was stained with a copper hue, and his expressive dark eyes looked now haggard, and sparkled with an incessant motion.

At the feet of Lebid the Mejnoun first spoke:—Art thou like myself, unblest, A SCATTERLING^*, dropped off from the race [Page 102] of man, to howl along the desert, to sleep on dizzy precipices, and to be invulnerable to the thousand deaths around? Alas! the miserable never die! I once thought Grief had its gangrene, it would spread and kill! In parting from the world let us unite. Thou canst curse an unfeeling world, canst thou not? I will sit beside thee, and I will bless thee. Oh! it is long that I have loved a curser! And I will tell thee all that has passed between Leila and myself; thou know­est not all! Heaven only knows all! It is a wondrous tale, old man, that will melt thy wintery eyes, and make thy heart, while it sits amidst desolation, beat with a human pulse.

Leila lives! (replied the Effendi, strain­ing the Mejnoun to his breast:) She lives to blame thee for deserting the tents of thy father. Yes, Leila lives! continued the Ef­fendi, as he thought the Mejnoun paused, as if doubtful of it.

[Page 103] The Mejnoun still paused; then, with a deep sigh, he exclaimed in the sweetest tone, Ah! Leila, Leila!

The Effendi continued,—and thy father lives!

The Mejnoun starting, raved in voluble passion, and rapidly said:—The tents of fathers are not any more the tents for their children! Nature is weary with repeating simple affections, affections old as this antique world; now she loves to create monsters, to people the world with a hide­ous race of men, and teaches fathers to be the only enemies of their children!

The old Ahmed, hitherto restrained by his attendants, struggled to get to his son, but his steps trembled, and he fell at his feet. He clung to his knees, and looking on him, as if his heart were breaking, he cried,—My son, behold thy poor father! thy poor father! My son, dost thou not know thy poor father?

Mejnoun gazing on him with a vacant eye, [Page 104] slowly crept away, shuddering; and turning to Lebid, in a low whisper, Who is here? Who is he who talks of my father? It was a cruel mockery to emind me of my father!—Lebid! is my father coming?—be secret! I know to creep to the pinnacle of yon rock; and if my father should come, I would laugh at him on the point of the precipice.—He was retreating among the rocks, when Lebid arrested him, and exclaimed—Mejnoun! thy father calls thee! Scarcely is he thy father, so wasted and so wretched!

If my father is here (replied Mejnoun with a solemn accent), tell him I forgive him! We must never meet. Brings he persecution even in the desert? It will be short! I will say a last prayer to the prophet, and steal away to a glorious abyss! I have kept it for a last refuge; I have at times felt happy when I thought me of that abyss; it is hap­piness to know how easily we can elude our persecutor: often has my eye measured the tremendous chasm; it is fathomless, and I [Page 105] despair!—His whole frame was now agi­tated; a liquid fire glowed in his quick and vivid eyes; and a terrible energy was in his gestures. He continued:—Thou seest I am calm! sometimes I think I am mad! Leila! Leila! must I see every one but thee!—His teeth chattered; he howled; he stamped on the earth; he tore a handful of hair from his head. He hastened up the rocks, and was seized by the Bedoweens.

They placed him on a camel; his father and the Effendi followed. During the jour­ney, the complete delirium of Mejnoun seemed to hinder him from any voluntary exertion of ideas or of actions: he did not appear to perceive that he was surrounded by people, or that he was carried on a camel; stretched for hours in reverie, he would at times hold a self-dialogue, seeming to reply to what he imagined some one conversed with him; sometimes he carolled wild, ten­der verses; and now he shrieked, and now [Page 106] he laughed. Sometimes he attempted to rise and wander; but feeling himself confined by some superior power, he groaned and sunk down, without discerning the violence of­fered to him.

Thy son is not insane, (observed the Ef­fendi to Ahmed), he is only delirious. His soul is so penetrated with his unhappy pas­sion, that it only exists to that solitary con­ception, and his ideas are consistent, as they relate to that sole object. Were he a ma­niac, he would recognise us, and would dis­tinguish the camel on which he is laid; and all his voluntary actions would proceed from erroneous ideas; an hallucination of the mind, in which he would mistake his vivid imaginations for existing realities. Then he would not, as he does now, publicly disclose the inmost emotions of his soul; but, on the contrary, he would be suspicious of those who were near him, in his actions wary, in his designs cunning. At this moment we be­hold [Page 107] him insensible of the actual scene, and the sole object of Leila concentrating all his faculties and all his sensations.

The old Ahmed waved his majestic head, and without replying, looked in the face of Lebid; as if he meant to say, To me what imports to know whether my son be deli­rious or maniacal?

The learned Effendi understood him, and continued:—It is the immortal Darwini, the nightingale of Schirauz, who, in his Nega­ristan^*, or gallery of pictures, with many a tender period, discourses of the erotic pas­sion. Since now we have discovered the mental hallucination of Mejnoun, it follows, [Page 108] oh, Ahmed! that his disorder is irremedia­ble while his sensations are those of despair; but his malady is not incurable, if his sensa­tions shall be those of hope. Mejnoun must be united to Leila.

The venerable Chief clasped his hands, and raising them to Heaven, on his murmur­ing lips, died, an orison to the prophet.

PART THE THIRD.

IN the absence of her lord, and since the flight of her son, the mother of Mejnoun was accustomed to watch in his tent. Her soul was attached to that abode, for it found a solemn and sweet pleasure amidst a scene full of her passion. Even his empty sopha was not approached by her without trepida­tion; his suspended robe her imagination would embody with his person; and when she touched his instruments of music, and they yielded sounds she once dwelt on with such fond pleasure, a warm moisture filled her eyes, and she sighed intensely at the local recollections around.

She was one day watching at its entrance; afar she descries a cloud of dust her heart [Page 110] bounded against her breast; she calls to her attendants; she strains her eye to discern some object; she views nothing but a mov­ing cloud. Gradually the cloud seems to open; she distinguishes lances gleaming in the glancing sun-beams. She discerns ca­mels. She inquires of all around, Does my lord return? Her fond impatience exceeded the faculty of vision. It was impossible to know whether it were their own Bedoweens, or a caravan of travellers. Some whose eye only passed over the surface of a vast indis­tinct body, to please their desolated mistress, deemed it was their own party. The troop keep directing their way to the tents in their valley. At length a precursor is viewed; and the breathless Bedoween rushes into the tent, exclaiming—Kais returns! and sunk at the feet of his mistress.

He returns; but to the mother of Kais the return of her son was painful as his absence. She views that cherished son led in without consciousness, and hardly with sensation. His [Page 111] drooping head rested on his bosom, while his haggard looks assured her he was no more sensible to his existence; even at his voice, his beloved voice, she shuddered, as it hoarsely repeated, at intervals, the name of Leila. The old Ahmed approached his de­sponding wife; he kissed her in silence, while his tears fell with his kisses on her cheek. She looked on him in agony, and turned to her son, and raised her hands to Heaven, and sunk, fainting, into the arms of her lord.

Mejnoun is laid on a couch of Indian silk, placed on a carpet of Persia. His mother suffers no one to attend him; her own hands scatter the rose-water over his disfigured body, disentangle his matted hair, perfume and curl his wavy tresses, vest him with a tunic of the gold-cloth of Cairo, and fill his goblet with the wine of Schirauz. As she knew he was delighted by Persian ele­gance, the scene was Persian. His tent is hung with the tapestry which the needle painted, suspended by cords of purple silk [Page 112] running through rings of silver and gold, while musk, ambergris, and the wood of aloes breathe in a cloud from the censers. As he was used to be delighted by beautiful plants, she placed around his couch, in vases, some of the most curious and most fragrant shrubs she could obtain; and on the ground, on which his eyes were continually fixed, she strewed fresh flowers and sweet-scented ve­getables, that it might bear some slight re­semblance to the earth itself in the spring season. She fanned him with branches of odorous herbs; and while the air refreshed him, he would sometimes yield a long-drawn respiration.

Mejnoun at first smiled not, nor seemed conscious of the devoted tenderness of his mother. When a temporary pause of reason takes place, he considers the existing scenery as a dream, while his own lengthened dreams he considers as an existing scene. He scarcely yet believes he has returned to his tent; he touches his mother with curiosity rather than [Page 113] with affection; and slowly paces, at times, around his tent, with an inquiring eye, that seems uneasy at an illusion. Again he re­lapses into a mild delirium.

It is the philosophic friend, the venerable Effendi, who effects what has baffled the anxiety of maternal inquietude. Seizing all the vacillations of his unsteady heart, and confirming his dubious ideas, he gradually restores him. Mejnoun one day made a silent motion to open his tent. Not without alarm the anxious mother understood him, and trem­bled, as she imagined it indicated his desire of again escaping from home. Cautiously she opened it a little.—A little more! (exclaimed the recovering maniac in a tender tone) a little more! 'tis Paradise opening, and scat­tering its balmy airs. How vivid the ver­dure! how cheering the blue sky! And he gazed intensely on the face of the country, and often sighed.—Rejoice! (said the Effendi to the anxious mother) thy son will soon be restored! The tones of his voice have re­turned [Page 114] to their natural pitch, and the first desire of his heart is the aspect of Nature. Trust me, he who loves the view of Nature, will not forget his mother!

One day Mejnoun fell on the neck of the Effendi, and wept over the venerable man. A deep respiration laboured in his breast. He pressed the hand of Lebid, and in that pressure told he was conscious of the present scene, and half-remembered the past. He first called for his mother: he sunk at her feet. His father embraced him, and a father's tears filled his eyes. Beloved son! (he ex­claimed) return not without an affectionate heart to thy merciless father: thy mother loved thee, and I too loved thee, yet have we acted differently! Console me for the persecution thou hast suffered; teach me to pardon myself! Thy father's heart was once a soldier's; 'tis now timid as the heart of a frightened child. Look mildly on an old man, who was once thy father: despise not Ahmed in his old age. If Love has caused [Page 115] thee all thy sufferings, Love may remunerate thee with all thy joys. My son, smile but on me, and let me die in peace.

Mejnoun, in kneeling to his father, often by tender gestures interrupted the humili­ating language of affection. At length he said:—My father, it is not possible! I am only restored to reason, to know all my wretchedness. Leila can never be mine. The pride of nobility has hardened the heart of the Emir. Let me quit a world in which I have ceased to be useful: trust me, I am fitted for a hermitage! I care not for the honour of my friends, and am placable to the insult of an enemy. What is a man, alike incapable of friendship or of enmity?—O, thou desert! thou unshadowy waste! to me pleasant is the abode of thy unrelent­ing rocks; there I view nothing of huma­nity, but the far-heard caravan, that some­times passes on, like some low cloud, hang­ing heavily over the earth. Yes, my father, [Page 116] I will live without Leila, but I must live in a desert!

Such was the resolve of Mejnoun when recovered from his delirium; but allured by the hope of possessing Leila, while every day confirmed the constancy of her heart, the desert receded from his imagination, as the world opened more prosperously. At first his father attempted to amuse his mind by continued festivals, by the versatility of plea­sure; and sought to dissipate his passion by procuring the most beautiful dancing wo­men. Every day he renewed his promise to apply in person to the father of Leila, while he slowly prepared valuable gifts to win the obduracy of the Emir. Hope for the intem­perate Mejnoun opens another fountain of his feelings; from a delirious despair, he breaks into a delirious joy; he riots in fu­turity; his days are vowed to the festivities of pleasure, and his nights to the visions of imagination.

[Page 117] He was now no more surnamed MEJNOUN, but was called by his companions SERGUER­DASI, which in the Persian idiom means a Saunterer; or literally, one who does nothing but turn his head, now on one side, and now on another. His eye was now intensely fixed on the pouting lip and the circling cup, and his ear wandered in the shrill joy of the pipe and the tenderness of the lute; but while his cheek glowed with animation, and the blood beat more vitally round his heart, at times his pulse was irregular, and a fever breathed its unnatural heat in his veins. At these moments he composed Anacreontics, like the following one:

At length Mejnoun murmurs at the pro­tracted happiness, and suspects the still-re­peated promise. They observed a new change in this variable and too-sensitive being. Sud­denly he quits his gay society, his face is suf­fused with faint blushes, and his voice faul­ters: his eyes are again cast to the earth, his bosom palpitates, he refuses his meals, and, in a few weeks, a wan countenance betrays his nightly fevers. His mother, alarmed at [Page 121] the menaced change of his passions, prompts her venerable lord to the humiliation of per­sonal intreaty; and now, with a reluctance concealed in his own breast, the old hero hastens to the tents of the green-turbaned Emir.

He enters and addresses him:—Descend­ant of Fatima! deign to unite thy en­chanting daughter with my unhappy son: already hast thou heard of the long de­lirium of the wanderer. Ah! who ever loved like Mejnoun? Behold him restor­ed to glory! Pleasure lights his splendid cheek; his immortal voice renews the verses Arabia remembers; and all our youth call for the union of thy rose with my nightin­gale. Thou knowest the prophet has made me a fortunate man; the trees I have planted live, the fountains I have opened were never dry. To Leila I will give a hundred virgins; they are the roses of our valley. A thousand armed Bedoweens, each mounted on a white courser; and five hundred camels; and two [Page 122] thousand shepherds; these shall surround her tent. My soul is now meditating to depart, and in the flying hour of Fate, little to me it imports whether I die on a throne or perish in the dust; but parental affection lives beyond the grave; and thou who art a father, wilt not be insensible to the prayer of a father.

Such was the humble solicitation of the magnificent veteran. But the Emir, whose cheek was scorched, and whose blood was acrid with envy, as he listened to the opu­lence of Ahmed, and whose obdurate heart was puffed up by the pomp of birth, receiv­ed him with a fierce disdain; tauntingly re­proached the spiritless father with the deli­rium of his son, and with the bitterest mock­ery an Arabian gives, he added—Imbecile Bedoween, seest thou not that the wrong side of thy turban is out^*!

