"I knew not that there liv'd thy father's foe.
"The blessings of the poor for him
"Went daily up to Heaven,

"In distant lands the traveller told his praise; .. "I did not think there liv'd

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"Hodeirah's enemy."

"But I will hunt him through the earth!" Young Thalaba exclaim'd.

Already I can bend my father's bow,

"Soon will my arm have strength

"To drive the arrow-feathers to his heart.

Zeinab replied, "O Thalaba, my child,
"Thou lookest on to distant days,
"And we are in the desert, far from men!"

Not till that moment her afflicted heart

Had leisure for the thought.

She cast her eyes around,

Alas! no tents were there

Beside the bending sands;

No palm tree rose to spot the wilderness.

The dark blue sky clos'd round,

And rested like a dome

Upon the circling waste.

She cast her eyes around,

Famine and Thirst were there..

The Mother bowed her head,

And wept upon her child.

A sudden cry of wonder
From Thalaba arous'd her;

She rais'd her head, and saw

Where high in air a stately palace rose. Amid a grove embower'd

Stood the prodigious pile;

Trees of such ancient majesty

Tower'd not on Yemen's happy hills, Nor crown'd the stately brow of Lebanon. Fabric so vast, so lavishly enrich'd,

For Idol, or for Tyrant, never yet

Rais'd the slave race of man,

In Rome, nor in the elder Babylon,
Nor old Persepolis,

Nor where the family of Greece
Hymn'd Eleutherian Jove.

Here studding azure tablatures

And ray'd with feeble light,

Star-like the ruby and the diamond shone:
Here on the golden towers

The yellow moon-beam lay,

Here with white splendour floods the silver wall.
Less wonderous pile and less magnificent
Sennamar built at Hirah, though his art
Seal'd with one stone the ample edifice,
And made its colours, like the serpent's skin,
Play with a changeful beauty: him, its Lord,
Jealous lest after effort might surpass

The now unequall'd palace, from its height
Dash'd on the pavement down.

They enter'd, and through aromatic paths
Wondering they went along.

At length, upon a mossy bank,

Beneath a tall mimosa's shade,

Which o'er him bent its living canopy,
They saw a man reclin❜d,

3

Young he appear'd, for on his cheek there shone The morning glow of health,

And the brown beard curl'd close around his chin.
He slept, but at the sound

Of coming feet awaking, fix'd his eyes
In wonder, on the wanderer and her child.

"Forgive us," Zeinab cried,

"Distress hath made us bold.

"Relieve the widow and the fatherless!
"Blessed are they who succour the distrest;
"For them hath God appointed Paradise."

He heard, and he look'd up to heaven,
And tears ran down his cheeks:

"It is a human voice!

"I thank thee, O my God! ...

"How many an age hath past

"Since the sweet sounds have visited my ear! "I thank thee, O my God,

"It is a human voice!"

To Zeinab turning then he cried,

"O mortal, who art thou

"Whose gifted eyes have pierced

The shadow of concealment that hath wrapt

"These bowers, so many an age,
"From eye of mortal man?
"For countless years have past,

"And never foot of man

"The bowers of Irem trod,..

"Save only I, a miserable wretch

"From Heaven and Earth shut out!"

Fearless, and scarce surpriz'd,

For grief in Zeinab's soul

All other feebler feelings overpower'd,

She answer'd, " Yesterday

"I was a wife belov❜d,

"The fruitful mother of a numerous race. "I am a widow now,

"Of all my offspring this alone is left.

"Praise to the Lord our God,

"He gave, he takes away!"

Then said the stranger, "Not by Heaven unseen, "Nor in unguided wanderings hast thou reach'd