"Go and perform the work, "Let me not longer suffer hope in heaven!"

He turned an eager glance towards the sea, "Come!" quoth the Damsel, and she drove Her little boat to land.

Impatient thro' the rising wave He rushed to meet its way, His eye was bright, his cheek was flushed with joy.

"Hast thou had comfort in thy prayers?" she cried, "Yea," answered Thalaba, "A heavenly visitation." "G.o.d be praised!"

She uttered, "then I do not hope in vain!"

And her voice trembled, and her lips Quivered, and tears ran down.

"Stranger," quoth she, "in years long past "Was one who vowed himself "The Champion of the Lord like thee "Against the race of h.e.l.l.

"Young was he, as thyself, "Gentle, and yet so brave!

"A lion-hearted man.

"Shame on me, Stranger! in the arms of love "I held him from his calling, till the hour "Was past, and then the Angel who should else "Have crowned him with his glory-wreath, "Smote him in anger ... years and years are gone....

"And in his place of penance he awaits "Thee the Deliverer, surely thou art he!

"It was my righteous punishment "In the same youth unchanged and changeless love, "And fresh affliction and keen penitence "To abide the written hour when I should waft "The doomed Destroyer and Deliverer here.

"Remember thou that thy success involves "No single fate, no common misery."

As thus she spake, the entrance of the cave Darkened the boat below.

Around them from their nests, The screaming sea-birds fled.

Wondering at that strange shape Yet unalarmed at sight of living man, Unknowing of his sway and power misused; The clamours of their young Echoed in shriller yells That rung in wild discordance round the rock.

And farther as they now advanced The dim reflection of the darkened day Grew fainter, and the dash Of the out-breakers deadened; farther yet And yet more faint the gleam, And there the waters at their utmost bound Silently rippled on the rising rock.

They landed and advanced, and deeper in Two adamantine doors Closed up the cavern pa.s.s.

Reclining on the rock beside Sate a grey-headed man Watching an hour-gla.s.s by.

To him the Damsel spake, "Is it the hour appointed?" the old man Nor answered her awhile, Nor lifted he his downward eye, For now the gla.s.s ran low, And like the days of age With speed perceivable, The latter sands descend: And now the last are gone.

Then he looked up, and raised his arm, and smote The adamantine gates.

The gates of adamant Unfolding at the stroke Opened and gave the entrance. Then She turned To Thalaba and said "Go in the name of G.o.d!

"I cannot enter,... I must wait the end "In hope and agony.

"G.o.d and Mohammed prosper thee, "For thy sake and for ours!"

He tarried not,... he past The threshold, over which was no return.

All earthly thoughts, all human hopes And pa.s.sions now put off, He cast no backward glance Towards the gleam of day.

There was a light within, A yellow light, as when the autumnal Sun Through travelling rain and mist Shines on the evening hills.

Whether from central fires effused, Or if the sunbeams day by day, From earliest generations, there absorbed, Were gathering for the wrath-flame. Shade was In those portentous vaults; Crag overhanging, nor the column-rock Cast its dark outline there.

For with the hot and heavy atmosphere The light incorporate, permeating all, Spread over all its equal yellowness.

There was no motion in the lifeless air, He felt no stirring as he past Adown the long descent, He heard not his own footsteps on the rock That thro' the thick stagnation sent no sound.

How sweet it were, he thought, To feel the flowing wind!

With what a thirst of joy He should breathe in the open gales of heaven!

Downward and downward still, and still the way, The long, long, way is safe.

Is there no secret wile No lurking enemy?

His watchful eye is on the wall of rock,...

And warily he marks the roof And warily surveyed The path that lay before.

Downward and downward still, and still the way, The long, long, way is safe; Rock only, the same light, The same dead atmosphere, And solitude, and silence like the grave.

At length the long descent Ends on a precipice; No feeble ray entered its dreadful gulphs, For in the pit profound Black Darkness, utter Night, Repelled the hostile gleam, And o'er the surface the light atmosphere Floated and mingled not.

Above the depth four overawning wings, Unplumed and huge and strong, Bore up a little car; Four living pinions, headless, bodyless, Sprung from one stem that branched below In four down-arching limbs, And clenched the car-rings endlong and aside With claws of griffin grasp.

