With turbaned heads of every hue and race,
Bowing before that veiled and awful face,
Like tulip-beds,[1] of different shape and dyes,
Bending beneath the invisible West-wind's sighs!
What new-made mystery now for Faith to sign
And blood to seal, as genuine and divine,
What dazzling mimicry of God's own power
Hath the bold Prophet planned to grace this hour?
Not such the pageant now, tho' not less proud;
Yon warrior youth advancing from the crowd
With silver bow, with belt of broidered crape
And fur-bound bonnet of Bucharian shape.[2]
So fiercely beautiful in form and eye,
Like war's wild planet in a summer sky;
That youth to-day,--a proselyte, worth hordes
Of cooler spirits and less practised swords,--
Is come to join, all bravery and belief,
The creed and standard of the heaven-sent Chief.
Tho' few his years, the West already knows
Young AZIM'S fame;--beyond the Olympian snows
- ↑ "The name of tulip is said to be of Turkish extraction, and given to the flower on account of its resembling a turban."--Beckmann's History of Inventions.
- ↑ "The inhabitants of Bucharia wear a round cloth bonnet, shaped much after the Polish fashion, having a large fur border. They tie their kaftans about the middle with a girdle of a kind of silk crape, several times round the body."--Account of Independent Tartary, in Pinkerton's Collection.
