Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, No. 359, September 1845

IV

All praise to the First Sultan,
Mahmood the Ghaznavide!
His wars are o'er, but not the more
His sovereign cares subside:
From morn to noontide daily
In his superb Divan
He sits dispensing justice
Alike to man and man.
What though earth heaves beneath him
With ingot, gem, and urn,
Though in his halls a thousand thrones
Of vanquish'd monarchs burn;
Though at his footstool ever
Four hundred princes stay;
Though in his jasper vestibules
Four hundred bloodhounds bay —
Each prince's sabre hafted
With the carbuncle's gem,
Each bloodhound's collar fashion'd
From a rajah's diadem? —
Though none may live beholding
The anger of his brow,
Yet his justice ever shineth
To the lofty and the low;
O'er his many-nation'd empire
Shines his justice far and wide —
All praise to the First Sultan,
Mahmood the Ghaznavide!

V

The morn to noon is melting
On Ghazna's golden domes;
From the Divan the suppliant crowd,
The poor, the potent, and the proud,
Who sought its grace with faces bow'd,
Have parted for their homes.
Already Sultan Mahmood
Has risen from his throne,
When at the Hall's far portal
Stands a Stranger all alone, —
A man in humble vesture,
But with a haughty eye;
And he calls aloud, with the steadfast voice
Of one prepared to die —
"Sultan! the Wrong'd and Trampled
Lacks time to worship thee,
Stand forth, and answer to my charge,
Son of Sebactagi!
Stand forth!" —
The brief amazement
Which shook that hall has fled —
Next moment fifty falchions
Flash round the madman's head,
And fifty slaves are waiting
Their sovereign's glance to slay;
But dread Mahmood, with hand upraised,
Has waved their swords away.
Once more stands free the Stranger,
Once more resounds his call —
"Ho! forth, Mahmood! and hear me,
Then slay me in thy hall.
From Oxus to the Ocean
Thy standards are unfurl'd
Thy treasury-bolts are bursting
With the plunder of the world —
The maids of soft Hindostan,
The vines by Yemen's Sea,
But bloom to nurse the passions
Of thy savage soldiery.
Yet not for them sufficeth
The Captive or the Vine,
If in thy peaceful subjects' homes
They cannot play the swine.
Since on my native Ghazna
Thy smile of favour fell,
How its blood, and toil, and treasure
Have been thine, thou knowest well!
Its Fiercest swell thine armies,
Its Fairest serve thy throne,
But in return hast thou not sworn
Our hearths should be our own?
That each man's private dwelling,
And each man's spouse and child,
Should from thy mightiest Satrap
Be safe and undefiled?
Just Allah! – hear how Mahmood
His kingly oath maintains! —
Amid the suburbs far away
I deemed secure my dwelling lay,
Yet now two nights my lone Serai
A villain's step profanes.
My bride is cursed with beauty,
He comes at midnight hour,
A giant form for rapine made,
In harness of thy guards array'd,
And, with main dint of blow and blade,
He drives me from her bow'r,