But not on these, the depths so terrible, The wonderous wings, fixed Thalaba his eye, For there upon the brink, With fiery fetters fastened to the rock, A man, a living man, tormented lay, The young Othatha; in the arms of love, He who had lingered out the auspicious hour Forgetful of his call.

In shuddering pity Thalaba exclaimed "Servant of G.o.d, can I not succour thee?"

He groaned and answered, "Son of Man, "I sinned and am tormented; I endure "In patience and in hope.

"The hour that shall destroy the Race of h.e.l.l, "That hour shall set me free."

"Is it not come?" quoth Thalaba, "Yea! by this omen." And with fearless hand He grasped the burning fetters, "in the name "Of G.o.d!" and from the rock Rooted the rivets, and adown the gulph Hurled them. The rush of flames roared up, For they had kindled in their fall The deadly vapours of the pit profound, And Thalaba bent on and looked below.

But vainly he explored The deep abyss of flame That sunk beyond the plunge of mortal eye, Now all ablaze as if infernal fires Illumed the world beneath.

Soon was the poison-fuel spent, The flame grew pale and dim, And dimmer now it fades and now is quenched, And all again is dark, Save where the yellow air Enters a little in and mingles slow.

Meantime the freed Othatha clasped his knees And cried, "Deliverer!" struggling then With joyful hope, "and where is she," he cried, "Whose promised coming for so many a year...."

"Go!" answered Thalaba, "She waits thee at the gates."

"And in thy triumph," he replied, "There thou wilt join us?" the Deliverer's eye Glanced on the abyss, way else was none....

The depth was unascendable.

"Await not me," he cried, "My path hath been appointed, go ... embark!

"Return to life,... live happy!"

OTHATHA.

But thy name,...

That thro' the nations we may blazon it, That we may bless thee.

THALABA.

Bless the Merciful!

Then Thalaba p.r.o.nounced the name of G.o.d And leapt into the car.

Down, down, it sunk,... down down....

He neither breathes nor sees; His eyes are closed for giddiness His breath is sinking with the fall.

The air that yields beneath the car Inflates the wings above.

Down ... down ... a mighty depth!...

And was the Simorgh with the Powers of ill a.s.sociate to destroy?

And was that lovely mariner A fiend as false as fair?

For still he sinks down ... down....

But ever the uprushing wind Inflates the wings above, And still the struggling wings Repel the rushing wind.

Down ... down ... and now it strikes.

He stands and totters giddily, All objects round, awhile, Float dizzy on his sight.

Collected soon he gazes for the way.

There was a distant light that led his search; The torch a broader blaze, The unpruned taper flames a longer flame, But this was fierce as is the noon-tide sun, So in the glory of its rays intense It quivered with green glow.

Beyond was all unseen, No eye could penetrate That unendurable excess of light.

It veiled no friendly form, thought Thalaba, And wisely did he deem, For at the threshold of the rocky door, Hugest and fiercest of his kind accurst, Fit warden of the sorcery gate A rebel Afreet lay.

He scented the approach of human food And hungry hope kindled his eye of flame.

Raising his hand to save the dazzled sense Onward held Thalaba, And lifted still at times a rapid glance.

Till, the due distance gained, With head abased, he laid The arrow in its rest.

With steady effort and knit forehead then, Full on the painful light He fixed his aching eye, and loosed the bow.

An anguish yell ensued, And sure no human voice had scope or power For that prodigious shriek Whose pealing echoes thundered up the rock.

Dim grew the dying light, But Thalaba leapt onward to the doors Now visible beyond, And while the Afreet warden of the way Was writhing with his death-pangs, over him Sprung and smote the stony doors, And bade them in the name of G.o.d give way.

The dying Fiend beneath him at that name Tossed in worse agony, And the rocks shuddered, and the rocky doors Rent at the voice asunder. Lo ... within....

The Teraph and the fire, And Khawla, and in mail complete Mohareb for the strife.

But Thalaba with numbing force Smites his raised arm, and rushes by, For now he sees the fire amid whose flames On the white ashes of Hodeirah lies Hodeirah's holy Sword.