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Hoarded the precious element.

Not all he took, but in the large nest left

Store that sufficed for life;

And journeying onward blest the Carrier Bird, And blest, in thankfulness,

Their common Father, provident for all.

With strength renew'd, and confident in faith;
The son of Hodeirah proceeds;
Till after the long toil of many a day,

At length Bagdad appear'd,

The City of his search.

He, hastening to the gate,

Roams o'er the city with insatiate eyes;
Its thousand dwellings, o'er whose level roofs
Fair cupolas appear'd, and high-domed mosques,
And pointed minarets, and cypress groves,
Every where scatter'd in unwithering green.

Thou too art fallen, Bagdad! City of Peace,
Thou too hast had thy day!

And loathsome Ignorance, and brute Servitude,
Pollute thy dwellings now,

Erst for the Mighty and the Wise renown'd. illustrious for remember'd fame,

O yet

Thy founder the Victorious, and the pomp
Of Haroun, for whose name by blood defil'd,
Yahia's, and the blameless Barmecides',
Genius hath wrought salvation; and the years
When Science with the good Al-Maimon dwelt;
So one day may the Crescent from thy Mosques
Be pluck'd by Wisdom, when the enlighten'd arm
Of Europe conquers to redeem the East!

Then Pomp and Pleasure dwelt within her walls;
The Merchants of the East and of the West
Met in her arch'd Bazars;

All day the active poor

Shower'd a cool comfort o'er her thronging streets; Labour was busy in her looms;

Through all her open gates

Long troops of laden Camels lin❜d her roads,

And Tigris on his tameless current bore
Armenian harvests to her multitudes.

But not in sumptuous Caravansery

The adventurer idles there,

Nor satiates wonder with her pomp and wealth;
A long day's distance from the walls
Stands ruined Babylon!

The time of action is at hand;

The hope that for so many a year
Hath been his daily thought, his nightly dream,
Stings to more restlessness.

He loaths all lingering that delays the hour
When, full of glory, from his quest return'd,
He on the pillar of the Tent belov'd

Shall hang Hodeirah's sword.

The many-colour'd domes

Yet wore one dusky hue;
The Cranes upon the Mosque

Kept their night-clatter still;

When through the gate the early Traveller past. And when at evening o'er the swampy plain The Bittern's boom came far,

Distinct in darkness seen,

Above the low horizon's lingering light

Rose the near ruins of old Babylon.

Once from her lofty walls the Charioteer
Look'd down on swarming myriads; once she flung
Her arches o'er Euphrates' conquer'd tide,

And through her brazen portals, when she pour'd
Her armies forth, the distant nations look'd

As men who watch the thunder-cloud in fear,
Lest it should burst above them, She was fallen,
The Queen of Cities, Babylon, was fallen!
Low lay her bulwarks; the black Scorpion bask'd
In the palace courts; within the sanctuary

The She-Wolf hid her whelps.

Is yonder huge and shapeless heap, what once
Hath been the aërial Gardens, height on height
Rising like Media's mountains crown'd with wood,
Work of imperial dotage? where the fane
Of Belus? where the Golden Image now,
Which at the sound of dulcimer and lute,
Cornet and sackbut, harp and psaltery,
The Assyrian slaves ador'd?

A labyrinth of ruins, Babylon

Spreads o'er the blasted plain :

The wandering Arab never sets his tent

Within her walls; the Shepherd eyes afar
Her evil towers, and devious drives his flock.
Alone unchanged, a free and bridgeless tide,
Euphrates rolls along,

Eternal Nature's work.

Through the broken portal,
Over weedy fragments,
Thalaba went his way.

Cautious he trod, and felt

The dangerous ground before him with his bow. The Jackal started at his steps;

The Stork, alarm'd at sound of man, From her broad nest upon the old pillar top, Affrighted fled on flapping wings;

The Adder, in her haunts disturb'd,

Lanced at the intruding staff her arrowy tongue.

Twilight and moonshine dimly mingling gave

An awful light obscure,

Evening not wholly clos'd,

The Moon still palé and faint.

An awful light obscure,

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