#~ # &,~~
~
POEMS
OF
TllE ORIENT.
B~YARD TAYLOR.
THIRD EDITION.
BOSTON:
TICKNOR AND FILLDS.
H DOCO LV. 
E~tcced, eccocdtog to Act of C        to tt~e yea  iSA, by
BAYAoD TAYLoR
Th the Clerk's Office of the Dist ict Cooct of the Dtstctct of ~tassaehusetts. 
CONTENTS.
PROEM DEDICATORY.
AN EPISTLE FROH MOUNT THOLUS,                   7
POEMS OF THE ORIENT.
A P~AN TO THE DAWN..    15
__   THE POET IN THE EAST,. 19
THE TRHPTATION OF HASSAN HEN KHALED,...   22
THE AHAB WARRIOR. 39
ARAB PRAYER                                    41
EL KHALIL                                      44
ODE TO INDOLENCE.   46
SONG                                           49
AHEAN'S WOOING                                 59
A PLEDGE TO HAFIE... 69
THE GARDEN OF IREM                             71
THE BIRTH OF THE HORSE. 75
THE WISDOH OF ALl                              77
(3) 
4
AN ORIENTAL IDYL                        80
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE                   83
BEDOUIN SONG                            86
DESERT HYMN TO THE SUN                  88
NILOTIC DRINKING-SONG                   92
CAMADEVA                                95
NUBIA                                   97
KILIMANDJARO                            98
MIMOSA BLOOMS                          103
THE BIRTH OF THE PROFHET               105
To THE NILE                            111
HASSAN TO HIS MARE                     114
CHARMIAN                               117
THE SHEKH,                             121
SMYRNA                                 123
To A PERSIAN I~OY                      124
THE GOBLET                             125
THE ARAB TO THE PALM                   130
AURUM POTABILE                         133
ON THE SEA,                            i37
TYRE,...                        139
AN ANSWER,                             143
REGUIEM IN THE SOUTH                   144
GULISTAN                               147
ERESALEM                              150
THE VOYAGE OF A DREAM                  154
L'ENYOI                                160 
5
II.
llTMN TO AIR                              165
SONG                                      172
THE MTSTEHY                               174
A PICTURE                                 177
IN TEE MEADOWS                            180
SONNET,                                   182
THE ~VINTEH SOLSTICE,                     183
IN ARTICULO MORTIS,                       186
SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA                     193
SONG                                      195
TEE MID-WATo~                             197
THE PHANTOM                               199
LAMENT AND CONSOLATION                    202  
PROEM DEDICATORY.
AN EPISTLE FRO~I AlOUNT TThIOLUS.
TO RICHARD HENRY STODDARD.
I.
o FRIEND, were you but couched on Tmolus' side,
In the warm myrdes, in the golden air
Of the declining day, which half lays bare,
Half drapes, the silent mountains and the wide
Embosomed vale, that wanders to the sea
And the far sea, with doubtful specks of sail,
And farthest isles, that slumber tranquilly
Beneath the lonian autumn's violet veil; -
(7) 
8
~Vere you but with mc, little were the need
Of this imperfect artifice of rhyme,
~~here the strong Fancy peals a broken chime
And the ripe brain but sheds nbortive seed.
But I am solitary, and the curse,
Or blessing, which has clung to me from birth
The torment and tl0e ecstasy of verse -
Comes up to me from the illustrious earth
Of ancient Tmolus; and the very stones,
Reverberunt, din the mcllo~v air with tones
~7hich the sweet air remembers; and tbey blend
~Vith fainter echoes, which the mountains fling
From far oracular caverns: so, my Friend,
1 eannot choose but sing!
II.
Unto mine eye, less plain the shepherds be,
Tending their browsing goats amid the broom,
Or the slow camels, travelling towards the sea,
Laden ~~`itb bales from Baghdad`5 gaudy loom,
Or yon nomadic Tureomans, that go
Down from their summer pastures - than the twain
Immortals, who on Tmol~~s' thy my top
Sang, emulous, the rival strain
Down the charmed air did light Apoilo drop; 
9
Great Pan ascended from the vales below.
