But yester-eve, so motionless around, So mute was this wide plain, that not a sound But the far torrent, or the locust bird[102] 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 Of laden camels and their drivers’ songs;—[103] Ringing of arms, and flapping in the breeze Of streamers from ten thousand canopies;— War-music, bursting out from time to time, With gong and tymbalon’s tremendous chime;— Or, in the pause, when harsher sounds are mute, The mellow breathings of some horn or flute, That far off, broken by the eagle note Of the’ Abyssinian trumpet,[104] swell and float. Who leads this mighty army?—ask ye “who?” And mark ye not those banners of dark hue, The Night and Shadow,[105] over yonder tent?— It is the CALIPH’S glorious armament. Roused in his Palace by the dread alarms, That hourly came, of the false Prophet’s arms, And of his host of infidels, who hurl’d Defiance fierce at Islam[106] and the world,— Though worn with Grecian warfare, and behind The veils of his bright Palace calm reclin’d, Yet brook’d he not such blasphemy should stain, Thus unreveng’d, the evening of his reign; But, having sworn upon the Holy Grave[107] To conquer or to perish, once more gave His shadowy banners proudly to the breeze, And with an army, nurs’d in victories, Here stands to crush the rebels that o’er-run His blest and beauteous Province of the Sun. Ne’er did the march of MAHADI display Such pomp before;—not even when on his way To MECCA’S Temple, when both land and sea Were spoil’d to feed the Pilgrim’s luxury;[108] When round him, ’mid the burning sands, he saw Fruits of the North in icy freshness thaw, And cool’d his thirsty lip, beneath the glow Of MECCA’S sun, with urns of Persian snow:[109]— Nor e’er did armament more grand than that Pour from the kingdoms of the Caliphat. First, in the van, the People of the Rock,[110] On their light mountain steeds, of royal stock:[111] Then, chieftains of DAMASCUS, proud to see The flashing of their swords’ rich marquetry;[112]— Men, from the regions near the VOLGA’S mouth, Mix’d with the rude, black archers of the South; And Indian lancers, in white turban’d ranks, From the far SINDE, or ATTOCK’S sacred banks, With dusky legions from the land of Myrrh,[113] And many a mace-arm’d Moor and Mid-sea islander.