The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 17, Pages 163-165
THE MOURNER FOR THE BARMECIDES.
Fall'n was the House of Giafar; and its name,
The high, romantic name of Barmecide,
A sound forbidden on its own bright shores,
By the swift Tygris' wave. Stern Haroun's wrath,
Sweeping the mighty with their fame away,
Had so pass'd sentence: but man's chainless heart
Hides that within its depths, which never yet
Th' oppressor's thought could reach.—
—'Twas desolate
Where Giafar's halls, beneath the burning sun,
Spread out in ruin, lay. The songs had ceased;
The lights, the perfumes, and the genii-tales
Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one voice
Was there—the fountain's: through those Eastern courts,
Over the broken marble and the grass,
Its low, clear music shedding mournfully.
—And still another voice!—an aged man,
Yet with a dark and fervent eye beneath
His silvery hair, came, day by day, and sate
On a white column's fragment; and drew forth,
From the forsaken walls and dim arcades,
