But soon this balmy freshness fled— For now the steepy labyrinth led Through damp and gloom—’mid crash of boughs, And fall of loosen’d crags that rouse The leopard from his hungry sleep, Who, starting, thinks each crag a prey, And long is heard, from steep to steep, Chasing them down their thundering way! The jackal’s cry—the distant moan Of the hyæna, fierce and lone— And that eternal saddening sound Of torrents in the glen beneath, As ’twere the ever-dark Profound That rolls beneath the Bridge of Death! All, all is fearful—e’en to see, To gaze on those terrific things She now but blindly hears, would be Relief to her imaginings; Since never yet was shape so dread, But Fancy, thus in darkness thrown And by such sounds of horror fed, Could frame more dreadful of her own. But does she dream? has Fear again Perplex’d the workings of her brain, Or did a voice, all music, then Come from the gloom, low whispering near— “Tremble not, love, thy Gheber’s here!” She _does_ not dream—all sense, all ear, She drinks the words, “Thy Gheber’s here.” ’Twas his own voice—she could not err— Throughout the breathing world’s extent There was but _one_ such voice for her, So kind, so soft, so eloquent! Oh, sooner shall the rose of May Mistake her own sweet nightingale, And to some meaner minstrel’s lay Open her bosom’s glowing veil,[283] Than Love shall ever doubt a tone, A breath of the beloved one! Though blest, ’mid all her ills, to think She has that one beloved near, Whose smile, though met on ruin’s brink, Hath power to make e’en ruin dear,— Yet soon this gleam of rapture, crost By fears for him, is chill’d and lost. How shall the ruthless HAFED brook That one of Gheber blood should look, With aught but curses in his eye, On her—a maid of ARABY— A Moslem maid—the child of him, Whose bloody banner’s dire success Hath left their altars cold and dim, And their fair land a wilderness! And, worse than all, that night of blood Which comes so fast—oh! who shall stay The sword, that once hath tasted food Of Persian hearts, or turn its way? What arm shall then the victim cover, Or from her father shield her lover?