Her first fond hope of Eden blighted, Now among AFRIC’S lunar Mountains,[172] Far to the South the PERI lighted; And sleek’d her plumage at the fountains Of that Egyptian tide—whose birth Is hidden from the sons of earth Deep in those solitary woods, Where oft the Genii of the Floods Dance round the cradle of their Nile, And hail the new-born Giant’s smile.[173] Thence over EGYPT’S palmy groves, Her grots, and sepulchres of Kings,[174] The exil’d Spirit sighing roves; And now hangs listening to the doves In warm ROSETTA’S vale[175]—now loves To watch the moonlight on the wings Of the white pelicans that break The azure calm of MŒRIS’ Lake.[176] ’Twas a fair scene—a Land more bright Never did mortal eye behold! Who could have thought, that saw this night Those valleys and their fruits of gold Basking in Heaven’s serenest light;— Those groups of lovely date-trees bending Languidly their leaf-crown’d heads, Like youthful maids, when sleep descending Warns them to their silken beds;[177]— Those virgin lilies, all the night Bathing their beauties in the lake, That they may rise more fresh and bright, When their beloved Sun’s awake;— Those ruin’d shrines and towers that seem The relics of a splendid dream; Amid whose fairy loneliness Nought but the lapwing’s cry is heard, Nought seen but (when the shadows, flitting Fast from the moon, unsheath its gleam,) Some purple-wing’d Sultana[178] sitting Upon a column, motionless And glittering like an Idol bird!— Who could have thought, that there, even there, Amid those scenes so still and fair, The Demon of the Plague hath cast From his hot wing a deadlier blast, More mortal far than ever came From the red Desert’s sands of flame! So quick, that every living thing Of human shape, touch’d by his wing, Like plants, where the Simoom hath past, At once falls black and withering! The sun went down on many a brow, Which, full of bloom and freshness then, Is rankling in the pest-house now, And ne’er will feel that sun again. And, oh! to see the’ unburied heaps On which the lonely moonlight sleeps— The very vultures turn away, And sicken at so foul a prey! Only the fierce hyæna stalks[179] Throughout the city’s desolate walks[180] At midnight, and his carnage plies:— Woe to the half-dead wretch, who meets The glaring of those large blue eyes[181] Amid the darkness of the streets!