"For ever near thee, pale and sorrowing, "Shall for thy sake pronounce my soul forgiven, "And bid the take thy weeping slave to heaven! "Oh yes, I'll fly with thee.

Scarce had she said

These breathless words, when a voice deep and

dread

As that of MONKER, waking up the dead

From their first sleep-so startling 'twas to bothRung through the casement near "Thy oath! thy "oath!"

Oh Heav'n, the ghastliness of that Maid's look!""Tis he," faintly she cried, while terror shook

Her inmost core, nor durst she lift her eyes, Though through the casement, now, nought but the skies

And moon-light fields were seen, calm as before""Tis he, and I am his-all, all is o'er

"Go-fly this instant, or thou art ruin'd too"My oath, my oath, oh God! 'tis all too true, "True as the worm in this cold heart it is"I am MOKANNA's bride-his, Azim, his"The Dead stood round us, while I spoke that vow "Their blue lips echoed it—I hear them now! "Their eyes glar'd on me, while I pledg'd that bowl, "Twas burning blood-I feel it in my soul ! "And the Veil'd Bridegroom-hist! I've seen to"night

"What angels know not of so foul a sight,

66

So horrible-oh! never may'st thou see

"While there lies hid from all but hell and me!

"But I must hence-off, off-I am not thine,

"Nor Heav'n's nor Love's, nor aught that is divine"Hold me not-ha!—think'st thou the fiends that

"sever

"Hearts, cannot sunder hands?-thus, then-for "ever!"

With all that strength, which madness lends the weak,

She flung away his arm; and with a shriek,Whose sound, though he should linger out more

years

Than wretch e'er told, can never leave his ears,Flew up through that long avenue of light, Fleetly as some dark, ominous bird of night, Across the sun, and soon was out of sight!

LALLA ROOKII could think of nothing all day but the misery of these two young lovers. Her gaiety was gone, and she looked pensively even upon FADLADEEN. She felt too, without knowing why, a sort of uneasy pleasure in imagining that AZIM must have been just such a youth as FERAMORZ; just as worthy to enjoy all the blessings, without any of the pangs, of that illusive passion, which too often, like the sunny apples of Istakar, is all sweetness on one side, and all bitterness on the other.

As they passed along a sequestered river after sunset, they saw a young Hiudoo girl upon the bank, whose employment seemed to them so strange, that they stopped their palankeens to observe her. She had lighted a small lamp, filled with oil of cocoa, and placing it in an earthen dish, adorned with a wreath of flowers, had committed it with a trembling hand to the stream, and was now anxiously watching its progress down the current, heedless of the gay cavalcade which had drawn up beside her. LALLA ROOKH was all curiosity;-when one of her attendants, who had lived upon the banks of the Ganges, (where this ceremony is so frequent, that often, in the dusk of the evening, the river is seen glistening all over with lights, like Oton-tala or Sea of Stars,) informed the Princess that it was the usual way, in which the friends of those who had gone on dangerous voyages offered up vows for their safe return. If the lamp sung immediately, the omen was disastrous; but if it went shining down the stream, and continued to bnrn till entirely out of sight, the return of the beloved object was considered as certain,

LALLA ROOKH, as they moved on, more than once looked back, to observe how the young Hindoo's lamp proceeded; and, while she saw with pleasure that it was still unextinguished, she could not help fearing that all the hopes of this life were no better than that feeble light upon the river. The remainder of the journey was passed in silence. She now, for the first time, felt that shade of melancholy, which comes over the youthful maiden's heart, as sweet and transient as her own breath upon a mirror; nor was it till she heard the lute of FERAMORZ, touched lightly at the door of her pavilion, that she waked from the reviere in which she had been wandering. Instantly her eyes were lighted up with pleasure, and, after a few unheard remarks from FADLADEEN upon the indecorun of a poet seating himself in presence of a Princess, every thing was arranged as on the preceding evening, and all listened with eagerness, while the story was thus continued:

WHOSE are the gilded tents that crowd the way,
Where all was waste and silent yesterday?
This City of War, which, in a few short hours,
Hath sprung up here, as if the magic powers
Of Him who, in the twinkling of a star,
Built the high pillar'd halls of CHILMINAR,*
Had conjur'd up, far as the eye can see,
This world of tents and domes and sun-bright ar-

mory

Princely pavilions, screen'd by many a fold

Of crimson cloth, and topp'd with balls of gold;— Steeds, with their housings of rich silver spun, Their chains and poitrels glittering in the sun; And camels, tufted o'er with Yemen's shells, Shaking in every breeze their light-ton'd bells!

But yester-eve, so motionles around,

So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound
But the far torrent, or the locust-birdf
Hunting among the thickets, could be heard ;—
Yet hark! what discords now, of every kind,
Shouts, laughs, and screams are revelling in the
wind!

The neigh of cavalry; the tinkling throngs

*The edifices of Chilminar and Balbec are supposed to have been built by the Genii, acting under the orders of Jan ben Jan, who governed the world long before the time of Adam.

† A native of Khorassan, and allured southward by means of the water of a fountain between Shiraz and Ispahan, called the Fountain of Birds, of which it is so fond that it will follow wherever that water is carried.