[Page 123] A deep groan broke from the old Ahmed; twice he stroked his beard, and half unsheath­ed his scymitar; but the thought of still fur­ther distressing his son, by the death of Lei­la's father, thwarted his just vengeance. He quietly sheathed his scymitar, exclaiming,—‘"What sort of a man art thou that canst be ignorant of love?"’ Thou, oh Prophet! hast witnessed all! In this accursed tent I and my son alike have received eternal ignominy. The passion of glory has died away in the bosom of my son. O, Love! thou jealous passion! that wilt not suffer another to abide with thee!

He returned home humiliated; but, stu­dious to conceal his feelings from his son, this unhappy father entered his tent with a feeble smile on his aged countenance. But the perspicacity of Mejnoun perceived the reception he had suffered; and it pierced [Page 124] his soul when he reflected, that the intem­perance of his passion had given dishonour to a venerable heroism, and for ever disturbed the slumbers of an old father's eyes. His soul pined: he for ever abandoned the gaieties of his convivial day, and amid the loneliest spots, composed the most touching gazels^*. He now talked of returning to the desert.

For the last act of piety and despair, his father proposed a pilgrimage to Mecca. It was a long journey for one of his age, but he would not perform the awful function by proxy; and in the holy house of the patri­arch Abraham, he half-hoped to listen to the celestial whisperings of piteous seraphs, or at the tomb of the prophet to behold some mi­racle, operating on the intellect of his son.—I go (said the aged Ahmed) like the good pa­triarch with his son Isaac: may I be the sacri­fice to propitiate Heaven, that has deserted us!

[Page 125] They arrive at the sanctuary: they repeat the numerous prayers, and perform the nu­merous ablutions, and present the numerous offerings: they kiss the black, gold-embroi­dered silk, on the top of the sacred caaba; reverently they touch the golden gutters, and drink of the gelid water of the well Zem­zem, which in the arid soil suddenly opened for Hagar when in search of water for Ismael. They pace, with the enthusiasm of piety, along the numerous arcades, formed by those vast columns, which suspend a thousand sil­ver lamps, for ever illumined, dimming the eye through the dread stilness with a reli­gious light. They spread their carpets, and tremblingly prostrate themselves before the black stone which the angel Gabriel hewed from the rocks of the Cauther, whose stream rolls in heaven over beryl beds, and whose shores are gold.

One day Mejnoun entered the temple alone. He approached the black stone, and hears from its opposite side the voice of his [Page 126] father fervently supplicating Heaven, and offering his vows, that his son might forget Leila.

Mejnoun heard, and the sullenness of anger, with the ferocity of despair, glared in his distracted eyes. With a horrid impati­ence he strikes his temples with his clenched hands, while his uncertain feet scarcely en­able him to fly. He crawls to a remote aisle, and flings himself on the marble floor.—And have we come here (he cries) to form vows! Those are not mine! How hateful is the voice of fathers! No, Leila! they shall not seduce me! We will despair, but we will laugh at fathers. Thou sufferest: mayst thou not suffer like me! Here, in this holy tem­ple; here, where I seem to feel the Divinity about me; here, I swear, we are united! I was thine; I am doubly thine!—Can Sympathy, at this moment, tell thee of this our sad nuptial? It is the marriage of De­spair! and Heaven is here, at once, our priest, our witness, and our perseeutor!

[Page 127] At the close of the day he steals from the temple, and escapes from Mecca. He gains the desert, neighbouring the tents of Leila; a wanderer in the same paths, and in the same delirium! More exanimate than for­merly, he cannot climb the precipitous rocks; but crawls and gasps along the hot briny sands. Sometimes he lies stretched, and fan­cies he shall never again rise. His torn vest­ments he fastens by thorns; his casual food he picks from the earth, feeding often on a solitary lizard, and grasping the fainting ad­der, curses, and rejects it.

But Nature, too friendly to despairing men, ceases the violence of sufferance, when its operations tend to annihilation. Mejnoun becomes more mild, for he composes verses: his tender soul attaches itself to whatever surrounds it, and to all that has LIFE the SOLITARY SIGHS. His bewildered spirit ad­dressed itself to a raven in verses which the lovers of this day still repeat, which still give beautiful tears to the beautiful faces of the [Page 128] seraglio, and convey an idea of passion even to the imperial heart of the Sophi. One day he approached a TREE to enjoy its shade: it saluted him, by lowly bending its inoffen­sive branches; he started, he touched the foliage, and every leaf trembled with ani­mation. At this silent hospitality, this visi­ble sympathy, this endearment of sensibility, the melancholy soul of Mejnoun was touched, and he wept beneath that TREE; but as he perceived that while he continued under it, the branches drooped more and more, he rose from the grateful shade, lest, in the hos­pitality it offered, it should entirely consume its generous virtues.—Ah! others may come as wretched as myself! (cried Mejnoun) and I would not deprive them of the consolation of A SENSITIVE TREE^*!

Urged by the poignancy of hunger, he sought one day for food, and his hand only [Page 129] grasped the tawny and withered herb. He discovered a hunter with a fawn. He pur­sues the hunter, who, startled by the man­spectre, flies; but the feet of Mejnoun were winged by despair, and the steps of the timid hunter relaxed as they flew. He crouches, and supplicates for life; but Mejnoun kneel­ed to the kneeling man.—I intreat thee, man, (replied Mejnoun) to give me thy fawn, for I perish. The hunter, recovering from his terrors at the mild imbecility of the Mej­noun; claimed for the purchase the diamond on his finger. Mejnoun presented it to him.—To the inhabitant of a desert (said he) a fawn is well purchased by a diamond. Take it, and be proud; let the vanity glitter among the vain! If thou reachest Leila, the daugh­ter of the Emir Amri, ask her who gave thee this ring?—Art thou Kais? inquired the hunter.—I was Kais (replied Mejnoun in a solemn tone). The awed hunter prostrated himself:—Heaven (said he) has touched thy lips with celestial fire, and thy brain glows [Page 130] with the delirium of holiness. Thy ring is a sainted relic; in adversity I will kiss it; all that a Mejnoun wears, they say, is holy. My way is remote; canst thou tell me, inhabit­ant of the desert, the hour of the day?—I do not count my hours (replied Mejnoun), often, indeed, I look up to the heavens to see where the sun is; but what signifies to me in what part of heaven he shines, since pleasure flies me at whatever point he touches. The hunter intreated the blessing of the amo­rous maniac, who pensively departed with slow steps, looking on, and leading the fawn.

He had obtained the fawn to satiate the violence of appetite; but his lifted hand hav­ing rudely touched its budding horns, their exquisite sensibility prompted the beautiful animal to yield a tender insantine cry, which spoke to the heart of the melancholy man. Its slender tongue licked his raised hand, and it fixed its full eyes on its persecutor: the view of the fawn revived the memory of his constant gazel. He sat down and wept over [Page 131] it, and thus, with a romantic sensibility, ad­dressed it:

Beauty of solitude! thou whose mild as­pect and delicate elegance can give even to a desert the sensation of peace, thy innocent blood passion never yet inflamed; Shall it distain my hand, my hand which only knows to caress thee? I will court thee by affectionate familiarities: when thou shalt know that I love thee, thou shalt lead me if thou wilt; for peace is in thy inoffensive steps. Live, and console my hermit-path! Mine shall be the delightful employment to guard thy branchy horns from the entangling thicket; to gaze on thee till thou under­standest me; to repeat the name of Leila till thou shalt remember it. Sweet fawn! what shade is most grateful to thy brilliant eyes? Where loves thy slender elegance to repose? The tall pine-tree, from whence thou strip­pest the bark? or the wild chesnut on the mountain, to sport with its provoking and polished shell? or the manna-tree, in sum­mer [Page 132] mornings dropping its yellow liquid? or the almond, with silvery or rosaceous blos­soms, when its mature fruit, with gentle vio­lence, opens its own shield? or the white­leaved poppies, whose narcotic diffuses in the air if not culled ere the sun strikes the flowers, and taints the livid face of the ga­therer, trembling with the potent opiates he breathes? Trust me, if thou lovest the sweet poppies thou shalt have them. Wilt thou lay thy soft length along in the cotton field? Be­ware, dear fawn, of the fatal gulbad samour, whose flowers poison the wind; and let me folicitously deter thy innocence from the kerzehré, that hypocrite of the forest, whose boughs are covered with roses, but whose de­leterious dews, while they sparkle on, blasts the earth that receives them^*.

[Page 133] Thus conversed the fanciful Mejnoun with his fawn. Society not wanting in his soli­tude, it renewed his gentlest emotions, and a fawn could tame the desperate man. To refresh his fawn, he often eluded the brazen sky and the thirsty sands, and stole to the green borders of Persia, stretching himself on the flowers that richly clothe that vernal soil, while the fawn gamboled among the beds of tulips, anemones, and jonquils^*.

In this second flight to the desert his re­treat had been undiscovered till he met the hunter, who, hastening to Leila (for the pro­mise [Page 134] given to a Mejnoun he considered as a point of religion), acquainted her with his abode. The disconsolate maiden could not resist the desire of visiting her lover and her maniac, and, with a confidential slave, con­trived to escape, for a short time, on horses procured in haste.

Arrived in the desert, they soon became faint in the hot blasts. As they passed by murky and projecting rocks, piled in awful masses, the skies were frequently hid from their eyes, till the landscape suddenly opened on all sides its immense horizon. In the ever­shifting sands their track was frequently lost, and then they were only guided by a number of pillars erected across the plain in sight of each other^*. The sand reverberated the beams of the sun; no breeze refreshed, no shade sheltered, while in the vast glare of light that dazzled their aching eyes, they held a fan of painted feathers before their [Page 135] faces; but their horses slowly proceeded, as the briny sand scorched their hoofs^*. At length they discovered an arch hewed in a rock, from whose cleft jutted out a young laurel tree. Here they sat some time, till the slave suddenly exclaimed, Behold! and point­ing to one side of the rock, which had been polished into smoothness, Leila viewed her portrait. He lives here! she cried. Perhaps not (replied the slave), perhaps thy portrait is engraven on every rock.

Three hours had elapsed, and Mejnoun appeared not. The slave wailed, often re­peating aloud, Unhappy Leila! A fawn ap­peared as she pronounced the name. They wondered, as they heard a shrill, hoarse voice vociferating, Leila, Leila! The fawn disap­peared. The person who had called was in the narrow paths among the precipices, and was heard to say, What induced thee, [Page 136] my beloved, to quit me so suddenly this even­ing?—'Tis Mejnoun! exclaimed the agitated Leila: support me, I pray thee, I am sick at heart. She sunk into the arms of the slave. The wan form of Mejnoun approached; he perceives two females; he recognises Leila; he loses his voice; a quick suffusion flushed and died away on his pallid countenance; a faint light glistened in his eyes; he bends on tottering knees; he would embrace Leila, but falls before her in extreme debility.

He creeps to her tremulously; he grasps her knees; he rises, he presses her in his arms. He rests his eyes on her face till the recovering beauty returns his glances; inar­ticulate sounds murmur on their lips; and they touch and tremble.

Vision of the earth! (exclaimed the deli­rious Mejnoun) canst thou deceive me with substantial forms? I live on deliriously! my life is but a protracted dream. Breathing form! hast thou not a voice? Tell me, quickly tell me, art thou indeed Leila?

[Page 137] I am thy Leila, oh Mejnoun! thus to meet thee. I steal from my father's tents to tell thee how I love thee; to win thee from thy solitude; and to hear those songs thou hast composed on myself resounding through Arabia. Ah! beneath my hand how thy heart palpitates! Sweet Love! look not so wildly on me! thou art so woe-be-gone! O! thou who art called Mejnoun, it is for me that sad, that sweet, that sainted name is thine! She broke into a full gush of tears.

She ceased, yet Mejnoun seemed still lis­tening to her voice.—'Tis surely the voice of Leila! (he said in a solemn tone.) We meet not as heretofore! but never sounded thy accents sweeter than in this desert. Formerly we trod on a silent carpet, and sat in a plea­sant kiosque, while the jessamines and roses prodigally wasted their aromatic souls in the air we breathed. All then, my love, wasted about us; and above all, Leila, we wasted our hours. O! had we then forgotten we had fathers! we might have lived in this [Page 138] desert, and we should have lived happy! No: I will not think of happiness, it will make me mad! For me, then, hast thou trodden on the scorching sands, and felt the brazen skies of a desert! Romantic maid, I thank thee. Likest thou this perilous as­signation? Be cautious, girl; there is te­merity in thy attempt. I have seen the eye of the wild lion glare as he passed on; yet fear not, here are no fathers. Ah! if thou wouldst become the tenant of this desert, then would the briers be sweet as the wild eglantine, and the hot sands smooth as the silken carpet!

The bewildered air and the unsteady thoughts of Mejnoun alarmed Leila, and she turned silently to the slave. They had brought some provisions in a pannier.—Will my lord (cried the slave) repose, and taste our refreshments? Anxiety and fa­tigue have been more sultry to us than the desert; nor has my mistress opened but one pomegranate since sunrise.—Dear Mejnoun! [Page 139] (said Leila with her fascinating smile) our hour is short; share in these meats and these fruits; restore thyself, my love!—His hand was folded in her own, and she gave it the tenderest pressure. That long-lost sensation returning to his soul, his sympathetic nerves repeated emotions that memory had almost forgotten: he sighed; tears started in his eyes; he kissed her hand, he smiled, and said,—Leila, behold me what I once was, behold thy Kais!

They sat down; the slave spread the va­rious refection; consisting of pomegranates, and water-melons, and pistachio nuts, and various-coloured grapes, with plates of rice and the flesh of goats. She had also brought the cooling tamarinds, to express in their be­verage; but the bardaks of water she had broken in her haste, and she loudly lamented the want of a sherbet.—Thou art the first, luxurious girl! (cried Mejnoun) who ever mourned for a sherbet in a desert: thou art but young in misery!—Eagerly grasping a [Page 140] handful of fresh flowers which she had also brought, and sighing as the odours reached him, he said,—The scent of flowers from the hand of one we love, Leila, how delicious to the hermit in a desert, who has almost forgotten how flowers smell when they are given to us by a friend!—Leila dropt a tear, and Mej­noun caught the living pearl on a rose, and kissed it off the leaf.

