Niewątpliwie, środek jaskrawego przeciwstawienia, jakiego użył Mickiewicz w powyższych słowach, potężnie działa na duszę i sprawia, że mściciel-bohater, przedstawiony na ponurem tle swego kraju, wyrasta przed oczyma czytelnika w postać posągową i tem więcej zdobywa sympatyi, — ale tego samego środka użył i Moore w »Czcicielach ognia« o wiele rozciągłej jednak i szerzej niż Mickiewicz. Oto, co czytamy na kilku kartach jego poematu.
»Never did fierce Arabia send
A satrap forth more direly great;
Never was Iran doom’d to bend
Beneath a yoke of deadlier weight.
Her throne had fall’n. — her pride was crush’d,
Her sons were willing slaves, nor blush’d,
In their own land, — no more their own, —
To crouch beneath a stranger’s throne.
Her towers, where Mithra once had burn’d,
To Moslem shrines — oh shame! — were turn’d,
Where slaves, converted by the sword,
Their mean, apostate worship pour’d,
And curs’d the faith their sires ador’d.
Yet has she hearts, ’mid all this ill,
O’er all this wreck high buoyant still
With hope and vengeance...
And swords she hath, nor weak nor slow
To second all such hearts can dare;
As he shall know, well, dearly know,
Who sleeps in moonlight luxury there«...
(The poet. works., t. III, str. 283-4).
»Where are the days, thou wondrous sphere,
When Iran, like a sun-flower, turn’d
To meet that eye where’er it burn’d? —
When, from the banks of Bendemeer
To the nut-groves of Samarcand,
Thy temples flam’d o’er all the land?
Where are they? ask the shades of them
