And well the’ Impostor knew all lures and arts, That LUCIFER e’er taught to tangle hearts; Nor, ’mid these last bold workings of his plot Against men’s souls, is ZELICA forgot. Ill-fated ZELICA! had reason been Awake, through half the horrors thou hast seen, Thou never couldst have borne it—Death had come At once, and taken thy wrung spirit home. But ’twas not so—a torpor, a suspense Of thought, almost of life, came o’er the’ intense And passionate struggles of that fearful night, When her last hope of peace and heaven took flight: And though, at times, a gleam of frenzy broke,— As through some dull volcano’s veil of smoke Ominous flashings now and then will start, Which show the fire’s still busy at its heart; Yet was she mostly wrapp’d in solemn gloom,— Not such as AZIM’S, brooding o’er its doom, And calm without, as is the brow of death, While busy worms are gnawing underneath,— But in a blank and pulseless torpor, free From thought or pain, a seal’d-up apathy, Which left her oft, with scarce one living thrill, The cold, pale victim of her torturer’s will. Again, as in MEROU, he had her deck’d Gorgeously out, the Priestess of the sect; And led her glittering forth before the eyes Of his rude train, as to a sacrifice,— Pallid as she, the young, devoted Bride Of the fierce NILE, when, deck’d in all the pride Of nuptial pomp, she sinks into his tide.[140] And while the wretched maid hung down her head, And stood, as one just risen from the dead, Amid that gazing crowd, the fiend would tell His credulous slaves it was some charm or spell Possess’d her now,—and from that darken’d trance Should dawn ere long their Faith’s deliverance. Or if, at times, goaded by guilty shame, Her soul was rous’d, and words of wildness came, Instant the bold blasphemer would translate Her ravings into oracles of fate, Would hail heaven’s signals in her flashing eyes, And call her shrieks the language of the skies!