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(From Lalla Rookh)
THERE stood—but one short league away | |
| From old Harmozia’s sultry bay— | |
| A rocky mountain, o’er the Sea | |
| Of Oman beetling awfully; | |
| A last and solitary link | 5 |
| Of those stupendous chains that reach | |
| From the broad Caspian’s reedy brink | |
| Down winding to the Green Sea beach. | |
| Around its base the bare rocks stood, | |
| Like naked giants, in the flood, | 10 |
| As if to guard the Gulf across; | |
| While on its peak, that braved the sky, | |
| A ruined temple towered, so high | |
| That oft the sleeping albatross | |
| Struck the wild ruins with her wing, | 15 |
| And from her cloud-rocked slumbering | |
| Started—to find man’s dwelling there | |
| In her own silent fields of air! | |
| Beneath, terrific caverns gave | |
| Dark welcome to each stormy wave | 20 |
| That dashed like midnight revellers in,— | |
| And such the strange, mysterious din | |
| At times throughout those caverns rolled,— | |
| And such the fearful wonders told | |
| Of restless sprites imprisoned there, | 25 |
| That bold were Moslem, who would dare, | |
| At twilight hour, to steer his skiff | |
| Beneath the Gheber’s lonely cliff. | |
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