In their rambling conversation they made more questions than they could form an­swers, and the last hour of this romantic visit was to close. The moon shone in its mid path, and the crystal light warned the slave to commence their shadowy journey. The lovers, reminded of the time, were alike unwilling to separate. They sat retired, and every time the slave came to them, she was remanded back; every time she saw the long­languishing looks their eyes mingled; but in the eyes of Leila the tears suffused their bril­liancy, and they shone like moonlight in the water. At length she cried,—My mistress will [Page 141] perish in the blaze of the sun; consider, my lord, we came but on horses, and I am sure they will die in the sandy waste, and drop us in the desert: my lord, my lord! we maid­ens cannot live like hermits!

Roused by the clamours of the slave, Mej­noun sustained Leila, he looked on the moon and saw it declining in its blue path.—How shall I live after this! (he cried:) yet let us haste; I will conduct thee to the borders of the desert. Perfection of beauty, Peri of my soul! when we again meet, I shall open for thee the silver gate of Paradise!

They proceeded slowly on their journey, till the slave again exclaimed,—Ah! look, my lord! she pointed to the moon; it was almost extinguished, and glided away on the verge of the sky. Mejnoun reluctantly hur­ried on; and now they reached the borders of the desert, and stopped to take a last fare­well. The dawn already peered above the horizon with its argent whiteness, and the sun now threw an amber-streak, and was on [Page 142] the point of colouring the heaven with its vermilion; part of the mountains before them had the purple hue of the half-illu­mined night-shadows. They gaze on the beamless sun; they kneel before the soul of the universe; and, clasping their hands, vow an eternal passion. Leila supplicates for his return to his father's tents.—No (replied Mej­noun), I will not live where our fathers live!—Voiceless they embrace, slowly they part, quickly they return: now afar, they wave their hands, and Mejnoun gazed on Leila till her figure melted in the air, and seemed a speck to his eye.

Alone, after this interview, for the first time he perceived the horrors of the desert. Habit had softened the aspect of the sur­rounding terrors; despair had even endcared them; but the fatal presence of the object in which all his passions centered, again convulsed the volcano of his heart. At times he thought to pursue her, to detain her, to plunge into one abyss, and to find [Page 143] together an eternal rest. His frame betrays the rapid volitions of his heart; flashes of heat are succeeded by chilly fits; thoughts offuscate thoughts; he returns to the spot whence Leila departed. He runs along the sands; his voice howls and shrieks; he tears up the trees by their roots, and flings them in the air; he pursues the wild animals, and satiates the anger of his soul in their mur­ders; he rejoices to make the desert more desert. He tears away the young laurel that jutted from his grottoed rock; once he had taught it to grow there with a little pride; it remembered him of glory. At length he swoons. It was only on the succeeding night that the miserable maniac awoke from his delirium; then faint, he tranquilly gazed on the tranquil moon, and caressed his fawn that laid its head on his knees.—Surely (he cried) it was but in a dream that I have seen Leila! and thus he addressed the sawn:—Sleep by the light of the moon, fair fawn! the moonbeams will not hurt thy dark bril­liant [Page 144] eyes. Shall I rhyme thee to sleep. Last night I slept, and I dreamed—. Dear ani­mal! thou too dreamest of the green valley thou hast left, of the flowers thou hast smelt. Ah! happiness is not banished from the cell of the hermit if he has but A DREAM OF LOVE!

He now addressed an ode to the MOON, which related

[Page 149]Every day his verses became more wild, but certainly not less poetical. The rock he haunted was well known to the hunters; and the gentleness of the Mejnoun had prompted them to repay the sweetness of his romantic songs by leaving provisions in his rocky vault: they also frequently placed there the silk paper and the splendid ink of Persia, with Egyp­tian reeds. One piously came to supplicate his blessing; another, with purer taste, to intreat for copies of his verses; and each in return promised to be the messenger of his love, and secretly to convey to his mistress the ENVOI he deigned to confide to them. He suffered their presence with patient be­nevolence, and sometimes soothed his agi­tated mind with the self-supported love of fame; and imaged in his reveries the sym­pathies and the applauses posterity has given to him.

PART THE FOURTH.

NOUFEL, the Iman of Sana, was equally renowned for a passion for poetry and for hunting. Wandering one day near the rock of Mejnoun, this prince listened to his voice; he was touched by its melodious melancholy; and while the poetry indicated the unsteady heart of the poet, the united delirium of his art, his love, and his exile, was more inte­resting than the regular and courtly measures that fatigued his ear in his palace.

Noufel silently enters into the twilight gloom of the vaulted rock. In its subdued light he views Mejnoun in a recumbent pos­ture: the affectionate fawn was stretched before him, and a manuscript was placed on its soft-breathing body. Mejnoun was in [Page 151] the act of composition: a warm radiance sparkled at times in his hollowed eyes, that often fixed on an opposite portrait of Leila. His extended hand held a reed; he repeated verses till they found cadence; he gave utter­ance to ideas and to images that perplexed by their variety; his gestures accompanied the passions he described:—such were the deliria of reverie! Often he closed his pe­riods with the tenderest sigh, and with the soft part of the reed often relieved his eye from the tear that clouded.

The sensibility of the prince never slum­bered: he feared to rush too abruptly in the presence of a man whose tremulous nerves suffered such a fine irritability. He stole away, gliding on tiptoe, from the vault. Reaching its entrance, he inquired of his hunters, if they knew who was the Mejnoun who haunted this spot?—It is the lover of Leila.—And is the finest poet of Arabia left to perish in solitude! (cried Noufel.) Men [Page 152] of genius! it is thus ye are admired and never consoled!

He bid a hunter blow his horn; but to blow it with a sound so mellow that it should fall, like a remote harmony, on the ear of Mejnoun. He blew, and the tones played lightly among the circling echoes. Mej­noun appeared. Noufel approached him, and taking his hand, smiling, said:—En­chanting poet, eternal lover! behold Nou­fel! Me, perhaps, thou knowest not, for I am but a prince; but thou art known to me, for thou art a poet. My subjects cherish me, but of thee the world is enamoured. Wilt thou deign to accept my protection? Leila shall be thine; I swear by Alborak, on which the prophet rode to heaven! Is the Emir avaricious? I will offer him treasures. Ambitious? I will give thee dignities. In­sensible to kindness? My troops have taught despots to feel. Yes, thou shalt have Leila; and all that I implore of thee is to embellish [Page 153] my court with thy glory. Delight us with the graces of thy splendid verse; instruct us by the wisdom of thy solemn precept.

Mejnoun searched, with an inquiring eye, the face of the Iman; his physiognomy had every waving tender line of sensibility; and as their eyes met, they understood each other. The hope of possessing Leila exhilarated his astonished soul, and he replied:—Thy offer is pure; who but the gentlest of men would court a hermit? Thy amiable soul opens it­self to love and poetry. Thou givest me HOPE; it is a sweet aliment to a wounded spirit. Yet HOPE was once my parasite, and flattered, and revelled, and ruined! Yet HOPE is still dear; it is so strange to my feelings; it is a sensation so long forgotten, that scarcely my feeble heart knows how to receive it.

The enthusiast, now at the court of Nou­fel, received from the sensitive prince new honours every day. He ordered that a me­dalla, or large parasol, should be ever carried [Page 154] before him; the distinction of independent nobility. He prepares an embassy for the Emir, and composes the letter himself, in which he invited his consent by the muni­ficence of his offers, and menaced his refusal by the terror of his arms.

The haughty Emir tore the letter before the face of the ambassador, violently stamped on the fragments, and sarcastically congratu­lated him on the wisdom of his prince, who proposed creating a distracted lover his chief minister. The Emir summons his tribe; Nousel collects his bands. At length they meet, and, pausing ere they combat, watch the motions of each other.

Mejnoun, two days preceding the battle, dispatched a trusty page to the camp of the Emir. He has orders to enter secretly the tent of Leila, and to prevail on her to fly with him, that a battle might be spared. The page pursues his way with the devoted zeal of a messenger of love. He travels by moonlight, through unbeaten paths: when [Page 155] he meets a stream, he swims across it; a precipice, he leaps over it; a hill, he runs up it; and along the smooth valley he trips so lightly, that at morning his sandals are scarcely wet, and faintly silvered over by the night-dews. He approaches the camp of the enemy, and observed the armed Arabs sleep­ing in the moonlight. He dexterously shuns the centinels, by creeping under hedges, and often hiding his little body among the tall grass and fringed fern, he reaches the tent of Leila. Gliding in, he views at the far­end, the beauty by a solitary lamp, and the holy koran lying before her, on which some­times she directed her unquiet eyes. The little page is at a loss how to discover him­self. He folds his hands on his breast, and kneels; Leila fancies, in the delirium of pi­ety, that the beautiful boy is some winged genii, of whom she had read in the Persian tales. She recovers her understanding in lis­tening to the message. The little page tells her, how he had swam across streams, leaped [Page 156] over precipices, run up hills, and crept un­seen in the tall grass.—I cannot do all this (said Leila): it is only a little boy like thy­self who can be so secret a traveller. Surely thy beloved lord is still a Mejnoun!

At length, after a week had elapsed in ex­treme weariness, and they had watched in­cessantly the motions of each other, the combat commenced. The army of Noufel amounted to a thousand horsemen, that of the Emir was inferior; and they joined with equal valour, but unequal force. They struck sabres against sabres; couched their long lances, and pointed them at, without touch­ing each other's breasts; they wheeled about each other with equal celerity; they uttered loud and shrill vociferations; stood with menacing gestures, and tried each other's sagacity by artful feints: sometimes they mingled with an apparent rage, now pursu­ing and now flying, as the vigour of their arm prevailed. Clouds of dust were rolled above and around. They combated in this [Page 157] manner for twelve hours, till the troops of the Emir left on the field of battle seven of their companions, who lay motionless, bruised by the fall from their horses. The route then became general; a panic was caught by the Emir's soldiery; and the army of Nousel proved victorious by out-wearying their ene­mies^*.

The tent of the Emir was surrounded; and Mejnoun yielding the honour of first entering it to his patron, the prince took pri­soner the Emir and his daughter. Touched by the beauty of the virgin, he gazes in silent admiration, and thinks that even Mejnoun had not sufficiently inspired his imagination [Page 158] with such a model of beauty. The haughty father stood beside her, nor relinquished the hand of his daughter till the prince, in gently separating them, claimed the right of con­quest. Fear, modesty, and grief, were ex­pressed in the variable face of Leila, in tears, in blushes, and in tremors. At the view of so much beauty (more beautiful in its dis­order) the feeling soul of Noufel inspired his first action with magnanimity.—Lovely maiden! (he cried) fear not a conqueror who conquers but to restore thee to freedom, to love, and to Mejnoun. For thee, obdurate Emir! in thy misfortune we forget thy pride. Return to thy tents.—The friends of the Emir kneeled to Noufel. The imperious Emir himself was no more proud; his hereditary spirit melted away in tenderness, as his humid eyes rested on his daughter. They embraced and wept; and as he quitted her arms with a paternal sigh, Leila looked on Mejnoun with anger and with grief. Her lover felt the silent indignation, nor ventured [Page 159] to approach her: the victor stood half-mourn­ing his victory.

The character of Noufel was that of a quick susceptibility, and the impulsion of his feelings was instantaneous; but he was vain and volatile, and ever touching the extreme of passion. His heroism was but a tempo­rary ebullition; and that susceptibility which produced his virtues, at times, taking an op­posite direction, hurried him into impetuous crimes; crimes which he could at once abhor and cherish: in a word, his heart was more ardent than intrepid. His natural feel­ings were pure, but they were at variance with the acquired habits of a court; and he was rather a lover of virtue, than virtuous.

The emotions with which Leila affected him, were too powerful for a soul whose ex­treme softness is only the more dangerous when it tends to a gradual corruption. At first he faintly wrestled with his desires; but as the mind of Leila calmed, every day she became less resistible; and he gazed while [Page 160] his whole frame trembled at the novel graces every day shot forth to his eye; at the har­mony of her features, the bloom of her com­plexion, and the enchantment diffused over her whole person. The tender friendship she felt for the patron of her lover, but the more provoked his ardour; his soul was in­flamed by her graceful smile, and dissolved by her intendering tones; and while he lis­tened, absorbed in the melody of her tongue, if he looked up to her eyes, he forgot her voice in their brilliancy. Unhappy Noufel! he felt himself at length so much attached to her, that he now considered that her lover intruded on his claims, and at the affection­ate caresses of Mejnoun, he writhed in the agony of jealousy. How often suddenly he quitted them, sickening at their happiness, while they, with grateful eyes, thanked him for that hour of delicious solitude which is so necessary for the existence of lovers.—What! (cried the miserable prince,) shall I be the slave of Mejnoun? Shall I yield the only [Page 161] happiness I have ever found to the solitary hand of a distracted man? Yes; friendship, justice, and hospitality, tell me this. And what are ye all, ye soft-heated VIRTUES, be­fore the energy of POWER? Shall Noufel be the most wretched in his court? shall he make madmen happy, by rendering himself most unhappy? If this be virtue, it is also folly. A word annihilates Mejnoun; a word for ever unites me to Leila. What! they will call me an impious bread and salt trai­tor^*! I shall violate the rights of hospita­lity; the holy rights an Arabian reveres. Ah! what are rights to me—a lover and a prince! Noufel was not insensible to his own unwor­thiness, and the pang of guilt was redoubled as he felt the insamy of guilt. Sometimes he resolves to have Mejnoun assassinated, but the diminution of his fame restrained him; [Page 162] and he watches with perpetual solicitude, if he could discover some action in Mejnoun that might prove the disorder of his mind, and the necessity of confinement; but the intellect of Mejnoun was never injured but when he was torn away from Leila. At length Mejnoun complained in gentleness, to Noufel, of his protracted happiness.

Noufel fixes on the day of his marriage. He announces to the court, that Mejnoun on that day becomes his chief minister; and to give publicity to his honours, he com­mands a nightly illumination in the city of Sana, to precede the splendid banquet which is to solemnise the happiness of Mejnoun and Leila.

