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By song or high recital of their deeds, Bright solemn shadows of its vanish'd race To people their own halls: with these alone, In all this rich and breathing world, his thoughts Held still unbroken converse. He had been Rear'd in this lordly dwelling, and was now The ivy of its ruins; unto which His fading life seem'd bound. Day roll'd on day, And from that scene the loneliness was fled; For crowds around the grey-hair'd chronicler Met as men meet, within whose anxious hearts Fear with deep feeling strives; till, as a breeze Wanders thro' forest-branches, and is met By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves, The spirit of his passionate lament, As thro' their stricken souls it pass'd, awoke One echoing murmur.—But this might not be Under a despot's rule, and summon'd thence, The dreamer stood before the Caliph's throne: Sentenced to death he stood, and deeply pale,