Page:Lalla Rookh - Moore - 1817.djvu/15

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LALLA ROOKH.
5

about as disinterested as that of the goldsmith, who fell in love with the diamond eyes of the idol of Jaghernaut.

During the first days of their journey, Lalla Rookh, who had passed all her life within the shadow of the Royal Gardens of Shalimar, found enough in the beauty of the scenery through which they passed to interest her mind and delight her imagination; and when, at evening or in the heat of the day, they turned off from the high road to those retired and romantic places which had been selected for her encampments,—sometimes on the banks of a small rivulet, as clear as the waters of the Lake of Pearl; sometimes under the sacred shade of a Banyan tree, from which the view opened upon a glade covered with antelopes; and often in those hidden, embowered spots, described by one from the Isles of the West, as places of melancholy, delight, and safety, where all the company around was wild peacocks and turtle-doves;"—she felt a charm in these scenes, so lovely and so new to her, which, for a time, made her indifferent to every other amusement. But Lalla Rookh was young, and the young love variety; nor could the conversation of her ladies and the Great