The public festivities commenced. Mej­noun composed his epithalamiums, and these were soon retained by the people, who quit­ted all their occupations, and for a whole week only studied to get by heart his verses. At the corners of the streets were little knots of jugglers, tumblers, dancers, and musi­cians; [Page 163] while before the shops were placed on tables, spread with aromatic flowers, py­ramids of refreshments, with large jars of sorbet, and pomegranate wine. The various crafts were the whole day wandering in pro­cessions; carrying before them streamers, dazzling the eye with a thousand colours, and exhibiting the implements of their pro­fessions in massy gold; while attended by their musicians, with kettle-drums, fifes, and clarions, they stopped under the balcony of Mejnoun and Leila, and sang hymeneal ver­ses, tossing handfuls of flowers in the air. At night the illumination was general, and the darkest nook of the city seemed to be lighted up by a midnight sun. Every minareh was wreathed with variegated lights; in the vast concaves of their domes shone a thousand lamps of coloured glass; and cords were thrown across, from minareh to minareh, on which the lamps were arranged into letters, forming verses of the koran; and on that night so general was the fanciful illumina­tion, [Page 164] that every house having chosen a dif­ferent verse, much of the sacred volume might have been read throughout the city in characters of flame^*.

The succeeding day the banquet is pre­pared. Leila comes forth in her bridal vest­ments, and ere the solemn rite is performed, they partake of the splendid refection. The artificial Noufel has entrusted to his confi­dential page the infusion of a subtile poison in the wine of Mejnoun. Noufel drinks to the health of the lovers, while the page pre­sents a foaming goblet to Mejnoun. Noufel keeps his eye on him who thinks himself a bridegroom; and in transport he beholds [Page 165] Mejnoun empty, without taking the goblet from his lips. To conceal the secret plea­sure of his heart, his tongue is voluble; his eye, at times, seems convulsed with rap­ture; an agony of delight writhes his fea­tures. The courtiers around (the wretched mimics of their prince) catch the gay extra­vagance of their master. The pavilion sounds with one undistinguished clash of voices. It was a delight that had terror in it. The prince laughs till his voice shrieks; he moves on his sopha till every limb trembles; each courtier imitates the contortions of his rap­ture. What he speaks is no more heard in the clamour of their joys. At length they behold him fall from his sopha, lifeless, on the ground. All is the silence of terror.

Mejnoun flies to his friend and his prince: he holds him in his arms. The face of Nou­fel is blanched and livid; his heavy lids are closed in death; and his feeble accents, fleet­ing on his quivering lips, painfully tell,—Mejnoun, yield me no pity! the poisoned [Page 166] cup, meant for thee, has reached my own lips. I loved Leila, and my love was terri­ble, impious! I prepared poison for my guest! Yes, thy prince was thy traitor. He sunk into his arms, and expired in the slow agonies of a convulsion.

An event so unexpected and terrific in­terrupted the nuptials. The Iman, who on that very day succeeded Noufel, had none of the sensibility of that miserable victim of pas­sion. He had no attachment to poetry and to love, but a great sagacity in politics; and lamenting that a war should ever have been occasioned for a possession so little valuable as that of a woman, sent Leila back to the Emir, with an assurance of his veneration for one who wore a green turban.

Unhappy lovers! what now but a hope­less futurity opens to your existence? Think­ing of all ye were to be, how bitter the me­ditation of what ye are; while the remem­brance of perjured and of perished friend­ship wounds beyond the grave of the traitor! [Page 167] —My soul (cried Mejnoun) yesterday rejoic­ed in possession, and to day is desolated in ruin! My happiness will not last out a soli­tary sun. FORTUNE effaces TO DAY what YESTERDAY she had written on her whitest page!

Leila returned to the tents of her father, and Mejnoun relapsed into his former deli­rious feeling, but with a more deadly hatred of man; and without a friend, he regards himself as a naked sword without a sheath^*. Again he flies into the desert, and no one can discover his retreat.

It was some time after the return of his daughter that the Emir received a proposal of marriage from another Emir for his son Ebnselan. The passion of Leila was indeed universally known; but since this last fatal event, and the death of Mejnoun, as it was reported, it was imagined that the beautiful [Page 168] virgin would not resist the passion of a youth who came recommended by the graces of his person and the splendor of his train. Such was the judgment of the two aged Emirs, while the fervors of the gentle Ebnselan, whose passion had been inspired by the verses of his rival, prompted the hope of still win­ning the affections of one so capable of af­fection.

But when Leila was acquainted with the resolves of her father, she shrieked, she tore the rich calpuc from her hair, and beating her bosom, accused her parents of cruelty, and Heaven of injustice. By gentle insinu­ations, and by mild reproaches, they essayed all the avenues of her susceptible heart. She was assured that Mejnoun had ceased to exist; and was she not solicited by the most amiable youth in Yemen? and was the so­lemn oath of her venerable father to be lightly regarded? Had he not sworn, that if she ac­cepted not the hand of Ebnselan, no hope remaining to perpetuate his family honours, [Page 169] he would refuse nourishment, and close his days by a voluntary death?—Thou hast dis­graced us! (he cried:) a childless woman is in our race. Virginity is the glory of the girl, but the shame of the woman. Thou hast turned into a desert the fertile soil, and dried up the fountain of our race.

Long inexorable, the sufferer offered her life, but refused her hand. Day succeeded day, and no messenger from Mejnoun ar­rived. Her father persisted in his resolution, and ceaseless tears were on the face of her mother. One day they sat near Leila in a mournful silence; the eyes of her mother were fixed on her eyes; Leila could not support the full affection they beamed on her; the invisible atoms of sympathy en­tered her whole frame; she became what her mother was, and the ardour of her mother's eyes shot to the sanctuary of her pure soul. The tears of her mother often lingered amidst her wrinkled cheeks, and once she sighed heavily: instantly Leila sighed convulsively; [Page 170] she sunk on her mother's lap, and stretched her hand to her old father in silence and in despair; she stretched her hand, and turning aside her face, she wept aloud.

The nuptial day arrives. The virgin, pre­ceded by a splendid retinue, and followed by her mother, her female relatives, and the damsels of her tribe, issues from the tent of her father. It was a rivalry of Arabian mag­nificence. The most precious gums fumed from silver censers. The bride appeared under a splendid canopy, supported by four men; she was veiled from head to foot; the crimson veil concealing her face was so sprin­kled with diamonds that the tears which spar­kled on her veil were not distinguishable. Her flowing hair, waving on her shoulders, was dressed with embroidered ribbons, and the long tassels of silk, wrought with gold and silver, reached to her feet; a heron's feather, among tufts of smaller plumes, was fixed on her head, and sometimes gracefully flowed backwards; while the quills of the feathers [Page 171] were set in sockets of gold, and blazed with gems. On either side they flung around scented waters; some waved their silken fly­flaps; some played on their tambourines; and many passed on, performing agile feats, and dancing in various attitudes. The wo­men then followed with solemn and proces­sional steps. At length a body of musicians appeared, and as the music played, guns at intervals were fired^*; and as they ceased, the silver voices of the women responded with the joyous cry of, Lu! lu! lu! Then succeeded two camels loaded with her dowry, in furniture, and followed by the herds. The procession went on in a slow march, and often paused to receive the salutations of the people.

They approach the tents of the expectant bridegroom. The father and the son hasten to meet them with no inferior pomp. In their retinue are five hundred horsemen, [Page 172] mounted on those fire-eyed coursers^*, whose nobility of descent and purity of blood, from the stud of Solomon, is proved by a genea­logy of two thousand years. His gifts were ambitiously arranged on five camels. The two processions hailing each other, mingled into one.

They enter the ornamented tent of Ebn­selan; the contract is ratified before the cadi, who performs the nuptial ceremony. The two families felicitate each other, and the festival spreads along the neighbouring val­ley. They prodigally scattered their aspers and their sweetmeats among the eager mul­titude, who shouted as they caught the showery gifts in their extended robe^†. [Page 173] Every Arab crowned his head with the splendid red flowers of the mimosa, whose delicacy and brilliancy are reserved for the nuptial day. The sun, at length, set to the desiring eye of the glowing bridegroom, who now was permitted to conduct the beauty to his own tent, and to list the veil from her secret charms.

Ebnselan approached Leila, and trem­blingly raised the veil from the face of the virgin. Smiles and blushes were not in that face; tears are on her cheeks and frowns on her brow. His soul shudders, and he drops the veil. Again he returns to Leila, and with tender reproaches in his eyes, would press her to his bosom.—Stay thy hand! (exclaimed the virgin, in a tone more reso­lute and awful than ever virgin spoke,) au­dacious youth! thy hand would steal the fruit that has long matured for another. [Page 174] Well thou knowest that Leila is Mejnoun's Leila, and can be the Leila of no other. Thinkest thou that oaths are mockeries? Oaths! are they not registered in Heaven? and are there not MARRIAGES recorded there, which on earth are unconsummated? Wilt thou be a serpent in the garden? Thou mayest wind round the tree, poisoning the fruit thou canst not gather. I may fear thee, but we do not love the thing we fear. The injustice of a father has made his daughter a criminal; and I am guilty because I am obedient. Were there not an imbecility in our sex, I had died!—Yet thou mayest still be kind: I am thy bride, come then in kindness to thy bride; come Ebnselan! shall I not bless thy name on our nuptial night? Avert thy face, recoil not, and strike thy scymitar at my virgin breast. Point it here, I will kiss the point.

Ebnselan covered his face with his hands.

I see (continued Leila) thou hast a gentle heart: approach me not, then, and I will [Page 175] live: I will forgive thee that thou art my husband.

Her tones were sweeter, for her heart melted as she looked on the gentle Ebnse­lan. They restored his spirits; and still hoping, by acts of tenderness, to steal on her affections, he clasped her hand, and gazed on her with eyes dissolved in fondness and in beauty.

Approach me not (again exclaimed the alarmed Leila), rash youth! the rose thou wouldst pluck will raise its viewless thorns against thee. I am the slave of a man for­lorn; one who is now perhaps the night­companion of the hyaena, and who gasps with thirst where there are no waters. There is nothing but despair about us: my vowed soul is in the desert with Mejnoun; my dreams are restless with his image. Ebnse­lan, how can I be thine? my king lives in my bosom: should I turn to thee, thou wouldst clasp a polluted woman. No; I cannot love thee and be chaste. Ah! do [Page 176] we love twice, when our first passion is that of DESPAIR?

Ebnselan was the mild inmate of a mild climate. He had merited Leila, had Leila to choose a lover. He wept silently, and at length assured her, that he would respect the passion of Mejnoun.—Thou mayest see (he said) how I love thee; for I consent to feel the grief of a widower on the bridal night; and mine eyes, while they perceive thy beau­ties, shall only weep for thy misfortunes. He quieted the convulsed emotions of Leila by a promise to conceal the event of that night. Such was the amiable forbearance of the tender Ebnselan; and often the grate­ful Leila met him in tears, and would at­tempt to smile on him, while the sufferer, as he smiled on her, would weep.

Mejnoun, after a long residence in the ruins, among which he had concealed him­self, would sometimes stroll into the open desert, and met the traveller. The news of the marriage reached him. The pilgrim [Page 177] told him of it; the voyaging merchant con­firmed it; and a hunter, who had been pre­sent at the ceremony, minutely described its pomp. All censured the capricious maiden, and all mourned the inconstancy of the vola­tile sex. At first, the incredulous Mejnoun conceived the tale to be an artifice to with­draw him from his retreat, and often deemed it was a wild notion of his own disordered imagination. Day followed day, and the circumstantial narrative, in all its terrible minuteness, still afflicted his memory. Jea­lousy and indignation exalted his delirium. He knows nothing of the trials of Leila; of that resistless persecution, when a silent pa­rent perishes before the eye of filial piety; and still less of her inviolate affection, and the not inferior sufferings of Ebnselan. He is alive only to the idea of her union, and in the anger of phrenzy he pictures them happy, and himself scorned. Those who had informed him of their union, well knew the long persecutions she had suffered; but [Page 178] these were as nothing in their mind, while they had the pleasure of forming another splendid accusation of the infidelity of the sex, and could console themselves for disap­pointments, themselves had received and had merited. Every one added to his account, inconsciously, some little provoking circum­stance, such as they themselves had experi­enced, and such as, they imagined, every perjured woman practised.

All these had been lovers, but not lovers like Mejnoun. Circumstances which excited their laughter jarred on, and were most touching to his soul; an incident, uncon­nected in their minds, was associated with former emotions by the enthusiast; and an event, which they conceived as common, seemed to him, for a long time, as impossi­ble. He formed the terrible project of dis­guising himself in the habit of a pilgrim, and concealing a poignard, to enter her tent, and perish with her at the same moment and with the same instrument. He com­posed [Page 179] the following poetical epistle, and sent it by a hunter:

This epistle gave to Mejnoun the emo­tions of desponding constancy. In the deli­rium of passion each period received a tear and sometimes a kiss, and grasping the letter till every syllable was effaced, he held the fragments to his eyes while his memory sup­plied the passages he could no more distin­guish.

Often the tender maniac addressed the echo, and often asked, who was the most [Page 190] unfortunate, himself or his mistress? while often he hated the voice of the echo, because it was his own voice.—Deceitful sympathy! (he cried,) thou repliest to my sighs, thou repeatest my words, and what art thou but air? Hollow is thy heart, and mockery is in thy voice; and yet to the solitary how consoling even the shadow of the human voice! The sense of Leila's sufferings seemed to tranquillize his own, and he paused in the violence of his own emotions while he re­membered those of his mistress. Softened into a still melancholy, he flew into an ob­scure nook; pale and haggard, there sitting whole days immovable, he would have seem­ed a statue, had he not sighed.

His abode was now not unknown, and many a messenger had come from his father, imploring his return. But Mejnoun was in­exorable. The old Chief, amidst his tents, felt himself as desolated as his hermit son; the fond hope of posterity, that solitary hope of age, was extinct; another victim to these [Page 191] unhappy loves, his noble and paternal heart was broken. In the chill of approaching death, the solitary idea which occupied his closing hours was the desire of once more embracing his miserable son. Who but Lebid could prevail with Mejnoun? yet the journey might be fatal to the venerable man. The dying Chief softly grasped the hand of his friend, and looked in his face, and was silent; he suspired the name of Mejnoun in a sigh half suppressed. Lebid that day or­dered a camel, and departed for the hermit.

