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From BADKU and those fountains of blue flame
That burn into the CASPIAN, fierce they came,[1]
Careless for what or whom the blow was sped,
So vengeance triumpht and their tyrants bled.
Such was the wild and miscellaneous host
That high in air their motley banners tost
Around the Prophet-Chief--all eyes still bent
Upon that glittering Veil, where'er it went,
That beacon thro' the battle's stormy flood,
That rainbow of the field whose showers were blood!
Twice hath the sun upon their conflict set
And risen again and found them grappling yet;
While streams of carnage in his noontide blaze,
Smoke up to Heaven--hot as that crimson haze
By which the prostrate Caravan is awed[2]
In the red Desert when the wind's abroad.
"Oh,
- ↑ When the weather is hazy, the springs of Naphtha (on an island near Baku) boil up the higher, and the Naphtha often takes fire on the surface of the earth, and runs in a flame into the sea to a distance almost incredible."--Hanway on the Everlasting Fire at Baku.
- ↑ Savary says of the south wind, which blows in Egypt from February to May, "Sometimes it appears only in the shape of an impetuous whirlwind, which passes rapidly, and is fatal to the traveller, surprised in the middle of the deserts. Torrents of burning sand roll before it, the firmament is enveloped in a thick veil, and the sun appears of the color of blood. Sometimes whole caravans are buried in it."