I see them sitting in the silent glow;
I hear the alternating measures flow
From pipe and golden lyre; - the melody
Heard by il~e Gods between their nectar bowls,
Or when, from out the chambers of the sea,
Comes the triumphant Thlorning, and unrolls
A pathway for the sun; il~en, following swift,
The d~dal harmonies of awful caves
Cleft in the hills, and forests that uplift
Their sea-like boom, in answer to the waves,
~Vith many a ligl~ter strain, that dances o'er
The wedded reeds, till Echo strives in vain
To follow:
Hark! once more,
How  floats the God's exultant strain
In answer to Apollo!
The wind in the reeds and the rushes,
The bees on the bells of thyme,
The birds on the myrtle bushes,
The cicale above in the lime,
And the liards beThw in the grass
Are as silent as ecer old Tmolus was,
Listening to my szeeet pipings."
 
10
"I.
I cannot separate the minstrels' worth;
Each is alike transcendent and divine.
~Vhat were ti~e Day, unless it lighted Earth?
And what were Fartb, should Day forget to shine?
But were you here, my Friend, we t~vain would build
Two altars, on the moulitain's sunward side
There Pan should o'er my sacrifice preside,
And there Apollo your oblation gild.
lle is your Uod, but mine is shaggy Pan;
Yet, as their music no discordance made,
So shall our offerings side by side be laid,
And the same wind the rival incense fan.
Iv.
You strain your ear to catch the harmonies
That in some finer region have their birth;
I turn, despairing, from the quest of these,
And seek to learn the native tongue of Earth.
In "Fancy's tropic clime" your castle stands,
A shining miracle of rarest art
1 pitch my tent upon the naked sands, 
11
And the tall palm, that plumes the orient lands,
Can with its beauty satisfy my heart.
You, in your starry trances, breathe the air
Of lost Elysium, pluck il~e snowy bells
Of lotus and Olympian asphodels,
And bid us their diviner odors share.
I at the threshold of that wodd have lain,
Gazed on its glory, heard il~e grand acclaim
Wherewith its trumpcts hail the sons of Fame,
And striven its speech to master - but in vain.
And now I turn, to find a late content
In Nature, making mine hcr myriad shows;
Better contented with one living rose
Than all the Gods' ambrosia; sternly bent
On wresting from her hand the cup, whence flow
The flavors of her ruddiest life - fl~e change
Of climes and races - the unshackled range
Of all experience - that my songs may show
The warm red blood il~at beats in hearts of men,
And those who read them in the festering den
Of cities, may behold the open sky,
And hear tlie rhythm of the winds that blow,
Instinct with Freedom.  Blame me not, that J
Find in il~e forms of Earth a deeper joy
Than in the dreams which lured me as a boy, 
12
And leave the Heavens, where you are wandering still
With bright Apollo, to converse with Pan;
For, though full soon our courses separate ran,
We, like the Gods, can meet on Tmolus' hill.
V.
There is no jealous rivalry in Song:
I see your altar on the hill-top shine,
And mine is built in shadows of the Pine,
Yet the same worships unto each belong.
Different il~e Gods, yet one the sacred awe
Their presence brings us, one the reverent heafl
Wherewith we honor the immortal law
Of that high inspiration, which is Art.
Take, therefore, Friend! these Voices of the Earth - -
The rhythmic records of my life's career,
Humble, perhaps, yet wanting not the worth
Of Truth, and to the heart of Nature near.
Take them, and your acceptance, in the dearth
Of the world's tardy praise, shall make them dear.
 
POEMS OF TllE ORIENT.
DA DER WEST WARD DURCHGEKOSTET,
HAT ER ~U~ DEN OST ENTMOSTET.
ItD~CIERT.
(13)  
15
A PA~AN TO THE DAWN.
TllE dusky sky fades into blue,
And bluer surges bind us
The stars are glimmering faint and fbw,
The night is left behind us!
Turn not where sinks the sullen dark
Before the signs of warning,
But crowd the eai~vas on our baA~
And sail to meet the morning.
Rejeice! rejoice! the hues that fill
The orient, flush and lighten;
And over the blue Ici~iaa hill
The Dawn begins to brighten!
 
16
L~.
~Ve leave the Night, that weighed so long
Upon the soul's endeavor,
For Morning, 011 these hills of Song,
Has made her home forever.
