Lalla-Rookh


Lalla Rookh is an Oriental romance by Irish poet Thomas Moore, published in 1817. The title is taken from the name of the heroine of the frame tale, the daughter of the 17th-century Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The work consists of four narrative poems with a connecting tale in prose.

Overview

The name Lalla Rookh or Lala-Rukh, means "tulip-cheeked" and is an endearment frequently used in Persian poetry.
Engaged to the young king of Bukhara, Lalla Rookh goes forth to meet him, but falls in love with Feramorz, a poet from her entourage. The bulk of the work consists of four interpolated tales sung by the poet: "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan", "Paradise and the Peri", "The Fire-Worshippers", and "The Light of the Harem". When Lalla Rookh enters the palace of her bridegroom she swoons away, but revives at the sound of a familiar voice. She awakes with rapture to find that the poet she loves is none other than the king to whom she is engaged.

Adaptations

Lalla Rookh was the basis of number of musical settings, including a cantata by Frederic Clay & W. G. Wills featuring the famous song I'll Sing Thee Songs of Araby .
It is also the basis of the operas Lalla-Rûkh, festival pageant by Gaspare Spontini, partly reworked into Nurmahal oder das Rosenfest von Caschmir, Lalla-Roukh by Félicien David, Feramors by Anton Rubinstein, and The Veiled Prophet by Charles Villiers Stanford. One of the interpolated tales, Paradise and the Peri, was set as a choral-orchestral work by Robert Schumann. Lines from the poem form the lyrics of the song "Bendemeer Stream".

Legacy

, often known as "the Grotto", a social group with membership restricted to Master Masons, and its female auxiliary, the Daughters of Mokanna, also take their names from Thomas Moore's poem.