Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 001.djvu/501

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 Caspian. From 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 Muhommedans, 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 character, 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 breathe 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 pile—lights it with the consecrated brand,—

The death-pile illuminates rock and flood with its melancholy radiance—and Hinda, leaning in ghastly agonies against the mast of the skiff, beholds the tall shadowy figure of Hafed revealed before the burning pyre; and, shrieking out, "'tis he!" and springing as if to reach the blaze on which her dying looks are fixed, sinks into the sea,

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