an.

shippers have at last been driven to take refuge in an inaccessible rock hanging over the sea, the last solitary link of that stupendous chain of mountains stretching down from the CaspiFrom this den they hold out defiance to the Emir al Hassan; and their chief Hafed, the last hope of Iran, is clothed in the imagination of the terrified Mahommedans, with all the attributes of an infernal spirit. Among his own followers, he is adored for his beauty, his valour, his patriotism, and his piety. The sacred fire is kept constantly kindled on the summit of the cliff all hope of preserving it from extinction is finally gone-but Hafed and his Ghebers have sworn to perish in its flames, rather than submit to the Arabian yoke-a horn is hung over the battlements-and when it is heard

pealing through the solitary cliffs, it is to be the signal of their voluntary doom, and they are then to be mingled with the holy and symbolical element of their worship. The love story, which is of a wild and romantic cha racter, is in some measure instrumental in the final catastrophe. Hafed, one dark midnight, has scaled a solitary tower, in which he believes the Emir sleeps, with the purpose, we suppose, of putting him to death; though we are afterwards inconsistently enough told, that had he found his enemy, he would have spared his life. He there finds Hinda, the young, artless, innocent, and beautiful Arabian maid-whose heart, soul, and senses, are at once fascinated by the adventurous stranger. As yet she knows not whence he comes-whither he goes to what country he belongs. At last he tells her the fatal truth, that he is a Gheber, and that on earth their destinies must be severed. The Emir, meanwhile, ignorant of these nocturnal meetings, laments the decay of his daughter's health and beauty, and sends her in a pinnace to breath the air of her native Araby. He first communicates to her his intention of that night storming, by surprise, the fortress of the Fire-Worshippers, the secret access to which has been betrayed to him by a captive traitor. The pinnace, in a sudden storm, runs foul of a war bark of Hafed, and is captured. Hinda then discovers that her unknown lover is in truth that terrific being whom she had been taught to fear, detest, and abhor; but who now

beams upon her soul in the midst of his devoted warriors, in all the glory of heroism and piety. She informs him that he is betrayed. In all the agony of hopeless love, he sends her, with a chosen guard, in a skiff, away from danger-he sounds the horn of destiny-the Arabs storm the ravine that leads to the cliff-after a direful contest, they prevail-Hafed and one bosom friend alone survive-and drag their wounded bodies to the sacred pyre

the Chief lays his brother, who has just fallen down dead, on the pilelights it with the consecrated brand,

Deep-deep, where never care or pain Shall reach her innocent heart again!" And here, unquestionably, the poem has come to a natural conclusion. But Mr Moore is not of that opinion, and thinks proper to make a Peri sing, "beneath the dark sea," a farewell dirge to "Araby's daughter." This dirge is of course filled with every image with which a Peri living beneath the dark sea may be supposed conversant; and we never recollect to have seen so laborious and cold a piece of mere ingenuity, immediately succeeding a catastrophe, which, though perhaps somewhat extravagant and unnatural, is both passionately conceived and expressed. The mind is left satisfied with the completion of their destiny; theirs was the real and living struggle of high passions, rendered higher by misfortune; and that heart-rending, life-destroying necessity in which they were inextricably bound and delivered up to death, beyond all power of saving intervention, is that which gives to the poem all its human interest, and of which the pervading sense ought not to have been dispelled from our souls by the warblings of any imaginary creature, but should have been left to deepen and increase,-to fade or

ful.

"Light as the Angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness ;-
With eyes so pure, that from their ray
Dark Vice would turn abash'd away,
Blinded like serpents, when they gaze
Upon the emerald's virgin blaze!
Yet, fill'd with all Youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
af other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this!
A soul too, more than half divine,

Where, through some shades of earthly

feeling,

Religion's soften'd glories shine,
Like light through summer foliage steal-
ing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm and yet so shadowy too,
As makes the very darkness there
More beautiful than light elsewhere!"

A striking picture is conveyed in the following six lines, of Hinda listening the approach of her lover's skiff, from her airy tower:

"Ev'n now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way;
Ev'n now thou hear'st the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,
And stretchest down thy arms of snow,
As if to lift him from below!"

Her first interview with her lover, and all her bewildering emotions, are thus described:

"She loves but knows not whom she loves, Nor what his race, nor whence he came ;Like one who meets, in Indian groves,

Some beauteous bird, without a name,
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze
From isles in th' undiscovered seas,
To shew his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes, and wing away!
Will he thus fly-her nameless lover?