Hark to the sound of trump and lyre,
In the olive groves before us,
And the rhythmic beat, tl~e pulse of fire,
Throb in the full-voiced chorus!
More than }\Thmnonian grandeur speaks
In the triumph of the p~an,
And all the glory of the Greeks
Breathes o'er the old ~I~gean.
"I.
Here shall the ancient Dawn return,
That lit the earliest poet,
~Vhose very ashes in his un~
~Vould radiate glory through it -
The dawn of Life, when Life was Song,
And Song the life of Nature,
 
17
And the Singer stood amid the throng -
A God in every feature!
When Love was free, and free as air
The utterance of Passion,
And the heart in every fold lay bare,
Nor shamed its true expression.
Iv.
Then perfect limb and perfect face
Surpassed our best ideal
Unconscious Nature's law was grace -
The Beautiful was real.
For men acknowledged true desires,
And light as garlands wore them;
They were begot by vigorous sires,
And noble mothers bore them.
0, when the shapes of Art they planned
Were living forms of passion,
Impulse and Deed went hand in hand,
And Life was more than Fashion!
V.
The seeds of Song they scattered first
Flower in all later pages;
2 
18
Their forms have woke the Artist's thirst
Through the succeeding ages:
But I will seek the fountain-head
Whence flowed their inspiration,
And lead the unshackled life they led,
Accordant with Creation.
The Woild's false life, that follows still,
lias ceased its chain to tighten,
And over the blue lonian hill
I see the sunrise brighten! 
19
THE POET IN THE EAST.
THE Poet came to the Land of the East,
When Spring was in the air
The Earth was dressed for a wedding feast,
So young she seemed, and fair;
And the Poet knew the Land of the East
His soul was native there.
All things to him were the visible forms
Of early and precious dreams -
Familiar visions that mocked his quest
Beside the`vestcrn streams,
Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled
In the sunset's dying beams.
He looked above in the cloudless calm,
And the Sun sat on his throne;
 
20
The breath of gardens, deep in bairn.
Was all about him blown,
And a brother to him was the princely Palm,
For he cannot live alone.
His feet went forth on the myrtled hills,
And the flowers their welcome shed;
The meads of milk-white asphodel
They knew the Poet's tread,
And far and wide, in a scarlet tide,
The poppy's bonfire spread.
And, half in shade and half in sun,
The Rose sat in her bower,
With a passionate thrill in her crimson heart
She had waited for the hour!
And, like a bride's, the Poet kissed
The lips of the glorious flower.
Then the Nightingale, who sat above
In the boughs of the citron tree,
Sang: We are no rivals, brother mine,
~ Except in minstrelsy;
For the rose you kissed with the kiss of love
Is faithful still to me. 
21
And further sang the Nightingale:
Your bower not distant lies.
I heard the sound of a Persian lute
From the jasmined window rise,
And like two stars, through the lattice-bars,
I saw the Sultana's eyes.
The Poet said:1 will here abide,
In the Sun's unclouded door;
Here nrc the wells of all delight
On the lost Arcadian shore:
Here is the light on sea nnd land,
And the drenm deceives no more. 
22
THE TEMPTATION OF HASSAN BEN
KHALED.
I.
HASsAN BEN KllALED, singing in the streets
Of Cairo, sang these verses at my door:
"Blessed is he, who God and Prophet greets
Each morn with prayer; but he is blest much more
Whose conduct is his prayer's interpreter.
Sweeter than musk, and pleasanter than myrrh,
Richer than rubies, shall his portion be,
~Vhen God bids Azrael:`bring him unto me!'
But woe to him whose life casts dirt upon
The Prophet's word!  ~Vhen all his days are done,
Him shall the Evil Angel trample down
Out of the sight of God."  Thus, with~a frown
Of the severest virtue, Hassan sang
Unto the people, till the markets rang. 
23
II.
But two days after this, he came again
And sang, and I remarked an altered strain.
Before my shop he stood, with forehead bent
Like one whose sin hath made him penitent -
In whom the pride, that like a stately reed
Lifted his head, is broken.  "Blest, indeed,"
(These were his words,) " is he who never fell,
But blest much more, who from the verge of Hell
Climbs up to Paradise: for Sin is sweet;
Strong is Temptation; willing are the feet
That fbllow Pleasure, manifold her snares,
And pitfalls lurk beneath our very prayers:
Yet God, the Clement, the Compassionate,
In pity of our weakness keeps the gate
Of Pardon open, scorning not to wait
Till the last moment, when His mercy flings
A splendor from the shade of Azrael's wings."
