| |
(From Thalaba the Destroyer, Book V)
WHAT sound is borne on the wind? | |
| Is it the storm that shakes | |
| The thousand oaks of the forest? | |
| But Thalaba’s long locks | |
| Flow down his shoulders moveless, and the wind | 5 |
| In his loose mantle raises not a fold. | |
| Is it the river’s roar | |
| Dashed down some rocky descent? | |
| Along the level plain | |
| Euphrates glides unheard, | 10 |
| What sound disturbs the night, | |
| Loud as the summer forest in the storm, | |
| As the river that roars among rocks? | |
| |
| And what the heavy cloud | |
| That hangs upon the vale, | 15 |
| Thick as the mist o’er a well-watered plain | |
| Settling at evening when the cooler air | |
| Lets its day-vapors fall; | |
| Black as the sulphur-cloud, | |
| That through Vesuvius, or from Hecla’s mouth, | 20 |
| Rolls up, ascending from the infernal fires. | |
| |
| From Ait’s bitumen-lake | |
| That heavy cloud ascends; | |
| That everlasting roar | |
| From where its gushing springs | 25 |
| Boil their black billows up. | |
| Silent the Arabian youth, | |
| Along the verge of that wide lake, | |
| Followed Mohareb’s way, | |
| Toward a ridge of rocks that banked its side. | 30 |
| There from a cave, with torrent force, | |
| And everlasting roar, | |
| The black bitumen rolled. | |
| The moonlight lay upon the rocks; | |
| Their crags were visible, | 35 |
| The shade of jutting cliffs, | |
| And where broad lichens whitened some smooth spot, | |
| And where the ivy hung | |
| Its flowing tresses down. | |
| A little way within the cave | 40 |
| The moonlight fell, glossing the sable tide | |
| That gushed tumultuous out; | |
| A little way it entered, then the rock | |
| Arching its entrance, and the winding way, | |
| Darkened the unseen depths. | 45 |
| |
| No eye of mortal man, | |
| If unenabled by enchanted spell, | |
| Had pierced those fearful depths; | |
| For mingling with the roar | |
| Of the portentous torrent, oft were heard | 50 |
| Shrieks, and wild yells that scared | |
| The brooding Eagle from her midnight nest. | |
| The affrighted countrymen | |
| Call it the Mouth of Hell; | |
| And ever when their way leads near, | 55 |
| They hurry with averted eyes, | |
| And dropping their beads fast, | |
| Pronounce the Holy Name. | |
| |
