Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/68

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The crimson shawl across the breast
    Above the graceful shoulder hung,
Or sash-wise, round the shining vest,
    Or o'er the gem-starred turban flung,
In all their glittering panoply,
    The lofty port—the gleaming brand—
Appear like those bright genii
    Who erst had ruled the sunny land.
'Twas a fair pageant, and might seem
More like a poet's noon-tide dream
Than cold reality—the throng
With whirl-wind speed who rush along
The tangled wild, arousing there
From copse, and dell, and fields of air
The forest's tenants from the rocks
    Uprising with a piercing cry,
The startled pea fowl soar in flocks,
    And spread like clouds along the sky.
While the hyena and the wolf,
    Jackalls and bears, and bounding deer