This was the doom for a Moslem found

With foot profane on their holy ground,
This was for sullying the pure waves free
Unto them alone-'twas their God's decree.

A change came o'er his wandering look--
The mother shriek'd not then, nor shook :
Breathless she knelt in her son's young blood,
Rending her mantle to staunch its flood;

But it rush'd like a river which none may stay,
Bearing a flower to the deep away.

That which our love to the earth would chain,
Fearfully striving with Heaven in vain,

That which fades from us, while yet we hold,
Clasp'd to our bosoms, its mortal mould,

Was fleeting before her, afar and fast;

One moment--the soul from the face had pass'd!

Are there no words for that common wo?

--Ask of the thousands, its depth that know!

The boy had breathed, in his dreaming rest,

Like a low-voiced dove, on her gentle breast;

He had stood, when she sorrow'd, beside her knee,
Painfully stilling his quick heart's glee;

He had kiss'd from her cheek the widow's tears,

With the loving lip of his infant years;

93

He had smil'd o'er her path like a bright spring-day—

Now in his blood on the earth he lay!

Murder'd!-Alas! and we love so well

In a world where anguish like this can dwell!

She bow'd down mutely o'er her dead-
They that stood round her watch'd in dread;

They watch'd-she knew not they were by-
Her soul sat veil'd in its agony.

On the silent lip she press'd no kiss,

Too stern was the grasp of her pangs for this;

She shed no tear as her face bent low,

O'er the shining hair of the lifeless brow;

She look'd but into the half-shut eye,
With a gaze that found there no reply,
And shrieking, mantled her head from sight,
And fell, struck down by her sorrow's might!

And what deep change, what work of power,
Was wrought on her secret soul that hour?
How rose the lonely one?-She rose
Like a prophetess from dark repose!
And proudly flung from her face the veil,
And shook the hair from her forehead pale,
And 'midst her wondering handmaids stood,
With the sudden glance of a dauntless mood.
Ay, lifting up to the midnight sky

A brow in its regal passion high,

With a close and rigid grasp she press'd
The blood-stain'd robe to her heaving breast,
And said "Not yet-not yet I weep,

Not yet my spirit shall sink or sleep,

Not till yon city, in ruins rent,

Be piled for its victim's monument.

--Cover his dust! bear it on before!

It shall visit those temple-gates once more."

And away in the train of the dead she turn'd,
The strength of her step was the heart that burn'd;
And the Bramin groves in the starlight smil'd,

As the mother pass'd with her slaughter'd child.

Thro' the woods round the Indian city borne,

A peal of the cymbal and tambour afar

War! 'tis the gathering of Moslem war!

The Bramin look'd from the leaguer'd towers

He saw the wild archer amidst his bowers;

And the lake that flash'd through the plantain shade,

As the light of the lances along it play'd ;

And the canes that shook as if winds were high,
When the fiery steed of the waste swept by;

And the camp as it lay, like a billowy sea,
Wide round the sheltering Banian tree.

There stood one tent from the rest apart-
That was the place of a wounded heart.
-Oh! deep is a wounded heart, and strong
A voice that cries against mighty wrong;
And full of death, as a hot wind's blight,
Doth the ire of a crush'd affection light.

Maimuna from realm to realm had pass'd,
And her tale had rung like a trumpet's blast.
There had been words from her pale lips pour'd,
Each one a spell to unsheath the sword.

The Tartar had sprung from his steed to hear,
And the dark chief of Araby grasp'd his spear,
Till a chain of long lances begirt the wall,
And a vow was recorded that doom'd its fall.