He discovered his dark cavern. He lay there stretched without motion, and in the twilight gloom, the Effendi imagines he views his corpse. He raised a loud cry; as Mejnoun rose he embraced him.

Thou livest yet! (cried the old tremulous man;) thy father perishes! His soul strug­gles to live a day, that he may yet once more view thee. Is the tenderest passion to dis­nature thy breast? Mysterious Heaven! per­mittest thou two human beings to love like [Page 192] these?—Mejnoun! my friend, my child, speak! Thy father, thou knowest not he has been a father to thee; trust me, thou knowest not all. Hasten, and be the vision of his death-bed! Miserable man! I only invite thee to the scene of death! Come, thy cherished hand may yet close his heavy eyes in sweetness.

Mejnoun gazed on Lebid with leaden and spiritless eyes; he fondly listened to him, and quietly followed him. Tears and em­braces they exchanged, but words they could not utter.

They journeyed on, till the exhausted Ef­fendi could not proceed. He hung his shri­velled arms around the neck of Mejnoun; his feeble tones died in murmurs on his lips.—Proceed! thy father has not many hours to live! Lay me under this plane-tree: I shall be found; fear not! It is better for me to die under that plane-tree, than be carried home lifeless. It will spare our friends some sorrows; the death of a friend [Page 193] is soon forgotten, but the view of his corpse long startles the memory. Go, my child, remember thou hast a mother still, when thy father dies.

The distracted Mejnoun in vain offers to quit the camel, and to hasten on foot to his tents: but this would have prolonged his journey many days. The old Effendi was now speechless; the camel would not go without its driver; the moments pressed on him.—Shall I leave a dying father here, to hasten to a father who is perhaps dead? exclaimed the miserable man. But he thought of his mother; he remembered the Effendi's words; and stretching the old man under the plane-tree, he placed beside him a bardak of water, and he journeyed, wail­ing, along the desert.

He reaches his tents: he flies to that of his father: he yet lives! His eyes, half­closed in the sleep of death, yet open; on his icy lips his voice yet trembles; in the [Page 194] arms of his son a new warmth stays his fleet­ing existence.

They look on each other a thousand silent things. Mejnoun, as he was turned to his dying father, supported his head; his mo­ther, seated on the couch, laid her face on the back of her son, and moaned.—My fa­ther! cried Mejnoun, and could say no more.—My son! (hollowly replied the father,) let me touch thee, I have ceased to see!

I had much to say to thee; (continued, with difficulty, the dying man; the hectic of death faintly gleamed on his face—it came, it past!) I have not seen thee two years, and thou hast come a day too late: thy mother knows what I would say. Mejnoun turned to his mother; her face was raised to him covered with tears, and scarcely knowing what he did, he passed his hand over her face and wiped away her tears.—May Alla preserve (continued the dying man, in tones still fee­bler) from disastrous love the virtuous and [Page 195] the valiant! O, my son! behold us alike its victims! He laid his head on the arm of his son, and expired.

Mejnoun turns to his lifeless parent, and still tries to recal the voice he can hear no more. He lifts his arm, and it is stiffened; he feels his hand, and no pulses tremble there; he touches his blue lips, and they are as ice; his whole body remained in heavi­ness, cold in his embrace.

When his parent ceased to exist, he heard of all the proofs and sufferings of his affec­tions; but his heart was wrung with that severest of all agonies; that, which the most affectionate son feels when he has broken the heart of the tenderest parent: even Leila was banished from his thoughts.—And why (cried Mejnoun) is the goodness of man known only when it avails not to be known? I ceased to be a son, because I knew not I had a father. Heaven! how mysterious are thy decrees!

Alas! (replied his mother) thou didst [Page 196] cease to be every thing when thou wert only a lover!

He dispatched two messengers; one to search for Lebid, the other to bring news from Leila.

The Effendi had been assisted by the cha­rity of a hermit dervise, who in vain intreated him to retire within his cave, and share his meal and his orisons. No (replied the old man), I will not quit this plane-tree; those that left me here, will one day return to find me: I have friends, holy man, who will not forget me. The dervise who had never known such friends, imagined that the feeble old man was crazed with sorrow; and every day as he brought him refreshments, and still found him there, smiled and said—Trust me, no one remembers a friend in a desert.—If that be true (replied the Effendi), it were best that I should die under this plane-tree. Every day the old Effendi watched, and the messenger found him waiting his coming under the plane-tree.

[Page 197] To the wisdom of Lebid Mejnoun con­fided the care of his mother and his tribe. His mind had now become associated to the desert; his delirium found repose amid fa­miliar horrors; and he once more returns to his seclusion, where he appointed an in­terview with the friend he had sent to the tents of Leila.

Day after day elapsed, and still no messen­ger from Leila arrived. He sat upon the point of a rock that he might discover the expect­ed friend before he reached him. At length he descries one approaching; he ran down the rock and met him on the plain. It was his friend, who when he perceived Mejnoun, approached him with slow steps and heavy looks. The heart of Mejnoun was chilled at the aspect of so melancholy a messenger, and, with a bewildered air, he inquires the fate of Leila? His friend replied but by a profound sigh.—Thy silence well becomes thy tale (said Mejnoun); why is not all for me an eternal silence! Here I have waited, [Page 198] day after day, but to hear of the death of Leila. Could that heart, that tender heart, love as she loved, and live? A thousand times already have I mourned her death; and when the world told me she yet lived, often I was incredulous.

Alas! (replied the friend, rejoicing to ob­serve the calmness with which the Mejnoun spoke) a fixed grief preyed on her soul, and—

Talk not, talk not! (quickly the Mejnoun replied, with eyes that emitted sparks of pas­sion, while his hand rudely repulsed his friend;) did I not commend thy silence? Away! it is dangerous to commend a fool's silence; he will speak at last, were it but to give a fool's thanks. Away! I am sick of all foolery: away to thy world! to thy world, fool!

He paused: his troubled heart was busied with gloomy imaginations; his rapid lips muttered low and inarticulate accents; his eyes were fixed on the earth; he sighed and [Page 199] said:—It is completed! it was born, and it has died! The flower is gathered; let the leaves, the lovely stem supported, fall and rot on the earth!—He mused; terrible thoughts were in his mind, and the blood sorsook his face.

He shrieks, he rolls himself on the burn­ing sands; his friend approaches and would embrace him; but he hurls him to the earth: he flies up the perpendicular rock. He howls, and the echo multiplies his ter­rific voice. Some hunters join his friend. Three days they patiently watch at the foot of the rock. On the second day the voice of Mejnoun was only heard at intervals: on the third night, in the gleam of the moon, they perceived the spectre-man descending. The dying form paced, slowly, with tottering steps; every step was audible in the vast silence. Their hearts shuddered. The Mej­noun looked not of this earth, and they dared not approach him. He reached a hillock of sand, and stretched himself in silence. They [Page 200] hasten to the Mejnoun: on his murmuring lips they listened to the name of Leila; and slowly, and hollowly, they heard one vast and feeble sigh, and it ceased to respire. His friend placed his hand on the bosom of the Mejnoun, and his heart no more palpitated.

The last solemn office of friendship was paid by the hands of his unhappy friend and the grieving hunters. Returning to the tents of Ebnselan, he summons the tribe, and tells a tale, often interrupted by his moaning auditors. Even the obdurate Emir, in whose subdued breast no human passion now beat but that of pity, vows a long, sad pilgrimage to Mecca, and thanks the prophet that he is old and will soon die. The gentle Ebnselan rose, and wept, and spoke:—Sad messenger of disastrous love! Another, and a final duty, still remains. Thou knowest not that the dying Leila predicted the death of Mej­noun. He lives, she said, but because I live; and he will die because I shall have died. It was her last prayer, that their ashes should [Page 201] be united. Lead us to his grave: they shall meet, though they meet in death; and over their extinct ashes let me pour my living tears.

The tribe of Mejnoun unite with the tribe of Leila. At the foot of the rock, which the Mejnoun haunted in his delirium, they raise a tomb to the memory of the lovers, and there depositing the bodies, they plant around many a gloomy cypress tree. Lebid lived to compose the verses, which were embossed with golden characters on the black marble. Lebid lived to lament his own fostering of their loves, Ahmed's austerity, and the Emir's haughtiness.

For many successive years the damsels of the two tribes, in sympathising groupes, an­nually assembled at the cemetery, and plant­ed in marble vases, around the tomb, aro­matic flowers and herbs. One night in every year, each bearing a taper, they wailed till the morning the fate of the lovers, and, in parting, prayed their PARENTS to be [Page 202] MERCIFUL IN LOVE. The caravans of Syria and Egypt, which traverse the desert in their way to Mecca, once stopped near the conse­crated spot; the tender pilgrim once leant over their tomb, and read and wept. The spot is now only known by tradition. The monument has left no vestige, and the trees no more wave their melancholy boughs; nothing remains but THE HISTORY OF THE LOVERS^*.[Page 203]

PART THE FIRST.

IN a valley of Arcadia Amaryllis was a shepherdess; on the rocks above, Lycidas was a goatherd. Their situation approached that of primaeval solitude; never had they observed other human forms than their old fathers and mothers, whom they visited at the full moon, when their flocks were guarded by the silence of sleep.

In the luxuriant valley Amaryllis conducted her sheep, while Lycidas pursued his capri­cious [Page 252] goats on the rocky clifts. Amaryllis found her companions like herself, timid and docile; they rather followed her, than she them. Often had she measured her height with the old ewes, and discovered how she increased in stature.

Lycidas was vigorous as the goats he chaced; he flew fearlessly along the points of clifts, and stood on one foot, at the edge of a precipice, to snatch the wild goat hang­ing at the perilous extremity. Amaryllis fre­quently observed him above her with a tre­mulous delight; and imitating his voice, found that her tones could not, like his, fill the hollow hills. Ah! there, she thought, is one like myself, whose strong feet outleap a goat! Lycidas looked down sometimes on Amaryllis, and thought, there is one like myself, whose soft look is more tender than the eye of a lamb!

One day the shepherdess, at the brink of a river, was bathing a lamb; while Lycidas, leaning from a rock above, watched the trans­parent [Page 253] water-drops trickling on its snowy coat, and hanging her fingers with pearls. The lamb fell into the river; Amaryllis shrieked. Behold Lycidas in the stream! He brings the breathless animal; he dries its velvet skin; he warms it in his breast; its little sides palpitate once more.—It is born again! (he exclaims) presenting it to Ama­ryllis.—Ah! (said the pastoral virgin, look­ing her gratitude) I thought, till now, that a goatherd cared not for the sorrows of a shepherdess.—Oh, Amaryllis! (replied Ly­cidas) I often think of thee.—How singular is this, oh Lycidas! I, too, often think of thee—When I view thee kissing a lamb, I would give ten of my goats to be that lamb.—Lycidas, thou shalt have my kisses when thou wilt; come from the mountains when thou wouldst have me kiss thee!

After this interview Lycidas was continu­ally descending from the rocks to receive the caresses of Amaryllis. But sweet kisses in­spired sweet words: it became necessary to [Page 254] unite the goats of Lycidas with the sheep of Amaryllis; and the mountaineers gradu­ally abated their wildness among the mild inmates of the valley: yet, though influ­enced by the local softness, and losing their restless desire of climbing by continually treading on a level earth, they still retained their untamed spirit; and, never mingling with the timorous, ever preceded and con­ducted the feebler domestics.

Observe (said Amaryllis to Lycidas) how thy goats disdain the society of my sheep! How is it, oh Lycidas! that thou admittest me to thy arms, as if I were thy equal?

I have heard my father say (replied the youth), that man is an animal more noble than a goat; that his face looks up towards the gods. And yet this seems an error; for my face only looks straight forwards; were I to look up to the gods, I should stumble.

Couldst thou ever understand (enquired Amaryllis) what the goats think of man?

Oh, yes! assuredly they deem themselves [Page 255] superior. They climb, with their hollow foot, on ridges narrow as thy slender finger. I have viewed them sleep on the point of a precipice, where my eye only could touch them: I have waked them by my voice; but they only raised their heads and shook their beards, and again laid themselves to sleep. I have watched at the foot of the rock, in patient helplessness. Such is MAN!

I have often thought (replied Amaryllis) that man is a kind of goat; for our fathers have beards, but the faces of our mothers are smooth as mine and my sheep. Thou too wilt have a beard, no doubt, (she passed her hand playfully over his chin) already I perceive a fine brown shade glisten around thy face. How soft! I touch it, but cannot feel it. Be sure all human beings are only a kind of goats and sheep. Thine eye seems to command Nature, thy strong step echoes on the earth; but I timidly follow thee, and all my glory is my submission.

In conversations thus simple and innocent, [Page 256] they sometimes interchanged their thoughts; but they sported more than they talked. At the margent of a lucid fountain, or under an umbrage, dropping roses, they divided their milk and their fruits; the velvet turf sprang under their flying feet; the echo multiplied their silver voices. Mimicking a butting goat, Lycidas would run at Amaryllis; but Amaryllis most loved to lie down like a sheep, and, in short pantings, breathe on her be­loved Lycidas. Amaryllis would conceal herself behind a woodbine hedge, or lie in the covering fern; and then Lycidas would call on her, seek her through all her hiding spots, and murmur at, yet half-enjoy, the feigned absence. Seldom could he track her through her inventive and mysterious paths, till the playful maid betrayed herself by a loud laugh; or attempted to fly, while her inviting eyes accused the pursuer's tardy em­brace. Sometimes when he returned home she would lie down, feigning to sleep, while her eyes were half open, to see if Lycidas [Page 257] would immediately hasten to her; the youth kneeled, and sighed, and kissed her eyes, till she laughed.

