His fame be like the firmament,
As moveless and as wide!
MAHMOOD, who saw before him
Pagoda'd Bramah fall--
Twelve times he swept the orient earth
From Bagdad to Bengal;
Twelve times amid their Steppes of ice
He smote each Golden Horde[7]--
Round the South's sultry isles twelve times
His ships resistless pour'd;
MAHMOOD--his tomb in Ghazna
For many an age shall show
The mighty mace with which he laid
DU'S hideous idol low.
True soldier of the Prophet!
From Somnauth's gorgeous shrine
He tore the gates of sandal-wood,
The carven gates divine;
He hung them vow'd, in Ghazna,
To Allah's blest renown--
Trophies of endless sway they tower,
For unto earth's remotest hour
What boastful man may hope the power
Again to take them down?

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 fift