She had proceeded thus far in relating the dream to her Ladies, when FERAMORZ appeared at the door of the pavilion. In his presence, of course, every thing else was forgotten, and the continuance of the story was instantly requested by all. Fresh wood of aloes was set to burn in the cassolets;—the violet sherbets[268] were hastily handed round, and after a short prelude on his lute, in the pathetic measure of Nava,[269] which is always used to express the lamentations of absent lovers, the Poet thus continued:— ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The day is lowering—stilly black Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven’s rack, Dispers’d and wild, ’twixt earth and sky Hangs like a shatter’d canopy. There’s not a cloud in that blue plain But tells of storm to come or past;— Here, flying loosely as the mane Of a young war-horse in the blast;— There, roll’d in masses dark and swelling, As proud to be the thunder’s dwelling! While some, already burst and riven, Seem melting down the verge of heaven; As though the infant storm had rent The mighty womb that gave him birth, And, having swept the firmament, Was now in fierce career for earth. On earth ’twas yet all calm around, A pulseless silence, dread, profound, More awful than the tempest’s sound. The diver steer’d for ORMUS’ bowers, And moor’d his skiff till calmer hours; The sea-birds, with portentous screech, Flew fast to land;—upon the beach The pilot oft had paus’d, with glance Turn’d upward to that wild expanse;— And all was boding, drear, and dark As her own soul, when HINDA’S bark Went slowly from the Persian shore.— No music tim’d her parting oar,[270] Nor friends upon the lessening strand Linger’d, to wave the unseen hand, Or speak the farewell, heard no more;— But lone, unheeded, from the bay The vessel takes its mournful way, Like some ill-destin’d bark that steers In silence through the Gate of Tears.[271] And where was stern AL HASSAN then? Could not that saintly scourge of men From bloodshed and devotion spare One minute for a farewell there? No—close within, in changeful fits Of cursing and of prayer, he sits In savage loneliness to brood Upon the coming night of blood,— With that keen second-scent of death, By which the vulture snuffs his food In the still warm and living breath![272] While o’er the wave his weeping daughter Is wafted from these scenes of slaughter,— As a young bird of BABYLON,[273] Let loose to tell of victory won, Flies home, with wing, ah! not unstain’d By the red hands that held her chain’d.