Sometimes he would disorder her wavy tres­ses, while she murmured with a smile; and then would adorn them to his fancy, stud­ding them with roses, or braiding them with jessamine. But if he often loved to disorder her fine tresses, he was careful, in passing her favourite flowers, to support their bended stalks, and to weave more closely her fa­vourite shades. The tender reminiscence of her lover's attention often mingled with the delicious perfumes of the flower, and the bowery verdure of the tree. He would com­pose what he called serpents of flowers, and fancifully wind them about her long tresses, praying the gods that no other ser­pents might ever approach her.

One evening, beneath a lofty myrtle-tree, the beauteous Amaryllis was lamenting the death of a nightingale. She said, Sweetest tears have fallen with the touching close of [Page 258] its delicious tones: I felt the music creep along my nerves, and the fine vibrations play through my heart. I weep now, Lycidas, when I think such a charming sadness may never again give delightful tears.

Ah! that I could recal thy nightingale into existence, as I did thy drowned lamb! exclaimed the amiable youth.

Thou never canst, dear companion! it breathed a long and dying fall, like the gen­tle airs, moving the tops of the hollow reeds, making a moaning melody.

Studious to charm his beloved with the voice of the nightingale, the thoughts of Lycidas produced a sleepless night: the next day he gave Amaryllis the care of his goats, and promised an early return. The sun de­clined, and Lycidas returned not. Amaryllis sighed at its farewell beam. She sat, her head reclining on her arm. Suddenly aerial notes floated in soft remote sounds. The startled Amaryllis exclaimed—The air sings in the clouds! The notes seemed approach­ing [Page 259] to her. She looked up at the myrtle­tree. They warbled more musically clear. She perceived Lycidas: he held something in his hands to his lips.—Hast thou found another nightingale? (Lycidas replied but by the accents of his harmonious mouth.) What miracle is this! Canst thou give a vocal soul to a hollow reed?—Yes, (replied Lycidas,) it was thou who didst instruct me: Thou didst resemble the voice of the night­ingale to the light AIRS breathing on the hollow REEDS. All day I wandered for a nightingale, and I found none: I took a reed, and made little entrances for my breath: I said, Oh, gentle reed! I can give thee AIR, if thou canst yield me the VOICE of the nightingale: I BREATHED, and it was MUSIC!

This first of flutes was their most valued acquisition, for it bestowed a new pleasure; and in the solitude of lovers, pleasure is their only avarice. Lycidas, gradually modulating his reed by his ear, perceived the successive [Page 260] sounds of MELODY, and, at length, the con­cords of HARMONY; but often, weary with trying musical sounds, the eyes of Amaryllis fired his soul, and the rapt enthusiast, tender or gay at such moments, made his lively in­flections, and variety of accent imitate their sensations and echo their passions^*. Such was the progress of INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC!

As they wept or laughed, they marvelled how the air, through a hollow reed, could speak more persuasively to their hearts, than their own voices; they knew not that the imitations of Art please more than Na­ture herself. When Lycidas played, Ama­ryllis could not sit still, and her gestures cor­responded with the passions he inspired. Was Amaryllis capricious? Lycidas breathed a long dissolving strain; sounds associated in her mind with ideas of tenderness; her ear [Page 261] arrested her steps, and silenced her tongue; while the sweetness of her physiognomy melted in the dew of her eye, and expressed itself in many a passionate attitude. Was A­maryllis plunged in the softest melancholy? Aerial tones, rapid and voluble, vibrated around; till, stealing the sense of thought from the pensive beauty, they broke into gay melodies; while, responsive to their cheer­ful influence, her light footsteps gave what Lycidas termed, the music to the eye: and such was the origin of THEATRIC DANCE!

Their enjoyments were only interrupted by his frequent absences: whole days were sometimes passed in search of a wanton goat. How terrible is the absence of him in whose presence alone the heart feels the sense of existence! She thought this, one night in a cave where Lycidas was sleeping, while the wakeful beauty hung enamoured over each interesting feature: a SUSPENDED LAMP was placed near.—Ah! (she continued) even this pleasing light, this soft moon of my [Page 262] chamber, is the thought of his genius^*. It was from THE PENDENT LIGHT OF THE GLOW-WORM, in the illumined hedge, that he stole the hint; it is thus that, borrowing every happy conception from Nature, he discovers around him the sources of enjoy­ment.

The lamp threw its light on the even wall, and the solitary flame strongly reflected the shadow of his face.—Ye gods! (exclaimed the fond maid) behold two Lycidases! Ye speaking features, can ye not for ever dwell on that wall? then would Lycidas not en­tirely quit me in his absence. How consol­ing even the shadow of what we love! Ly­cidas! thy shade would to me prove a tender companion. Fugitive and cherished shadow! live here when Lycidas roves in the circling mountains!

She took up her sheephook, and affection­ately [Page 263] tracing the shadow of her lover, its sharp iron graved it on the wall. Lycidas turned, and the lines remained unmoved.—He is for ever there! (exclaimed the enrap­tured Amaryllis.) Lycidas awoke.—Who is here? Amaryllis!—THYSELF, THYSELF! (she cried, in embracing him.) These eyes shall worship thee when thou art on the clifts: whole suns from me, the light shall give me thy presence in the mimic wonder. Behold thy half-closed eye, thy half-opened lips, for ever smiling on that wall! Lycidas looked on the wall and on Amaryllis, and they embraced. Such was the origin of DESIGN^*!

Amaryllis, in the absence of Lycidas, passed many hours in contemplating this FIRST PORTRAIT of Love. But the fami­liarity [Page 264] of enjoyment discovered its imperfec­tions.—Dismal shadow! (she cried) thou pleasest me, because thou resemblest Lyci­das; but Lycidas would not charm me, did he resemble thee! Where is the soft muta­bility of his cheek? Melancholy resemblance of a form of gaiety! Only when Lycidas is dead, will he resemble thee!

She held in her lap a treasury of flowers, which she was assorting to weave into a wreath for Lycidas. She took a ROSE, and continued:—This breathing ROSE is the hue of his cheek: O, Shade! I will place it on thy cheek! This white LILY is like the snow of his forehead: that its splendid white­ness could for ever spread on thine! These blue VIOLETS are the purple of his veins; and she delicately laid them along the neck. And this dark eye of the TULIP is black as his brilliant eye: and she fixed it there!

Entranced, she gazed on the illusive sha­dow: for a moment it was her Lycidas! his beautiful colours lived to her eye. Such [Page 265] was the first essay of COLOURING! The tinted impressions which some of the flow­ers left behind, gave them afterwards a hint to express, from various plants and minerals, that variety of colours which gave birth to the more perfect parts of PAINTING^*!

Seated, in the sultry silence of summer, at the entrance of a grove, they viewed their slocks retired beneath the umbrageous hedges.—Dear Lycidas (said the smiling maid), how amiable the dewy mornings, and the clear moons of summer! I love at noon-tide to lay myself beside some rippling water, and listen to its cooling murmurs mingling with the airy murmurs of a bee: oft as they blend, they lull my spirits with ONE rocking sound, [Page 266] and I catch some half-dream. It is in winter I feel unhappy: the cave our fathers hewed is so round, or so square, one sees the termi­nation of every thing; nothing is left to the imagination. It is not thus in Nature; she never imprisons the eye; all her lines are waved, and varied, and enchanted. How often I sigh when I view nothing of lise and motion before me, but the solitary flame trembling on the opposite wall!

Lycidas replied:—Had I been idle last winter, as thou wert, I too should have been melancholy in the cave. Then I made reeds for summer songs, I added another aperture to my flutes, and I produced a new music. How many hast thou broken in thy first les­sons? Do not mind them, Amaryllis; I am pleased when thou breakest them; for to me it is delightful to amend thy reeds, and to pass my fingers over the places thine have touched.

She kissed Lycidas, and said:—Oh, that our days may be blended, as the AIR we [Page 267] played this morning; two symphonious in­struments yielding but one modulation. The other evening, waiting thy return beside the RIVULET, I thought it were happiness for us to resemble it: when it receives a new stream, the two streams can never be separated; THEY TOUCH, and are FOR EVER UNITED!

And I wish (continued Amaryllis) that we could live in such a grove through the happy circle of the year.

Thou dost nothing but wish, said Lycidas.

Had I such a grove in winter, the aspect of Nature would console me in thy absence. Observe how finely arched is the grove above us by the interwoven boughs; as if placed in a regular order, view the straight trunks of the palm-trees; mark the little openings around, delighting the eye with various views; and here, as we sit, this seems the only entrance of the grove. On the hollow curves of these trees my foot has rested, when I climbed, till I was seated at their summit. One day I ascended, and de­scried [Page 268] thee on the great rock, directing thy goats. I saw thee urging the vagrants home, and often kissing thy hand as thou didst stretch it towards our valley; approaching, thou didst sound thy reed; then my heart bounded with the tender thought, that thou didst remember me when thou thoughtest that I could not see thee!

While the voluble beauty was describing the grove, the eye of Lycidas had intensely followed the objects of her fancy. And now he was lost in reverie. The bunch of grapes he held in his hand remained unplucked; when she ceased, he spoke not; he wandered from thought to thought; he sat in motion­less abstraction.

Art thou disordered, my sweet Lycidas? Not one smile dimples thy cheek; the hea­viness of sleep presses thy lids. Ah! thou lookest on the earth, and not on Amaryllis!

Lycidas, starting from his trance, flung the grapes from his hand in rapture. The crea­tive smile of Enthusiasm lighted up every [Page 269] feature; his eye swam in a liquid fire; a tremor of sensibility vibrated through his frame. Looking on Amaryllis with com­placency, he said—I was only thinking.

And why dost thou think, dear Lycidas? to think is to toil. With thee I never think, I only feel; it is in thine absence I think and suffer. In the enjoyment of thy presence, when I lay my hand on thy beating heart; when I seal my trembling lips on thy soft lips; when I blend my breath with thy breath, it is then I am all sensation. Ah! then should a single thought intervene, I should feel it an interruption of my exist­ence.

Lycidas replied, smiling,—Dost thou not perceive that thou thyself art thinking, while thou prattlest against the labour of thought?

To think with thee, Lycidas, seems no pain; my thoughts embrace thy thoughts, as my arms wind around thy arms. In thine absence only thinking tortures; for since I have known thee, I abhor all that is solitary.

[Page 270] After this conversation Lycidas was con­stantly absent from Amaryllis. He had ever some prompt excuse. A goat was missing; she counted the herd, and the number was just. He fell down the rock, and was lamed; she examined his foot, and it was unmarked by a bruise. He was in pursuit of a night­ingale, but he never brought one home. He had listened hours near a bed of reeds, that his ear might discover a new music; but he still could only play on one kind of reed. The autumn was closing, and his excuses of ab­sence became every day more unsatisfactory.

Amaryllis sat deserted, and her whole soul dreamed of Lycidas. Her melancholy dif­fused itself over every surrounding object. How Nature has suddenly changed! ex­claimed the solitary virgin. She murmured with the murmurs of the rivulet; she sighed with the evening zephyr; she flew to the portrait, and on the face of the shadowy Lycidas, rolled living tears.

The evening return of Lycidas came un­marked [Page 271] by fondness; pensive, weary, and silent; a cold caress, a rapid meal, and a deep slumber. It was now that first she per­ceived how, in the presence of unsocial man, one may find a terrible solitude.

Sometimes she thought of tracking his concealed retreat; yet it was long ere she could persuade herself to abandon, for one day, the flock and the herd. Once she fol­lowed him; in agony she pressed his rapid footsteps on the morning dews; she came to a high rock from whence Lycidas preci­pitated himself with ease to another, and dis­appeared! She returned to the valley to think and to mourn.

At length the habitual reverie of melan­choly thought and desponding curiosity pre­sented a monstrous imagination to her dis­ordered senses; the terrific chimaera that breeds in the delirium of love. She struck her lovely forehead; the pulses of her tem­ples rose, burning, to her touch; her soul [Page 272] sickened, her frame shivered. She felt the pang of JEALOUSY!

She thinks Lycidas may have discovered another Amaryllis: he flies to kiss other cheeks! There are, doubtless, beings like ourselves on this earth: other vallies, other rocks, and other shepherdesses! Ah! if every valley should have its Amaryllis, then is Lycidas for ever lost to me; for all will adore Lycidas, though Lycidas may adore none. Ah, ingrate! capricious as thy goats! were there as many Lycidases, thou wouldst be to me the only Lycidas; for I feel I have but one heart, and one heart can love but once.

Every evening Lycidas found his Ama­ryllis in tears. He said, Why dost thou weep?

Lycidas, canst thou ask why I weep? When thou shakest the flower, dost thou inquire why the trembling dews are scat­tered?

[Page 273] Lovelier than the flowers at thy seat in the grove, has thy Lycidas ever rudely touched thy softness?

Lycidas, those flowers thy hands reared, are faded. Once, in gazing on them, me­thought they had a voice; I heard, or seemed to hear, thou wert then kissing another Ama­ryllis. I turned, in horror, from those flow­ers. How one can cherish and abhor the same object!

Another Amaryllis! (exclaimed Lycidas) Is there another on this earth? I have seen the same plants, and the same animals, reproduce themselves; but never have I seen an infant Amaryllis. I consider thee as A SOLITARY BEAUTY in Nature; there is but one sun, one moon, and one Amaryllis!

Enamouring embraces gave to the virgin's soul a new sensation of felicity; that which, in one day, restores the lost happiness of years^*. Drops of tears rolled on the fine [Page 274] carnation of her cheek.—Still thou weepest! cried Lycidas, kissing them one by one.—Lycidas, these are not like the tears I wept.—Are there, then, two kinds of tears?—What know I, but this, oh, Lycidas! that I could wish for ever to feel the strange delight of these sweet tears.

When Lycidas awoke the succeeding morn­ing, he quitted not Amaryllis as of late. An unanxious sleep restored the serenity of plea­sure; his soul moved in the calm of the pas­sions; his eye and his hand alike caressed; and his voice had the melody of rapture, for he anticipated a new enjoyment.

He spoke.—Feelest thou not the hoary morning with its frosty breath? soon will it come with a naked head spread with un­genial snow: the old year creeps on with the imperfect day. Is not the old year like our old fathers? Thou must quit thy grove.

