THE DERVISH.
Reading edition
AN EASTERN LEGEND.
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BY W. FALCONER.
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The following little tale was related to me by a Catholic Missionary, (who had resided thirty years at Pondicherry,) on board the Panurge, during a voyage to Mauritius. It is curious to remark how the early traditions of all lands have certain points of resemblance, as this is exactly in the Rip Van Winkle vein, and is an Indian legend as old as the mountain.
Diary.
The Sultan revelled in the gay kiosque,
Where Ganges’ waters to the morning rolled,
Quaffing the snow-cool wine from cups of gold;
A humble Dervish prayed in the lone mosque—
“Prophet of God!” with fervor deep, he cried,
“Grant me a token that my prayer is heard!”
He raised his eye, and lo! a lovely bird
Upon a pillar’s marble crown he spied;
No fairer warbler, from the Swerga-bowers,
E’er bathed in dews of paler earthly flowers,
The light of Aden on its green wings bringing;
Still, as he gazed, its colors richer grew—
At length, through morn’s fresh glades, away it flew,
Leaving the lone mosque with its music ringing.
The Dervish followed over mount and plain,
The spirit-bird still flitting on before him,
Th’ hour-numbering sun unheeded speeding o’er him—
He was all ear to drink its gushing strain.
A vain pursuit!—scarce on the bough alighted,
On, on it glanced, to be afresh pursued,
The pilgrim’s courage glowing unsubdued,
His soul on fire—his panting heart delighted!
But where the sunset’s heav’n-unfolding flood
Streams through the columns of the Banian wood,
Alas! ’tis melting from his eager eye,
Fading away with the quick fading beams—
A lovely phantom from the Land of Dreams—
Gone, as it came, to bowers beyond the sky.
’Neath dreamy twilight’s twinkling, dew-fed lamp,
He stretched his weary limbs along the moss
Under the Banian’s shade, and mourned the loss
Of the sweet-vision on his night-couch damp,
Yet slept at length, nor waked till dewy morn
Closed the full stars and oped the infant buds,
’Rousing the warblers of the Indian woods:
But his bright bird was gone, and he is lorn!
Yet prays, and in a fountain’s cooling waves,
With large ablutions, his hot brow he laves,
Resumes his staff, and seeks his humble home—
A weary journey—days and months speed by
Ere he hath reached that mountain summit high,
The emerald pillar of the sapphire dome
Amid whose rocks his little chapel stood:
But lo! what vision bursts upon his gaze!
Domes, spires and churches, ’neath the sunset rays,
Gleaming ’mid many a green and palmy wood.
The wayward Genii, he remembered, loved
To weave such cities of the filmy light.
Begun and finished in a single night;
But still his wonder grew, as lost he roved
Through streets and squares built of substantial stone,
Where late the camel-herds were browsing lone,
And gleamed the crescent from the minaret.
Was he awake?—the crowd around him spoke
A strange, rough tongue—new wonders on him broke,
And wonder filled the eyes of all he met.
A Fakir passed. Of him he wildly asks
Who, what, and where he is? With wondering smile,
Answers the Moslem, “From a northern isle,
Whose iron-coast a frozen girdle clasps,
Came Islam’s foes, and this rich city grand
Is the creation of the Infidel—
The haughty lords of radiant Indian land—
A tale most sad for Moslem lips to tell!”
A hundred years had fled since he had chased
The spirit-bird, swift as a dream effaced;
And that sweet warbler was a sainted sprite,
Sent from its rest, to lead so good a man
To Christian light—for so the legend ran
Which cheered my vigil on the ocean bright.