Down glanced that hand, and grasped his

blade;

That sound had burst his waking dream,

As Slumber starts at owlet's scream.

The spur hath lanced his courser's sides;
Away, away, for life he rides:

Swift as the hurled on high jerreed

Springs to the touch his startled steed;

The rock is doubled, and the shore

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Shakes with the clattering tramp no more;

The crag is won, no more is seen

His Christian crest and haughty mien.

'Twas but an instant he restrained

That fiery barb so sternly reined;

'Twas but a moment that he stood,

Then sped as if by death pursued;

VOL. II.

C

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But in that instant o'er his soul

Winters of Memory seemed to roll,

And gather in that drop of time
A life of pain, an age of crime.

O'er him who loves, or hates, or fears,
Such moment pours the grief of years:
What felt he then, at once opprest

By all that most distracts the breast?
That pause, which pondered o'er his fate,

Oh, who its dreary length shall date!

Though in Time's record nearly nought,

It was Eternity to Thought!

For infinite as boundless space

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The thought that Conscience must embrace,

Which in itself can comprehend

Woe without name, or hope, or end.

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The hour is past, the Giaour is gone; And did he fly or fall alone?

Woe to that hour he came or went!

The curse for Hassan's sin was sent

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To turn a palace to a tomb:

He came, he went, like the Simoom, 10

That harbinger of fate and gloom,
Beneath whose widely-wasting breath

The very cypress droops to death

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Dark tree, still sad when others' grief is fled,

The only constant mourner o'er the dead!

The steed is vanished from the stall;

No serf is seen in Hassan's hall;

The lonely Spider's thin grey pall

Waves slowly widening o'er the wall;

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The Bat builds in his Haram bower;

And in the fortress of his power

The Owl usurps the beacon-tower;

1

The wild-dog howls o'er the fountain's brim, With baffled thirst, and famine, grim; 296 For the stream has shrunk from its marble bed,

Where the weeds and the desolate dust are

And flung luxurious coolness round

The air, and verdure o'er the ground.

'Twas sweet, when cloudless stars were bright,

To view the wave of watery light,

And hear its melody by night.

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And oft had Hassan's Childhood played
Around the verge of that cascade;

And oft upon his mother's breast

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That sound had harmonized his rest;

And oft had Hassan's Youth along

Its bank been soothed by Beauty's song;
And softer seemed each melting tone

Of Music mingled with its own.

But ne'er shall Hassan's Age repose

Along the brink at Twilight's close:

The stream that filled that font is fled-
The blood that warmed his heart is shed!

And here no more shall human voice

Be heard to rage, regret, rejoice.

The last sad note that swelled the gale

Was woman's wildest funeral wail:

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