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Let who will torture him, Priest--Caliph--King--
"Alike this loathsome world of his shall ring
"With victims' shrieks and howlings of the slave,--
"Sounds that shall glad me even within my grave!"
Thus, to himself--but to the scanty train
Still left around him, a far different strain:--
"Glorious Defenders of the sacred Crown
"I bear from Heaven whose light nor blood shall drown
"Nor shadow of earth eclipse;--before whose gems
"The paly pomp of this world's diadems,
"The crown of GERASHID. the pillared throne
"Of PARVIZ[1] and the heron crest that shone[2]
"Magnificent o'er ALI'S beauteous eyes.[3]
"Fade like the stars when morn is in the skies:
"
- ↑ Chosroes. For the description of his Throne or Palace, see Gibbon and D'Herbelot.
There were said to be under this Throne or Palace of Khosrou Parviz a hundred vaults filled with "treasures so immense that some Mahometan writers tell us, their Prophet to encourage his disciples carried them to a rock which at his command opened and gave them a prospect through it of the treasures of Khosrou."--Universal History. - ↑ "The crown of Gerashid is cloudy and tarnished before the heron tuft of thy turban."--From one of the elegies or songs in praise of Ali, written in characters of gold round the gallery of Abbas's tomb.--See Chardin.
- ↑ The beauty of Ali's eyes was so remarkable, that whenever the Persians would describe anything as very lovely, they say it is Ayn Hali, or the Eyes of Ali.--Chardin.