THE GIAOUR.
113
Above, the mountain rears a peak,
Where vultures whet the thirsty beak,
And theirs may be a feast to-night,
Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light;
Beneath, a river's wintry stream
Has shrunk before the summer beam,
And left a channel bleak and bare,
Save shrubs that spring to perish there: 560
Each side the midway path there lay
Small broken crags of granite gray,
By time, or mountain lightning, riven
From summits clad in mists of heaven;
For where is he that hath beheld
The peak of Liakura[decimal 1] unveiled?
*****
Where vultures whet the thirsty beak,
And theirs may be a feast to-night,
Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light;
Beneath, a river's wintry stream
Has shrunk before the summer beam,
And left a channel bleak and bare,
Save shrubs that spring to perish there: 560
Each side the midway path there lay
Small broken crags of granite gray,
By time, or mountain lightning, riven
From summits clad in mists of heaven;
For where is he that hath beheld
The peak of Liakura[decimal 1] unveiled?
*****
They reach the grove of pine at last;
"Bismillah![decimal 2] now the peril's past;
For yonder view the opening plain,
And there we'll prick our steeds amain:" 570
The Chiaus[decimal 3] spake, and as he said,
A bullet whistled o'er his head;
The foremost Tartar bites the ground!
Scarce had they time to check the rein,
"Bismillah![decimal 2] now the peril's past;
For yonder view the opening plain,
And there we'll prick our steeds amain:" 570
The Chiaus[decimal 3] spake, and as he said,
A bullet whistled o'er his head;
The foremost Tartar bites the ground!
Scarce had they time to check the rein,
Notes
- ↑ [Parnassus.]
- ↑ "In the name of God;" the commencement of all the chapters of the Koran but one [the ninth], and of prayer and thanksgiving.
["Bismillah" (in full, Bismillahi 'rrahmani 'rraheem, i.e. "In the name of Allah the God of Mercy, the Merciful") is often used as a deprecatory formula. Sir R. Burton (Arabian Nights, i. 40) cites as an equivalent the "remembering Iddio e' Santí," of Boccaccio's Decameron, viii. 9.
The MS. reads, "Thank Alla! now the peril's past."] - ↑ [A Turkish messenger, sergeant or lictor. The proper sixteen-seventeenth century pronunciation would have been chaush, but apparently the nearest approach to this was chaus, whence chouse and chiaush, and the vulgar form chiaus (N. Eng. Dict., art. "Chiaus"). The peculations of a certain "chiaus" in the year A.D. 1000 are said to have been the origin of the word "to chouse."]
