# Felicia Hemans in The New Monthly Magazine Volume 14 1825/The Indian City

The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 14, Pages 574-578
RECORDS OF WOMAN.—NO. IV.
The Indian City.*
Royal in splendour went down the day
On the plain where an Indian City lay,
With its crown of domes o'er the forest high,
Red as if fused in the burning sky,
And its deep groves pierced by the rays that made
A bright stream's way through each long arcade,
Till the pillard vaults of the banian stood
Like torch-lit aisles midst the solemn wood,
And the plantain glittered with leaves of gold,
As a tree midst the Genii-gardens old,
And the cypress pointed a blazing spire,
And the stems of the cocoas were shafts of fire.
Many a white pagoda's gleam
Slept lovely round upon lake and stream,
Broken alone by the lotus-flowers,
As they caught the glow of the sun's last hours
Like rosy wine in their cups, and shed
Its glory forth on their crystal bed.
Many a graceful Hindoo maid
With the water-vase from the palmy shade,
Came gliding light as the Desert's roe,
Down marble steps to the Tanks below;
And a cool sweet plashing was ever heard,
As the molten glass of the wave was stirr'd.
And a murmur, thrilling the scented air,
Told where the Brahmin bow'd in prayer.
There wander'd a noble Moslem boy
Through the scene of beauty in breathless joy;
He gazed where the stately city rose
Like a pageant of clouds in its red repose,
He turn'd where birds through the gorgeous gloom
Of the woods went glancing on starry plume,
He track'd the brink of the shining lake,
By the tall canes feather'd in tuft and brake,
Till the path he chose, in its mazes wound
To the very heart of the holy ground.
And there lay the water as if enshrined In a rocky urn from the sun and wind,
Bearing the hues of the grove on high,
Far down through its dark still purity.
The flood beyond, to the fiery west
Spread out like a metal-mirror's breast,
But that lone bay, in its dimness deep,
Seem'd made for the swimmer's joyous leap,
For the stag athirst from the noontide chase,
For all free things of the wild wood's race.
Like a falcon's glance on the wide blue sky,
Was the kindling flash of the boy's glad eye;
Like a sea-bird's flight to the foaming wave,
From the shadowy bank was the bound he gave;
Dashing the spray-drops cold and white,
O'er the glossy leaves in his young delight,
And bowing his locks to the water's clear— — Alas! he dreamt not that fate was near.
His mother look'd from her tent the while
O'er heaven and earth with a quiet smile:
She, on her way unto Mecca's fane,* Had stay'd the course of her pilgrim train,
Calmly to linger a few brief hours,
In the Brahmin City's glorious bowers;
For the pomp of the forest—the wave's bright fall,
The red gold of sunset—she loved them all.
2.
The moon rose clear in the splendour given
To the deep blue night of an Indian heaven,
The boy from the high-arch'd woods came back—
—Oh! what had he met on his lonely track?
The serpent's glance, through the long reeds bright?
The arrowy spring of the tiger's might?
No!—yet as one by a conflict worn,
With his graceful hair all soil'd and torn,
And a gloom on the lids of his darken'd eye,
And a gash on his bosom—he came to die!
He look'd for the face to his young heart sweet,
And found it, and sank at his mother's feet.
—"Speak to me!—whence doth the swift blood run?
What hath befallen thee, my child, my son?
The mist of death on his brow lay pale,
But his voice just linger'd to breathe the tale,
Murmuring faintly of wrong and scorn,
And wounds from the children of Brahma borne:
This was the doom for a Moslem found,
With foot profane, on their holy ground,
This was for sullying the pure waves free
Unto them alone—'twas their God's decree.
A change came o'er his wandering look—
The mother shriek'd not then, nor shook;
Breathless she knelt in her son's young blood,
Rending her mantle to staunch its flood,
But it rush'd like a river which none may stay,
Bearing a flower to the deep away.
That which our love to the earth would chain,
Fearfully striving with heaven in vain,
That which fades from us, while yet we hold, Clasp'd to our bosoms its mortal mould,
Was fleeting before her, afar and fast—
—One moment—the soul from the face had pass'd.
Are there no words for that common woe?
—Ask of the thousands its depths that know!
The boy had breathed in his dreaming rest,
Like a low-voiced dove, on her gentle breast;
He had stood when she sorrow'd, beside her knee,
Painfully stilling his quick heart's glee;
He had kiss'd from her cheek the widow's tears,
With the loving lip of his infant years;
He had smiled o'er her path like a bright spring-day
Now in his blood on the earth he lay!
Murder’d!—Alas! and such woe can dwell
In a world where we fear not to love so well!
She bow'd down mutely o'er her dead—
They that stood round her watch'd in dread;
They watch'd—she knew not they were by,
Her soul sat veil'd in its agony.
On the silent lip she press'd no kiss,
Too stern was the grasp of her pangs for this;
She shed no tear, as her face bent low
O'er the shining hair of the lifeless brow!