Alas! if thou forsakest me this winter, the cave will be my sepulchre. Thou must bury me in it, as we buried the father of my father.

[Page 275] Amaryllis! thou shalt no more live in a cave; thou shalt reside in a grove; but it is a grove without leaves. It was for this I quitted thee incessantly. I toiled, till my limbs could scarcely conduct me home; I thought, till even in thy presence my thoughts felt weary.

A smile played on the pensive features of Amaryllis; an indistinct idea rushed across her mind.—Say, what novel miracle has Ly­cidas invented?

Come with me! cried the youth, rising with rapture.

I cannot (said Amaryllis). I once followed thee till I reached the great rock, from whence thou flewest like the eagle that builds its aerie there.

For thee a smoother passage is formed: thou shalt walk over the waters!

What sayest thou! Can the foot repeat its steps on aught but the solid earth?

Lycidas returned to his seat, and said:— [Page 276] I must first inform thee of another discovery. One day, returning to the grove without leaves, I found the rock had disparted. I sought to enter by the lower part; the broad stream opposed. I swam across; but thou canst not swim!

Alas! exclaimed Amaryllis.

I sat dejected on the banks. As my eye reached the grove without leaves, I sighed. A long-tailed BIRD now flew across the stream. It floated in air by the undulations of its tail. Till then I had never observed the manner of its flight: but we find every thing, when we are deeply interested in its discovery; and Nature—.

Proceed, proceed! (cried the impatient Amaryllis) thou art too fond of reflections.

I then perceived a large FISH. I observed the sharp fins cutting the wave; its head steadily firm; its tail moving gently from side to side. Suddenly I cried out, I will make a fish! I took planks; I hollowed the [Page 277] trunk of a tree to bear us within, as if we were the entrails of the fish. I constructed the head ^*, and the tail ^†, and I made two fins ^‡: but then I found I could not direct the motion against the winds; yet the BIRD steered against the winds. I placed two pieces of my vest erect in the fish of wood; and these were the wings ^§. And now, A­maryllis, we can swim like a fish, and fly like a bird. The river wanders but for thee; and thou shalt walk on the surface of the waters ^‖![Page 278]

PART THE SECOND.

LYCIDAS now conducted Amaryllis to the banks of the river. She raised her hands in wonder at the view of the wooden fish. Tremblingly she entered. Lycidas unfurled the sail; he pushed off the little bark; and now they glide on the stream!

Be it thine, dear partner of my inventions! (said the first navigator) to conduct the tail of the fish.—How proudly it elevates its head! I will give motion to the fins. In mute asto­nishment Amaryllis turned the helm. She looked around, and then exclaimed,—Ly­cidas! lo, the mountains and the valleys move! the earth itself wondering at thy happy audacity, rises to pursue us, fugitives from our native soil!

Thou ever yieldest to thy fancy, Amaryl­lis! [Page 280] The earth moves not, but we move.—Ah, Lycidas! if, in returning to our che­rished home, I find all departed from us! where shall I look for our sheep and our goats, if the mountains can leap into the river? Art thou certain the earth moves not? Surely what mimics motion so well, has motion!

Like thee I thought, Amaryllis, when I first quitted the shore: like thee, astonished, I beheld the mountains tremble, and the val­lies glide! My heart coiled within me. Im­patiently I gained the shore; I grasped it in eager joy; I kissed it, I wept over it: Che­rished earth! (I cried) on which my Ama­ryllis treads, never shall my feet again wan­der. But soon I found it had never moved.

Amaryllis now, watching the motion of the oars, was again rapt in wonder. The light water-drops, falling from the raised oars, excited her first attention. She desired to examine them.—I thought (she said) thy fins had white feathers; they glittered like [Page 281] the loose plumage of the dove, scattered by the winds.—How thou fanciest all thou viewest! they are but the shining drops of water falling in the sunbeam, and glittering as they fall^*.

And now she wondered at the oars in the water. Leaning on one side, the little bark overset, and the two first navigators fell into the stream. Lycidas with one arm embraces the fainting Amaryllis, and with the other steers along the waves; he sustains her droop­ing head; and toiling in the river, exhaust­ed, gains the opposite bank. The touch of the solid earth restores him; he stretches the recovering beauty on the velvet turf; he awakens life by the warmth of his kisses; and when her relumed eyes open, the first object they rested on were the eyes of Ly­cidas. His tender embraces quell her fugi­tive terrors. The boat floated slowly to­wards them.

[Page 282] See, Amaryllis! the wooden fish follows us: it was thy error in trusting all thy weight on one side: did I not tell thee we were as the entrails of the fish? I viewed thy deep atten­tion; thou didst look so beautiful with the fullness and softness of thine eyes, that in gazing on thee, I forgot the danger.

Lycidas, well might I gaze; I viewed an­other wonder in the stream. The two fins which thou didst lift in the air were straight, but moving in the water, they were bent and doubled.

Thou errest, Amaryllis; behold them!—He plunged them into the stream; and the oar, straight in the air, was bent in the wa­ter! He drew them out and examined them; then looked on the oars, and then on Ama­ryllis. Her eye was full of fearful wonder.—These are things (said Lycidas, recovering from his alarm) which the gods only under­stand!

Amaryllis, by the tender solicitude of Ly­cidas, had received no other ill than the alarm [Page 283] of the sudden plunge into the stream. He wrung the water from her fine tresses, he kissed the drops hanging on her lids, and shook the wet from their dress. The sun darted along an azure heaven; they gave no thought to the past, but proceeded, pur­suing each other in sport.

They reached a deep and luxuriant val­ley; embosomed among the circling hills, it seemed, even in Arcadia, as if Nature had sought to conceal the spot she fondly em­bellished. In the centre, another miracle arrested the rapid steps of Amaryllis; she felt the same sensation the polished European even now feels at the view of a pyramid. It was indeed but a rude edifice. THE FIRST HOUSE! the origin of ARCHITECTURE!

They entered. Amaryllis walked around, ascended, returned, and reascended. She spoke only with the interjections of sur­prise and admiration. Lycidas explained the scene.

What thou viewest, Amaryllis, is for thy [Page 284] winter residence. The cavern confined the fancy of thine eye; I therefore raised this abode on the bosom of the earth itself, that thus thou mayst question Nature from hour to hour, and face to face. Thy conversation in the grove inspired the invention. This abode is but a grove despoiled of its foliage. Behold the straight trunks of the palm trees^*! view the vaulted arch the grove formed with its intermingled boughs^†. I have hewed the resting places thy foot found on the trunks of trees, and the apertures around, which so­laced thine eye^‡. Thou didst observe the grove had but one proper entrance, behold it! thou canst find no admittance but between these OPEN PILES^§. And all this I call a grove without leaves ^‖.

[Page 285] This is but the first rude pile my hands have reared, like the first shade thou didst trace of my features: when thou didst dis­cover the colouring, thou wert sensible of the imperfection. I foretel new improvements; sublime ideas inflame my soul; and this imi­tation of Nature shall still be enriched by ornaments, which shall endear this rude edi­fice, and make it, THE HOUSE OF THE HEART!

[Page 286] That day they delightfully wandered in this first house. Returning to the boat, Amaryllis promised to give no other motion to the fish of wood, than the quiet action of the tail, or rudder. While she grasped it in her slender hand, she kept her eyes on the full-orbed moon, and sometimes stole a trem­bling glance on Lycidas. Smiling, he said, Amaryllis, thou mayest move thine eyes; and if thou smilest on me, the oars will play more freely.—May I move my eyes, Lycidas? Ah! how sweetly is thy face silvered over by the moon! how its beams break along the glit­tering waves! When the surface of the wa­ters is but lightly touched, the moon looks as if it were swimming through the river; when unruffled, its silvery body seems to sleep along its liquid bed. How musically soft the sound of thy cadenced oars dropping in the stream! How wondrous and how sweet is all! Oh, Lycidas! till now I never found a path in the stream; surely the silence on the waters is more awful than the silence on the earth!

[Page 287] Returned to their valley, they found they had been missed. The bleating sheep, from all parts, uttered their small voices of com­plaint. It was the first day their tender pas­toress had deserted. To want her affection, was to them to suffer a revolution in nature. Some had straggled to the borders of the val­ley, and trembled in the foreign path; some lie panting, and extenuate; while some sat alone, desolated, knowing not where to go, since now there was no one to follow. Not thus with the goats: they fiercely butted at each other; now ran in circles, now wildly wandered up their native rocks; every where the spirit of revolt prevailed, exulting in a dangerous liberty.

That night, and the succeeding day, Ly­cidas consumed in the chace of his rebels; and Amaryllis, in a thousand tender offices, to her soft-hearted family. This was the first trouble their happy occupations had known, and they reflected.

[Page 288] In seeking for NEW ARTS, dear Lycidas, we neglect those of daily use.

Ah! (replied the inventive goatherd, with the ardency of genius) I wish I had not the care of goats! Soft Indolence, thou nurse of thought! thou shouldst be my choice: stretched in some waving shade, or by some genial blaze, I would meditate on NATURE; I would arrange the thousand pictures she has painted on my brain, till from them I stole a thousand HINTS to form a thousand ARTS!

My dear Lycidas, much I fear that thy thinking will to thee prove a source of great trouble: the fever of Curiosity scorches thy heart, and thy cheeks lose their vermil ful­ness. I remember, when I pressed my finger on thy cheek, how it sunk in the firm flesh. No more thou dost taste our simple happi­ness; no more thou sportest on the fern heath. Often thou stealest to solitude, and often my kiss awakens thee from a day­dream.

[Page 289] They were now desirous of residing in THE HOUSE. Amaryllis, in quitting the cavern, lamented that she left behind her favourite objects, the portrait of Lycidas, and some beautiful plants which grew at the entrance of the grove.—Care not for my shadow (cried Lycidas to the sorrowing maid), thou canst trace another on the wall of the house; thou knowest my shadow always accompa­nies me.—True! but here thou smilest so enchantingly; every feature so felicitously plays in thy intendering physiognomy. Surely when I drew thee thus asleep, thou wert dreaming one of the dreams of genius; the invention of a new art seems painted on thy face.

In vain Lycidas assured her his features would remain the same in all places: to con­vince her, he laid himself down beside the wall, but essayed in vain to express the same physiognomy. Amaryllis still mourned to leave the shadow of her lover.

This portrait of Lycidas, by having been [Page 290] incessantly traced by the sharp hook of the passionate shepherdess, had gradually become an alto relievo; it stood prominent on the wall. At that moment Lycidas was employed in forming clay to fill up cavities in the boat: half vexed that Amaryllis consumed the hour in idle regrets, he violently struck the ductile earth, in sportive anger, against the protuberant image. Behold another miracle! The argillaceous matter received the full im­pression, and faithfully preserved the physiog­nomy and the atlitude.

Thou hast it now! (exclaimed Lycidas) Now will my shadow wander with thee wherever thou rovest! And this was the first effort of SCULPTURE!

Behold ANOTHER ART! (cried Amaryllis.) Now I feel but one regret—to abandon the cherished plants that live where the grove opens.

Beautiful inspirer of my inventions! in vain my talent toils to reach thy fancy. Thou meritest that I should bid the flowers start [Page 291] into birth beneath thy foot, colouring thy steps. But man cannot create, he can only imitate.

The first HOUSE was the source of their winter's happiness. It formed the incessant object of Lycidas's meditation; it absorbed his faculties; it was the passion of his ima­gination. Every day some new want prompted the invention of some new tool, and at length he discovered marble. Gradual embellish­ments became visible; and the new orna­ments, which had been insensibly formed, one day struck, with their united graces, the thoughtful eye of Amaryllis. It had ceased to be the same HOUSE, it might have been called a PALACE.

Lycidas (said Amaryllis), I have marked thy constant occupations, and I would not disturb thy happy labours by my com­plaints. The invention of new ARTS costs me the loss of many kisses; but my soul, nou­rishing a spark of thy divine flame, knows how to suffer thy absence even when thou art present. What a scene of enchantment [Page 292] has arisen? Pillars of wood are changed to columns of marble; the foot that sunk in the damp turf, now glides on the smooth pavement: here, elegant beauty rises in a slender form; there, a massy grandeur re­poses, looking its immovability; a certain disposition arranging all, repeating on one side what charms on the other, yet, blending all the parts into one, an uniform variety! But how shall I name that SECRET SOME­THING diffused through the whole; the soul animating this edifice like the LIGHT, which, itself imperceivable, makes all things per­ceived? When our language yields not the fullness of expression, we call one thing by another; and this SOMETHING diffused throughout this edifice, is like music, A SILENT MUSIC; it is harmonious to the eye. My sensations obscure themselves in language: tell me, what is this thou hast raised with the mysterious magic of thy hand?

It is a new art! (replied Lycidas.) The FORMS thou viewest around I found in Na­ture; [Page 293] I discovered them in our own forms; and this ART is a memorial of human AF­FECTION!

Explain thyself! said Amaryllis, with fond­ness and curiosity.

Observe that column opposite.

It is delicacy and lightness!

It is THYSELF!

Lycidas smiled, while the wondering A­maryllis leant over him, contemplating the column with the tremor of delight.

Yes, it is thyself! Raised to thy memory, I gave it the delicacy of the feminine charac­ter ^*. It has all thy gracility; it is a model [Page 294] of a woman with her ornaments. The vo­lutes at its head, twining in spiral lines, re­present thy locks curling beneath thine ear: the deep indented flutings that run down the trunk, imitate the folds of thy flowing dress: the base, which winds like twisted cords, re­sembles thy sandals ^*.—But the columns opposite are richer than mine. What means that beautiful ornament, which looks like a rich foliage, branching from the top^†?

It is designed for what it seems. One day, near the cave, thou didst leave a panicr on a [Page 295] young acanthus; the panier was covered by a tile, and the rich foliage of the plant grew around it; and we admired how thy basket, covered by a tile, had, as it were, become a part of the acanthus itself, forming a new and beautiful object. Examine it; it is but a copy.

Wonderful, Lycidas! but thyself, where art thou?

