The morn to noon is melting
On Ghazna's golden domes;
From the Divan the suppliant crowd,
The poor, the potent, and the proud,
Who sought its grace with faces bow'd,
Have parted for their homes.
Already Sultan Mahmood
Has risen from his throne,
When at the Hall's far portal
Stands a Stranger all alone,--
A man in humble vesture,
But with a haughty eye;
And he calls aloud, with the steadfast voice
Of one prepared to die--
"Sultan! the Wrong'd and Trampled
Lacks time to worship thee,
Stand forth, and answer to my charge,
Son of Sebactagi!
Stand forth!"----
The brief amazement
Which shook that hall has fled--
Next moment fifty falchions
Flash round the madman's head,
And fifty slaves are waiting
Their sovereign's glance to slay;
But dread Mahmood, with hand upraised,
Has waved their swords away.
Once more stands free the Stranger,
Once more resounds his call--
"Ho! forth, Mahmood! and hear me,
Then slay me in thy hall.
From Oxus to the Ocean
Thy standards are unfurl'd
Thy treasury-bolts are bursting
With the plunder of the world--
The maids of soft Hindostan,
The vines by Yemen's Sea,
But bloom to nurse the passions
Of thy savage soldiery.
Yet not for them sufficeth
The Captive or the Vine,
If in thy peaceful subjects' homes
They cannot play the swine.
Since on my native Ghazna
Thy smile of favour fell,
How its blood, and toil, and treasure
Have been thine, thou knowest well!
Its Fiercest swell thine armies,
Its Fairest serve thy throne,
But in return hast thou not sworn
Our _hearths_ should be our own?
That each man's private dwelling,
And each man's spouse and child,
Should from thy mightiest Satrap
Be safe and undefiled?
Just Allah!--hear how Mahmood
His kingly oath maintains!--
Amid the suburbs far away
I deemed secure my dwelling lay,
Yet now two nights my lone Serai
A villain's step profanes.
My bride is cursed with beauty,
He comes at midnight hour,
A giant form for rapine made,
In harness of thy guards array'd,
And, with main dint of blow and blade,
He drives me from her bow'r,
And bars and holds my dwelling
Until the dawning gray--
Then, ere the light his face can smite,
The felon slinks away.
Such is the household safety
We owe to thine and thee:--
Thou'st heard me first, do now thy worst,
Son of Sebactagi!"