She look'd but into the half-shut eye,
With a gaze that found there no reply,
And shrieking, mantled her head from sight,
And fell, struck down by her misery's might.
And what deep change, what work of power,
Was wrought on her secret soul that hour?
How rose the lonely one?—she rose
Like a prophetess from dark repose!
And proudly flung from her face the veil,
And shook the hair from her forehead pale,
And amidst her wondering handmaids stood,
With the sudden glance of a dauntless mood.
Aye, lifting up to the morn's clear sky,
A brow in its regal passion high,
With a close and rigid grasp she press'd
The blood-stain'd robe to her heaving breast,
And said—"Not yet—not yet I weep,
Not yet my spirit shall sink or sleep,
Not till yon city, in ruins rent,
Be piled for its victim's monument.
—Cover his dust, bear it on before!
It shall visit those temple-gates once more."
And away in the train of the dead she turn'd—
The strength of her step was the heart that burn'd,
And the Brahmin groves to the Orient smiled,
As the mother pass'd with her slaughter'd child.
3.
Hark! a wild sound of the Desert's horn
Through the woods round the Indian City borne,
A peal of the cymbal and tambour afar—
—War! 'tis the gathering of Moslem war!
The Brahmin look'd from the leaguer'd towers—
He saw the wild archer amidst his bowers;
And the lake that flash'd through the plantain shade, As the light of the lances along it play'd;
And the canes that shook as if winds were high,
When the fiery steed of the waste swept by;
And the camp as it lay, like a billowy sea,
Wide round the sheltering banian tree.
There stood one tent, from the rest apart—
That was the place of a wounded heart.
Oh! deep is a wounded heart, and strong;
A voice that cries against mighty wrong;
And full of death, as a hot wind's blight
Doth the ire of a crush'd affection light.
Maimuna from realm to realm had pass'd,
And her tale had rung like a trumpet's blast.
There had been words from her pale lips pour'd,
Each one a spell to unsheath the sword;
The Tartar had sprung from his steed to hear,
And the dark chief of Araby grasp'd his spear,
Till a chain of long lances begirt the wall,
And a vow was recorded that doom'd its fall.
Back with the dust of her son she came,
When her voice had kindled that lightning flame,
She came in the might of a queenly foe,
Banner and javelin and bended bow;
But a deeper power on her forehead sate—
There sought the warrior his star of Fate;
Her eye's wild flash through the tented line
Was hail'd as a spirit and a sign,
And the faintest tone from her lip was caught,
As a sibyl's breath of prophetic thought.
Vain, bitter glory!—the gift of Grief,
That lights up vengeance to find relief,
Transient and faithless!—it cannot fill
So the deep void of the heart, nor still
The yearning left by a broken tie,
That haunted fever of which we die!
Sickening she turn'd from her sad renown,
As a king in death might reject his crown;
Slowly the strength of the walls gave way—
She whither'd faster, from day to day.
All the proud sounds of that banner'd plain,
To stay the flight of her soul were vain;
Like an eagle caged, it had striven, and worn
The frail dust ne'er for such conflicts born,
Till the bars were rent, and the hour was come
For its fearful rushing through darkness home.
The bright sun set in his pomp and pride,
As on that eve when the fair boy died;
She gazed from her couch, and a softness fell
O'er her weary heart with the day's farewell;
She spoke, and her voice in its dying tone
Had an echo of feelings that long seem'd flown.
—She murmur'd a low sweet cradle song,
Strange 'midst the din of a warrior throng,
A song of the time when her boy's young cheek
Had glow'd on her breast in its slumber meek,
But something which breathed from that mournful strain,
Sent a fitful gust o'er her soul again,
And starting as if from a dream, she cried,
—"Give him proud burial at my side!
There by yon lake, where the palm-boughs wave,
Where the temples are fallen, make there our grave."
And the temples fell, though the spirit pass'd,
That stay'd not for victory's voice at last,
When the day was won for the martyr-dead,
For the broken heart, and the bright blood shed.
Through the gates of the conquer'd the Tartar steed
Bore in the avenger with foaming speed,
Free swept the flame through the idol-fanes,
And the streams flow'd red, as from warrior veins,
And the sword of the Moslem, let loose to slay,
Like the panther leapt on its flying prey,
Till a City of Ruin spread round the shade,
Where the Boy and his Mother at rest were laid.*
Palace and tower on that plain were left,
Like fallen trees by the lightning cleft,
The wild vine mantled the stately square,
The Rajah's throne was the serpent's lair,
And the jungle grass o'er the altar sprung—
—This was the work of one deep heart wrung!F. H.
* ↑ * See Forbes's Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 337, in which this story is related of Dhuboy, a city in Guzerat.
* ↑ * This pilgrimage was undertaken from the interior parts of Hindostan.
* ↑ * Their tombs are still remaining, according to Forbes, in a grove near the city.