There (replied the first architect, pointing to a pillar of the Doric order, which is form­ed with the proportions and strength of the body of a man; a naked simplicity rather than a finished elegance^*), mark that plain unadorned column; it was the first I raised^†; [Page 296] it has a rude and primitive simplicity, for one never knows how to ornament a first produc­tion. The origin of the first column was the trunk of a tree; my great difficulty, at first, was to know how high I should make it; the height of the tree was too great, so I proportioned it to my own height. Those long arcades were imagined from a row of trees; and this dome above us, but imitates the vault of heaven.

Divine Artist! thou hast not explained that secret something, that silent music, which so touches and so satisfies the soul!

What thou fancifully callest a silent music, is the effect of a symmetrical proportion. In ART, no inharmonious object is agreeable; all must be balanced. The height must be [Page 297] proportioned to the breadth; the relative parts of a work are measured by the whole, and the whole must be consonant to the parts. Such, Amaryllis, are the concords even in marble!

This I learnt from Nature, for it is exhi­bited in the human form; there we trace an affinity between the soot, the hand, the fin­ger, and all its parts: in every perfect work each individual member should enable us to judge of the magnitude of the work itself. It is thy tapering arms, winding like tendrils round my neck; thy two soul-dissolving eyes; and the regular graces of thy well-propor­tioned form, that enchant. From NATURE and from THEE, I learnt the gradual charm of UNITY in PROPORTION, and UNIFORM­ITY in VARIETY.

Such was the origin of THE ORDERS OF ARCHITECTURE!

It was now spring; the earth was mantled by a verdure, that vested her rather with beauty than with warmth. The echo, sel­dom [Page 298] awakened in the cold season, returned to delight the ear of Amaryllis.

Lycidas had united to the modulation of instrumental, the charm of vocal music. But hitherto they were spontaneous and casual expressions of passion, without measure or design; and, like the origin of human lan­guage, little more than natural ejaculations of the heart. Of late they had taken a new form, something they had of ART, and they became POETRY. He perceived that Ama­ryllis felt an ecstasy of pleasure, when in the snowy season, reclined by the social blaze, he brought to her recollection the scenery of summer. The ideas of the sun, the shades, and the waters, delighted her in the winter; it was the cherished picture of Nature in her absence; and she felt the same pleasure in the vivid description, as when she contem­plated the portrait of Lycidas on their sepa­ration. She called these descriptions painting in thought. Lycidas gradually discovered that his chaunt was susceptible of order, and that [Page 299] it communicated a pleasurable sensation when it solicited the ear by certain pauses and cadences; this produced metre, or BLANK­VERSE. They were exquisitely gratified when they found the art of describing one object by another, as Amaryllis termed it; and this opened an eternal source of meta­phors and images. Yet to this rude, though not unpleasing poetry, was still wanting a pecu­liar charm; that artifice which at once com­bines the pleasing returns of UNIFORMITY with the diversifications of VARIETY.

This appeared when Amaryllis one day, listening to the ECHO, inquired of Lycidas,—What is this mysterious flight that my voice takes? What is ECHO?—It is (said Lycidas) the mirror of the voice!—Then it is not (she continued) the voice itself? The liquid glass that reflects our forms is not a part of our forms!—Be not over-curious, Amaryllis; for thee it is sufficient to sport with the mimic sound. I cannot invent an echo; the gods preserve their own secrets.

[Page 300] The playful echo ever dclights me (said Amaryllis); but when I call on thee, and thou hearest me not, then, in cruel mockery, when I say Lycidas, Lycidas! it only replies, das, das! Thou seest the echo is irrational; for it never answers but by the last syllable.

Ye gods! (exclaimed the enthusiastic Ly­cidas) thou lovest the repeating accent of the echo. I can invent an echo! I will close my verses with a reverberating sound. Every line was now answered by an echoing line. Such was the origin of RHIME^*!

It was in the luxuriance of summer that Amaryllis perceived her abode had still some wants. This spot, selected by Lycidas for its amenity and the forest trees, was not stored with rural luxuries. Lycidas passed many hours in returning to their ancient cavern for its neighbouring fruits. Every day he toiled [Page 301] beneath a panier filled with the Arcadian food; but whenever he neglected to bring a copious lap of the freshest flowers, Ama­ryllis tenderly chided him: and oft with a sigh complained to Lycidas, that their trees were without fruit, and their soil without flowers.

She had lamented so frequently that he never brought sufficient roses and hyacinths, that one day, having found a rose-tree whose roots had been loosened in the soil, he easily extracted it, and threw it at the feet of Ama­ryllis. She exclaimed:—Beauteous family of flowers, ye will all perish at once! For your violated and tender society, severed from your natal spots, pine in a foreign air; while ye yield your soothing odours, no ma­ternal earth will supply you with new sources of existence; every breath of air ye fill with sweetness, and in every breath ye are dying: prodigal of your cherished existence, a tender regret disturbs us in the moment of pleasure. Lycidas, I will bury them in the sod that covers the lamb we buried last week.

[Page 302] She made a cavity in the earth, in which she deposited the rose-tree. The transplanted roses struck their roots in the soil; the bush flourished to their wondering eye, and graced their habitation with its solitary beauty. An­other discovery! more roses and more hya­cinths! Every pleasing plant they met in their walks became domiciliated; they passed hours in herbalising; and in the succeeding summer the forest air was sweetened with new odours, and a FLOWER-GARDEN em­bellished their solitude^*.

But to have thus accidentally discovered the arts of planting and transplanting, was not sufficient for the propagation of their trees. [Page 303] Their horticulture was still imperfect. They perceived, with equal disappointment and sur­prise, that the vines most luxuriant in leaves, were barren; while others, of thinner foliage, were prodigal of fruit. Amaryllis wondered, and Lycidas reflected. He observed that the vine, yielding the most abundant fruit, was one which a favourite goat was allowed to browze. He observed; he meditated; he stole the hint. He lopped the branches of the vines. And it was the GOAT who first shewed to MAN the ART OF PRUNING.

The procuring of wild honey from the cavities of old trees and the clefts of rocks, was often an uncertain pursuit and an insuf­ficient resource. Another inquietude, an­other want, another invention!

They watched a little populace of soraging bees busy on their ambrosial repast, spoiling the farina of flowers or pressing the tops of the stamina, and thus anticipating the cau­tious oeconomy of Nature. The amusing sound! when they plunge their little velvet [Page 304] heads in the calix of a flower, and pierce through the resisting petal, while the sudden silence expresses the ardent pillage. Did they track the vagrants to their waxen tower? There, a new idea of SOCIETY gave a sub­lime emotion to our two solitaries. They traced order in a multitude; they viewed a city and its inhabitants; and, with a deli­cious joy, Amaryllis discovered the queen­bee. She exclaimed, in contemplating their symmetrical, solid, and convenient cells; those finely planned edifices for thousands of the living,—Lycidas, thou must acknowledge the architecture of the little bees is more wonder­ful than thine.—It is more perfect (replied Lycidas); for these fabrics are just adapted to their inmates, while in our palace there are a hundred things to add and to amend.

They instructed themselves in the HUMAN PASSIONS (of which they were strangers to many) in meditating on this society. Innu­merable offices of affection penetrated their hearts with the sensibility of humanity.

[Page 305] Lycidas having observed that the bees were ever settling on aromatic plants, on the thyme, the rosemary, the sage, and rested long on the flowers of the lime, he planted, on the southern steep of his valley, nume­rous beds of balmy flowers, and odoriferous herbs.—Want (said Lycidas), and not caprice, urges their restless flight; they are not vola­tile, but diligent. I can afford the wanderers a resting spot; perhaps they may make it a home; and we will interchange our mutual industry.

What he imagined, succeeded. The ex­plorers of sweets soon discovered the new world; the aromatic land inspired a thou­sand adventurers, who, constant to pleasure, knew no other native spot, than where plea­sure was found. The queen followed the co­lony; they then built their cells, and peopled, with dark clusters, the pendent boughs. The voice of the bee was musical beneath the solitary heaven of our lovers. Such was [Page 306] the origin of an APIARY, or BEE GAR­DEN^*!

They had now much advanced in the art of painting; but as they only employed their pencils from a spirit of gaiety, and a passion for decoration, the sublime inventions of the art were not yet conceived; the ideal was unknown, but the exactest imitation was practised. They knew well to copy the purple bloom of the fruit as it hung on the tree, and the brilliant tint of the flower, as it caught the sunbeam on its native stalk. They had mutually attempted to paint their own portraits; but the progress of such an elaborate piece had ever been interrupted by the tedious labour of the unskilled artist and the restlessness of the lively model. With more success they copied animals and insects. [Page 307] But LOVE had inspired Lycidas to adorn the corner of the apartment occupied by Ama­ryllis. There he continually sketched the thousand capricious images dancing in his brain. The curious wall was gradually cover­ed with fantastic forms, and exhibited a con­stant spectacle of fancy. Now the bower of Amaryllis was there elegantly festooned, and the tendrils of vines were happily flourished by a stroke of the pencil; now, as his hu­mour prompted, the fibres of the leaves were transparently laboured, while, on a delicate stem, hung the finished petal of an unfinished flower: sometimes he copied a silken white fillet, with which Amaryllis circled her head­dress, binding it with scarlet flowers, glowing in the midst of their green leaves; sometimes he laboriously finished chimerical figures, which partly resembled human forms, but frequently terminated in that of some ani­mal, or wore some ridiculous disproportion, provoking laughter; and sometimes the face of the volatile Amaryllis ending with the [Page 308] plumage of a bird, or the mottled wings of a butterfly. It was now a torrent foaming on rocks, and now a rivulet shaded with elms, whose silvery line was poured through the transparent umbrage. Every object they admired in their walks, on his return was sketched or finished on the wall. 'Twas now a tree, a prospect, or the clouds! But the Loves and the Graces often guided his deliriums of imagination, and the wall re­corded the short annals of their lives, and pictured the epochas of his various inven­tions. There, were seen the first oversetting of the fish of wood; there himself breathing his first flute, and Amaryllis sketching his first shade. The fantastic scenery, airy or solemn, sketched or elaborate, inspired mirth, fancy, and love. Such was the origin of the playful ARABESQUES, Or GROTESQUE PAINTINGS^*.

[Page 309] Around their house was an ornamented scenery; but as they sometimes bewildered themselves in the neighbouring valleys, or were desirous of indicating some particular spot, they invented LOCAL NAMES, which were derived from some circumstance. One place was distinguished by the Kiss; and an­other, where Amaryllis, in eluding Lycidas, as he chaced the laughing fugitive, tumbled down the hill, was called the Fall; a fine walk near the lake, through hedges of the arbutus, was known by the name of the Strawberry Walk; and a valley, luxuriant in [Page 310] flowers, by the title of the Summer Seat. There was a favourite spot called the Ruins of May. One morning in that month Ama­ryllis lay there asleep; Lycidas passed, and observed the indolent maid. He hastened to the hedges, which were then in full flower, and despoiled them; and having gathered a panier full of May blossoms, he quietly co­vered the sleeping beauty with their fragrant snows. She awoke in a cloud of steaming odours, while her pleasure-twinkling eye wondered at the flowery vest that covered her. Chiding her playful lover for this waste of the young year, the fact was re­corded in the name given to the place, thence called "The Ruins of May." A similar origin is that of most LOCAL NAMES.

What now remained to perfect the felicity of our two solitaries? Their earth was tinted with brilliant flowers; their trees bowed their branches with delicious fruit; their air was musical with the volant bee; they glided on the river with a happy audacity; the melo­dies [Page 311] of the nightingale were in their flutes; the consolation of absence was found in the pictured form, and the gaiety of a playful pencil embodied their fantastic imaginations; the charm of an artificial echo resounded in their verses, while they traced in their palace the columns which memorised their affec­tions. The enchanting miraclcs of ART long fascinated their eye, vibrating in their hearts the tranquil emotions of beauty; while the innocent voluptuousness which Nature threw around them, solicited their enjoyment. Often they now turned from the productions of Nature and of Art, to gaze on each other: an interior sensation, an unknown desire, a querulous anxiety, existed in their hearts, and every day their felicity was diminished.

One day, as they sat beside an expansive lake, they beheld TWO SWANS sailing on the stream; images of majesty, of grace, and of peace! Our lovers reclined, admiring each form of elegance, and the luminous white­ness of their plumage, and all the variety [Page 312] and freedom of their animated attitudes. The male was intent to attract the admira­tion of the female; anxious to discover the concealed graces of his beauty, yet anxious with pride. He arranges his splendid plu­mage; he throws the trailing water from his beak along his shining back and over his freshened wings with the fond solicitude of that being who knows the pleasure of being loved. All his figure respires voluptuous­ness. He approaches her; he flaps his pi­nions, and the feathery snow sparkles. With a preluding caress, they wind their sinuous necks around each other; their wings yield a confused sound, and some white feathers fall on the disturbed lake. A continued em­brace unites them. They pursue each inter­change of delight; they feel all the shades of sensibility, and faint in the ebriety of the senses. At length the male is no more ma­jestic; he is only tender, and lies indolently along the trembling waters. Again the fe­male returns to her lover; again inflames [Page 313] him; again incites his last ardours; and only quits him, reluctantly, but to plunge into the stream, and to extinguish the fires that still glow in her agitated form^*.

When the LOVERS had gazed on the af­fectionate SWANS, they turned to each other, and sighed. Lycidas snatched some feathers of the swans as they floated by them, and kissed them.—How they know (he cries) to love, and to render their love the source of their felicity! O, Amaryllis! why is not the sense of our existence the sense of our happiness! Shall we become old without having known enjoyment?

Children of Nature! the universal parent prepares for ye the maturity of happiness! she gives ye the soft pains ye now suffer, to render the fine pleasures she will bestow on ye, more exquisite and pure. It is only in a [Page 314] corrupt society curiosity anticipates passion; the energy of passion irritates your senses, but ye do not irritate your senses to obtain the energy of passion. SOULS OF CHASTITY! when YE meet ye know yourselves WORTHY OF EACH OTHER; your FIRST EMBRACE is the prelude of ETERNAL CONFIDENCE, and your VOLUPTUOUSNESS is in proportion to your VIRTUE!