Alla forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over
Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,
Alone, at this same witching hour,

She first beheld his radiant eyes Gleam through the lattice of the bower, Where nightly now they mix their sighs;

(For what could waft a mortal there?) Was pausing on his moonlight way To listen to her lonely lay! This fancy ne'er hath left her mind; And though, when terror's swoon had past, She saw a youth of mortal kind,

Before her in obeisance cast,

Yet often since, when he has spoken, Strange, awful words,-and gleams have

broken

From his dark eyes, too bright to bear, Oh! she hath fear'd her soul was given To some unhallowed child of air,

Some erring Spirit cast from heaven, Like those angelic youths of old, Who burned for maids of mortal mould, Bewilder'd left the glorious skies, And lost their heaven for woman's eyes! Fond girl! nor fiend, nor angel he, Who woos thy young simplicity; But one of earth's impassioned sons, As warm in love, as fierce in ire, As the best heart whose current runs Full of the Day-God's living fire!"

There is infinite spirit, freedom, strength, and energy, in that part of the poem where Hinda discovers her lover to be a Gheber,-many fine and delicate touches of genuine pathos, and many bursts of uncontrollable passion. As for example:

death

Hold, hold thy words are

The stranger cried, as wild he flung His mantle back, and show'd beneath

The Gheber belt that round him clung"Here, maiden, look-weep-blush to see All that thy sire abhors in me! Yes-I am of that impious race,

Those Slaves of Fire, who, morn and even, Hail their Creator's dwelling-place Among the living lights of heaven! Yes-I am of that outcast few, To IRAN and to vengeance true, Who curse the hour your Arabs came To desolate our shrines of flame, And swear, before God's burning eye, To break our country's chains, or die! Thy bigot sire-nay, tremble not

He, who gave birth to those dear eyes, With me is sacred as the spot

From which our fires of worship rise! But know-'twas he I sought that night, When, from my watch-boat on the sea, I caught this turret's glimmering light,

And up the rude rocks desperately Rush'd to my prey-thou know'st the restI climb'd the gory vulture's nest. And found a trembling dove within ;Thine, thine the victory thine the sin--If Love has made one thought his own, That vengeance claims first-last-alone! Oh! had we never, never met, Or could this heart ev'n now forget How link'd, how bless'd we might have been, Had fate not frown'd so dark between!

That from its lofty altar shone,-
Though fled the priests, the votaries gone,―
Still did the mighty flame burn on
Through chance and change, through good
and ill,

Like its own God's eternal will,
Deep, constant, bright, unquenchable!”
We shall conclude our extracts with
the following exquisite description of
a calm after a storm, and of Hinda
awaking from a swoon of terror on
board of the war-bark of Hafed; than
which last it is difficult to conceive
any thing of the kind making a nearer
approach to the definite distinctness of
the sister-art of painting.

"How calm, how beautiful comes on
The stilly hour, when storms are gone!
When warring winds have died away,
And clouds, beneath the glancing ray,
Melt off, and leave the land and sea
Sleeping in bright tranquillity,-
Fresh as if day again were born,
Again upon the lap of morn!
When the light blossoms, rudely torn
And scatter'd at the whirlwind's will,
Hang floating in the pure air, still,
Filling it all with precious balm,
In gratitude for this sweet calm;
And every drop the thunder-showers
Have left upon the grass and flowers
Sparkles, as 'twere that lightning gem
Whose liquid flame is born of them!
When, 'stead of one unchanging breeze,
There blow a thousand gentle airs,
And each a different perfume bears,-

As if the loveliest plants and trees
Had vassal breezes of their own,
To watch and wait on them alone,
And waft no other breath than theirs!
When the blue waters rise and fall,
In sleepy sunshine mantling all;
And even that swell the tempest leaves
-Is like the full and silent heaves
Of lovers' hearts, when newly blest-
Too newly to be quite at rest!

Such was the golden hour that broke
Upon the world, when Hinda 'woke
From her long trance, and heard around
No motion but the waters' sound
Rippling against the vessel's side,
As slow it mounted o'er the tide.-
But where is she?-her eyes are dark,
Are 'wilder'd still-is this the bark,
The same, that from Harmosia's bay
Bore her at morn,-whose bloody way
The sea-dog tracks?-No! strange and new
Is all that meets her wondering view.
Upon a galliot's deck she lies,

Beneath no rich pavilion's shade, No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes, Nor jasmine on her pillow laid.

"A precious stone of the Indies, called by the ancients Ceraunium, because it was supposed to be found in places where thunder had fallen," &c.

But the rude litter, roughly spread
With war-cloaks, is her homely bed,
And shawl and sash, on javelins hung
For awning, o'er her head are flung.
Shuddering she look'd around-there lay

A group of warriors in the sun
Resting their limbs, as for that day

Some gazing on the drowsy sea,
Their ministry of death were done.
Lost in unconscious reverie;
And some, who seem'd but ill to brook
That sluggish calm, with many a look
To the slack sail impatient cast,
As loose it flagg'd before the mast."

