The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore Collected by Himself. In Ten Volumes |
 | I, II. |
| III, IV. |
| V. |
| VI, VII. |
| VIII, IX. |
 | X. |
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 | The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore |  |
LETTER VI. FROM ABDALLAH , IN LONDON, TO MOHASSAN, IN ISPAHAN.
Whilst thou, Mohassan, (happy thou!)Dost daily bend thy loyal brow
Before our King—our Asia's treasure!
Nutmeg of Comfort; Rose of Pleasure!—
And bear'st as many kicks and bruises
As the said Rose and Nutmeg chooses;
Thy head still near the bowstring's borders,
And but left on till further orders—
Through London streets, with turban fair,
And caftan, floating to the air,
Of this short-coated population—
This sew'd up race—this button'd nation—
Who, while they boast their laws so free,
Leave not one limb at liberty,
But live, with all their lordly speeches,
The slaves of buttons and tight breeches.
Yet, though they thus their knee-pans fetter
(They're Christians, and they know no better)
In some things they're a thinking nation;
And, on Religious Toleration,
I own I like their notions quite,
They are so Persian and so right!
You know our Sunnites ,—hateful dogs!
Whom every pious Shiite flogs
To God, but in an ill-bred way;
With neither arms, nor legs, nor faces
Stuck in their right, canonic places.
'Tis true, they worship Ali's name
Their Heav'n and ours are just the same—
(A Persian's Heav'n is eas'ly made,
'Tis but black eyes and lemonade.)
Yet, though we've tried for centuries back—
We can't persuade this stubborn pack,
By bastinadoes, screws, or nippers,
To wear th' establish'd pea-green slippers.
Then, only think, the libertines!
They wash their toes—they comb their chins ,
With many more such deadly sins;
Believe the Chapter of the Blanket!
“C'est un honnête homme,” said a Turkish governor of De Ruyter; “c'est grand dommage qu'il soit Chrétien.”.
Sunnites and Shiites are the two leading sects into which the Mahometan world is divided; and they have gone on cursing and persecuting each other, without any intermission, for about eleven hundred years. The Sunni is the established sect in Turkey, and the Shia in Persia; and the differences between them turn chiefly upon those important points, which our pious friend Abdallah, in the true spirit of Shiite Ascendency, reprobates in this Letter.
“In contradistinction to the Sounis, who in their prayers cross their hands on the lower part of the breast, the Schiahs drop their arms in straight lines; and as the Sounis, at certain periods of the prayer, press their foreheads on the ground or carpet, the Schiahs,” &c. &c. —Forster's Voyage.
“Les Tures ne détestent pas Ali réciproquement; au contraire, ils le reconnoissent,” &c. &c. —Chardin.
For these points of difference, as well as for the Chapter of the Blanket, I must refer the reader (not having the book by me) to Picart's Account of the Mahometan Sects.
(Which must, at bottom, be seditious;
Since no man living would refuse
Green slippers, but from treasonous views;
Nor wash his toes, but with intent
To overturn the government,)—
Such is our mild and tolerant way,
We only curse them twice a day
(According to a Form that's set),
And, far from torturing, only let
All orthodox believers beat 'em,
And twitch their beards, where'er they meet 'em.
As to the rest, they're free to do
Whate'er their fancy prompts them to,
Provided they make nothing of it
Tow'rds rank or honour, power or profit;
Which things, we nat'rally expect,
Belong to us, the Establish'd sect,
Th' aforesaid Chapter of the Blanket.
The same mild views of Toleration
Inspire, I find, this button'd nation,
Whose Papists (full as giv'n to rogue,
And only Sunnites with a brogue)
Fare just as well, with all their fuss,
As rascal Sunnites do with us.
The tender Gazel I enclose
Is for my love, my Syrian Rose—
Take it when night begins to fall,
And throw it o'er her mother's wall.
GAZEL.
That hour the happiest and the last?
Oh! not so sweet the Siha thorn
To summer bees, at break of morn,
To Camels' ears the tinkling bell,
As is the soothing memory
Of that one precious hour to me.
Oh! why not rather, heart to heart,
United live and die—
Like those sweet birds, that fly together,
With feather always touching feather,
Link'd by a hook and eye!
This will appear strange to an English reader, but it is literally translated from Abdallah's Persian, and the curious bird to which he alludes is the Juftak, of which I find the following account in Richardson:—“A sort of bird, that is said to have but one wing; on the opposite side to which the male has a hook and the female a ring, so that, when they fly, they are fastened together.”
I have made many inquiries about this Persian gentleman, but cannot satisfactorily ascertain who he is. From his notions of Religious Liberty, however, I conclude that he is an importation of Ministers; and he has arrived just in time to assist the P---e and Mr. L---ck---e in their new Oriental Plan of Reform.—See the second of these Letters.— How Abdallah's epistle to Ispahan found its way into the Twopenny Post-Bag is more than I can pretend to account for.
| The Poetical Works of Thomas Moore | |