Your houris also have a natural pleasure In lopping off your lately married men, Before the bridal hours have danced their measure And the sad, second moon grows dim again, Or dull Repentance hath had dreary leisure To wish him back a bachelor now and then: And thus your Houri (it may be) disputes Of these brief blossoms the immediate fruits. CXIV. Thus the young Khan, with Houris in his sight, Thought not upon the charms of four young brides, But bravely rushed on his first heavenly night. In short, howe'er _our_ better faith derides, These black-eyed virgins make the Moslems fight, As though there were one Heaven and none besides-- Whereas, if all be true we hear of Heaven And Hell, there must at least be six or seven. CXV. So fully flashed the phantom on his eyes, That when the very lance was in his heart, He shouted "Allah!" and saw Paradise With all its veil of mystery drawn apart, And bright Eternity without disguise On his soul, like a ceaseless sunrise, dart:-- With Prophets--Houris--Angels--Saints, descried In one voluptuous blaze,--and then he died,--[io] CXVI. But with a heavenly rapture on his face. The good old Khan, who long had ceased to see Houris, or aught except his florid race, Who grew like cedars round him gloriously-- When he beheld his latest hero grace The earth, which he became like a felled tree, Paused for a moment from the fight, and cast A glance on that slain son, his first and last. CXVII. The soldiers, who beheld him drop his point, Stopped as if once more willing to concede Quarter, in case he bade them not "aroynt!" As he before had done. He did not heed Their pause nor signs: his heart was out of joint, And shook (till now unshaken) like a reed, As he looked down upon his children gone, And felt--though done with life--he was alone.[470] CXVIII. But 't was a transient tremor:--with a spring Upon the Russian steel his breast he flung, As carelessly as hurls the moth her wing Against the light wherein she dies: he clung Closer, that all the deadlier they might wring, Unto the bayonets which had pierced his young; And throwing back a dim look on his sons, In one wide wound poured forth his soul at once. CXIX. 'T is strange enough--the rough, tough soldiers, who Spared neither sex nor age in their career Of carnage, when this old man was pierced through, And lay before them with his children near, Touched by the heroism of him they slew, Were melted for a moment; though no tear Flowed from their bloodshot eyes, all red with strife, They honoured such determined scorn of Life. CXX.