'A glorious vision!'
said the Prince of the Captivity.
'Very different from Hamadan,' said the physician of the Caliph.
'To-day I have seen wonders,' said Alroy.
'The world is opening to you,' said Honain.
Alroy did not reply; but after some minutes he said, in a hesitating
voice, 'Who was that lady?'
'The Princess Schirene,' replied Honain, 'the favourite daughter of the
Caliph. Her mother was a Georgian and a Giaour.'
The moonlight fell upon the figure of Alroy lying on a couch; his face
was hidden by his arm. He was motionless, but did not sleep.
He rose and paced the chamber with agitated steps; sometimes he stopped,
and gazed on the pavement, fixed in abstraction. He advanced to the
window, and cooled his feverish brow in the midnight air.
An hour passed away, and the young Prince of the Captivity remained
fixed in the same position. Suddenly he turned to a tripod of porphyry,
and, seizing a rosary of jewels, pressed it to his lips.
'The Spirit of my dreams, she comes at last; the form for which I have
sighed and wept; the form which rose upon my radiant vision when I shut
my eyes against the jarring shadows of this gloomy world.
'Schirene! Schirene! here in this solitude I pour to thee the passion
long stored up: the passion of my life, no common life, a life full of
deep feeling and creative thought.
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