On looking back to our extracts, we feel that they give a very inadequate idea of the high and varied excellence of Mr Moore's poetry. But from a poem of four long cantos, how is it possible to give any but short and imperfect specimens? Yet though our readers may not be able, from these few passages, to judge of the design and execution of the whole poem, they will at least discover in them the hand of a master, as a judge of painting could, from the smallest shred of a picture, decide on the skill and genius of the artist, though he saw only a bit of colouring, and the contour of a single limb. For our own parts, we are of opinion, that if Mr Moore had written nothing but the Fire-Worshippers, he would have stood in the first rank of living poets. The subject is a fine one, and admirably suited to call forth the display of his peculiar feelings and faculties. His ardent and fiery love of Liberty, his impassioned patriotism, at times assuming the loftiest form of which that virtue is susceptible, and at others bordering upon a vague and objectless enthusiasm,-his admiration of what may be called the virtues of his native land,-valour, courage, generosity, love, and religion; an admiration which occasionally induces him to sympathise with illegitimate or extravagant exercises of such emotions, -his keen and exquisite perception of the striking, the startling, and the picturesque, in incident and situation,his wonderful command of a rich poetical phraseology, sometimes eminently and beautifully happy, and not unfrequently overlaid with too highlycoloured ornament and decoration,his flowing, rapid, and unobstructed versification, now gliding like a smooth and majestic river, and now like a mountain-stream dallying with the rocks, which rather seem to hasten than impede its course ;--all these

powers and qualifications are exhibited in their utmost perfection, throughout the progress of a wild and romantic tale, in which we are hurried on from one danger to another, from peril to peril,-from adventure to adventure, from hope into sudden despair,-from the exaltation of joy into the prostration of misery-from all the bright delusions and visionary delights of love dreaming on the bosom of happiness, into the black, real, and substantial horrors of irremediable desolation,from youth and enjoyment, untamed and aspiring, into anguish, destiny, and death.

Indeed, to us the great excellence of this poem is in the strength of attachment, the illimitable power of passion,-displayed in the character and conduct of Hinda and Hafed,-feelings different in their object, in minds so differently constituted as theirs, but equal in the degree of their intensity. From the first moment that we behold Hinda, we behold her innocent, pure, and spotless; but her heart, her soul, her senses, her fancy, and her imagination, all occupied with one glorious and delightful vision that forever haunts, disturbs, and blesses,-which has, in spite of herself, overcome and subdued what was formerly the ruling emotion of her nature, filial affection, -and which at last shakes the foundation even of the religious faith in which she had been brought up from a child, and forces her to love, admire, and believe that creed, of which there had been instilled into her mind the bitterest abhorrence, till she sees nothing on earth or in heaven but in relation to her devoted hero. Hafed, on the other hand, has had all the energies of his soul roused by the noblest objects, and the imperious demand of the highest duties, before he has seen the divine countenance of Hinda. His soul is already filled with a patriotism which feels that it cannot restore the liberties of his country, though it may still avenge their destruction, with a piety that cannot keep unextinguished the fires sacred to its God, but hopes to preserve the shrine on which they burn unpolluted by profane hands, and finally to perish an immolation in the holy element. He feels that with him any love must be a folly, a madness, a crime; but above all, love to the daughter of the VOL. I.

enemy of his country, his religion, and his God. Yet the divine inspiration, breathed from innocence and beauty, has mingled with his existence; and though there can be no union on earth between them, he wildly cherishes and clings to her image,-shews his devotion, his love, and his gratitude, even after the fatal horn has sounded unto death,—and abandons her in that extremity, only because he must not abandon the holy cause of Liberty and Truth.

And here, we may remark, that our full and perfect sympathy goes with the illustrious Gheber, both in the objects to which he is devoted, and the feelings with which that devotion is displayed. His is no cause of doubtful right of equivocal justice. He is not a rebel dignified with the name of patriot, nor a wild enthusiast fighting in support of an absurd or wicked Faith. He is the last of a host of heroes, who perish in defence of their country's independence ;-the last of an enlightened priesthood, we may say, who wished to preserve the sanctity of their own lofty persuasion against " a creed of lust, and hate, and crime." The feelings, therefore, which he acts upon are universal, and free from all party taint, a vice which, we cannot help thinking, infects several of Mr Moore's shorter poems, and mars their eminent beauty. Perhaps there are a few passages of general declamation, even in this poem, coloured by what some may think party rather than natural feelings; but they are of rare occurrence, and may easily be forgiven to a poet who belongs to a country where pride has long struggled with oppression,-where religion has been given as a reason against the diffusion of political privileges, and where valour guards liberties which the brave are not permitted to enjoy.

Another great beauty in the conduct of this poem is the calm air of grandeur which invests, from first to last, the principal agent, the utter hopelessness of ultimate success, yet the unshaken resolution of death, and the unpalpitating principle of a righteous vengeance. From the beginning we seem to know that Hafed and his Ghebers must die, yet the certainty of their death makes us feel a deeper interest in their life: they move for ever before us, like men under doom; 3 T