Who can describe the hopeless, silent pang
With which the gentle heart first marks her sway?
Eyes the sure progress of her icy fang
Resistless, slowly fastening on her prey;
Sees Rapture's brilliant colours fade away,
And all the glow of beaming sympathy;
Anxious to watch the cold averted ray
That speaks no more to the fond meeting eye
Enchanting tales of love, and tenderness, and joy.
Too faithful heart! thou never canst retrieve
Thy withered hopes: conceal the cruel pain!
O'er thy lost treasure still in silence grieve;
But never to the unfeeling ear complain:
From fruitless struggles dearly bought refrain!
Submit at once-the bitter task resign,
Nor watch and fan the expiring flame in vain;
Patience, consoling maid, may yet be thine,
Go seek her quiet cell, and hear her voice divine!
While still, in undisturbed repose,
Uninjured lies the future birth;
And Ignorance, with sceptic eye,
Hope's patient smile shall wondering view;
Or mock her fond credulity,
As her soft tears the spot bedew.
Sweet smile of hope, delicious tear!
The sun, the shower indeed shall come;
The promised vercant shoot appear,
And Nature bid her blossoms bloom.
And thou, O virgin Queen of Spring!
Shalt, from thy dark and lowly bed,
Bursting thy green sheath's silken string,
Unveil thy charms, and perfume shed;
Unfold thy robes of purest white,
Unsullied from their darksome grave,
And thy soft petals' silvery light
In the mild breeze unfettered wave.
So Faith shall seek the lowly dust
Where humble Sorrow loves to lie,
And bid her thus her hopes entrust,
And watch with patient, cheerful eye;
And bear the long, cold, wintry night,
And bear her own degraded doom,
And wait till Heaven's reviving light,
Eternal Spring! shall burst the gloom.
From the Plants, Canto IV. by WILLIAM TIGHE, Esq.
YOME, Fancy, from the Hesperian isles, or where
Elysian flowers perfume the eternal spring,
Dip thy light pencil in each fairy hue
And paint the living scene.-Lo! where the dates
Hang golden clusters to the cloudless sky;
And careless Arabs quaff the cooling breath
Of night, or slumber unconfined beneath
The stars which glitter through their verdant palmis!
Lo! where rich cocoas wave, in boundless groves,
Uncultured treasures o'er the coral strand,
And sons of nature in the balmy shade
Twine the fantastic dance, from furrowed plains
Remote, and toils incessant of the plough!
The sun towards Cancer from the line oblique
Hath shaped his fiery course; the Arabian shores
And Persian feel the sultry vapours drink
Their scanty fountains: the veiled nymph returns,
Her vase unmoistened, from the dusty well.
Then forth from Mascat or from Basra croud
The joyous caravans: each patient line
Of camels, docile to the leader's voice,
Retracing o'er the sand its annual course,
To cooler hills, and ever-blooming shade
Restores the troop, whom, in his playful guise,
Gay Labour meets; to mount the trunk erect
Spring gracefully the pliant youth, or gain.
With circling cords the taper stem's ascent.
Down, down are showered the honied dates mature,
Or in the basket's pensile store descend.
Prepared by vertical and ardent suns
The fruit ambrosial swells the public wealth,
Or from the press distills its amber stream
Luxurious, nectar of Arabian kings.
Meantime the fountain and the breeze invite,
Where spreads the tamarind, where the cassia droops,
Or where the silver-blossomed almond greets
The pale mimosa, with impervious shade
Of cypress overhung: fresh from the rill
The native lymph, or from suspended jars
More cool, delights; where no exotic wines
Inebriate, no smoking viands pall
The languid guest; where for the festive choir
Perchance the melon, or the liberal grape,
Or purple-celled pomegranate crowns the board;
Or if the Palm alone her clusters yield,
Not less the Persian Muse her decent lyre
Attunes, not less the freedom of her lay
Winds through the unbounded shade and echoing rocks.
Now, Hafiz, is thy light and happier song
Borne on the fragrant gale: now Saadi pours
The moral lesson; or in arduous flight
The rich Ferdousi sweeps the regal chords.
The cunning artist, and the loud buffoon,
The mimic scene, the cymbals and the dance
Succeed :—or rising o'er the enraptured croud
The bard spontaneous sings his wild romance;
Or chants the dervise of the martyred son's
Of Ali; or of Zemzem, gelid well,
Which burst for Hagar through the burning sand.
Then sings of saints and califs and the stone
Of holy Mecca; then with curses loads
The race of Othman, and his tottering throne,
And crescent sinking in a troubled sky.
Yet more they love to hear of him, whose seal
Controlled the labouring Genii, and whose spells
Raised o'er his hidden gold the columned piles,
Balbec or Estachar: or of the sword
Of Rustan; or of warriors borne o'er seas,
And Caf's bleak deserts, in the griffin claw
Of Simorg, bird enormous; or of isles
With emerald leaves and ruby fruits adorned,
Or caves illumined by the flame innate
Of carbuncles, or Irem's magic bowers
And palaces secured from mortal view.
Nor ever doth the Arabian Muse forget
The woes of love, and Majnun's hapless tale.
What feud of hostile tribes, what adverse star
Could drive him from his Laila?-O'er his arms
And naked body like a mantle flow
The streaming ringlets wild: no sandals sheath
His tortured feet; and in his hair are twined
Thorns of the desert: on his brow the fiend
Of madness hath his habitation fixed,
And bound the oblivious shadow round his head :
Relentless flame, and Laila's vision track
His footsteps; with unconscious eye he views
The shade, and hospitable tent; the dog
Caresses him in vain; the timid foal
In distant circuits prints the rising sand;"
Far o'er the waste, a solitary speck,
He roams; but not unpitied by the Muse;
She weeps the wretch in bondage to the curse
Of unappeased desire; inebriate
With woe; whose front is flame, whose eye despair.
The gazel too, whom once he loved, pursues
His feet, sole partner of his pain, and oft
Kisses his drooping hand; oft on his face
Looks piteous, mute drops stealing from her eye;
"Follow no more," he cries," "the woeful track'
"Of one abandoned: turn; thy mistress calls;
"Turn; for the fountains and the flowery vale,
"Thy kindred fawns await thee; they who ne'er
"Chased thee away, ungrateful and unkind;
"Ne'er drove thee frenzied to the howling blast.
"With me thou perishest; no food have I
"For thee; no rest, no joy :-the pain of love
"For Laila is sufficient :-welcome then,
"Ye burning sands, ye crags untrod by man,
"Ye whirling tempests of the naked plain,
"Ye spirits of the desart!-hark! they call;
"Away!" he cries, and as he speaks returns
His footsteps to the wild; he runs and marks
With blood the flints, with tears the thorny path.
But not unpitied by the Arabian Muse
He roves, a monarch in the realms of Love.
TProudly she heaves her painted sides
HE airy ship at anchor rides ;'
Impatient of delay;
And now her silken form expands,
She springs aloft, she bursts her bands,
She floats upon her way.
How swift! for now I see her sail
High mounted on the viewless gale,
And speeding up the sky;
And now a speck in ether tost,
A moment seen, a moment lost,
She cheats my dazzled eye.
Bright wonder! thee no flapping wing,
No labouring oar, no bounding spring,
Urged on thy fleet career!:
By native buoyancy impelled,
Thy easy flight was smoothly held
Along the silent sphere.
No curling mist at closing light,
No meteor on the breast of night,
No cloud at breezy dawn,
No leaf adown the summer tidea
More effortless is seen to glide;
Or shadow o'er the lawn.
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