"~Vherefbre, 0 Poet!" I to Hassan said,
"This altered measure?  ~Vherefbre hang your head,
O Hassan! whom the pride of virtue gives
The right to face the holiest man that lives?
Enter, I pray thee: this poor house will be
Honored henceforth, if it may shelter thee." 
24
Nassan Ben Khaled lifted up his eyes
To mine, a moment: then, in cheerful guise,
He passed my threshold with unslippered feet.
"I.
lied him from the noises of the street
To the cool inner chambers, where my slave
Poured out the pitcher's rosy-scentcd wave
Over his hands, and laid upon his knee
The napkin, silver-fringed: and when the pipe
Exhaled a grateful odor from the ripe
Latakian leaves, said Hassan unto me:
"Listen, 0 Man! no man can truly say
That he hath wisdom.  What I sang to-day
~Vas not less truth than what I sang before,
But to Truth's house there is a single door,
Which is Experience.  He teaches best,
Who feels the hearts of all men in his breast
And knows their strength or weakness through his 0Wfl)
The holy pride, that never was o'erthrown,
Was never tempted, and its words of blame
Reach but the dull ears of the multitude:
The admonitions, fruitful unto good,
Come from the voice of him who conquers shame." 
25
`V.
"Give me, 0 Poet! (if thy friend may be
N\~orthy such confidence," ) I said; "the key
Unto thy words, that I may share with thee
Thine added wisdom."  Hassan's kindly eye
Before his lips unclosed, spake willingly,
And he began  " But two days since, I went
Singing what thou didst hear, with soul intent
On my own virtue, all the markets through;
And when about the time of prayer, I drew
Near to the Gate of Victory, behold!
There came a man, whose turban fringed with gold
And golden cimeter, bespake his wealth:
`May God prolong thy days, 0 Hassan! Health
And Fortune be thy wisdom's aids!' he cried;
`Come to my garden by the river's side,
~Vhere otl~er poets wait thee.  Be my guest,
For even the Prophets had their times of rest,
And Rest, that strengthens unto virtuous deeds,
Is one with Prayer.'  Two royal-blooded steeds,
Held by his grooms, were waiting at the gate,
And though I shrank from such unwonted state
The master's words were manna to my pride,
And, mounting straigbtway, forth we twain did ride
Unto the garden by the river's side. 
26
V.
Never till then had I beheld such bloom.
The west wind sent its heralds of perfume
To bid us welcome, midway on the road.
Full in tlie sun the marble portal glowed
Like silver, but witl~in the garden wall
No ray of suashine found a place to fall,
So thick the crowning foliage of the trees,
Roofing the walks with twilight; and the air
Under their tops was greener than the seas,
And cool as they.  The forms that wandered there
Resembled those who populate the floor
Of Ocean, and the royal lineage own
That gave a Princess unto Persia's throne.
All fruits il~e trees of this fair garden bore,
~Vhose balmy fragrance lured the tongue to taste
Their flavors: there bananas flung to waste
Their golden flagons with thick honey filled;
From splintered cups the ripe pomegranates spilled
A shower of rubies; oranges that glow
Like globes of fire, enclosed a heart of snow
~Vhich t4~awed not in their flame  like balls of gold
The peaches seemed, that had in blood been rolled;
Pure saffron mixed with clearest amber stained
The apricots; bunches of amethyst 
27
And sapphire seemed the grapes, so newly kissed
That still the mist of Beauty's breath remained,
And wl~ere the lotus slowly swung in air
Her snowy.bosomed chalice, rosy-veined,
The golden fruit swung 5 oflly-eradled there,
Even as a bell upon the hosom swings
Of some fair dancer - happy bell, that sings
For joy, its golden tinkle keeping time
To the heart's beating and the cymbal's chime!
There dates of agate and of jasper lay,
Dropped from the bounty of the pregnant palm,
And all ambrosial trees, all fruits of balm,
All flowers of precions odors, made the day
Sweet as a morn of Paradise.  ThIy breath
Failed with the rapture, and with doubtful mind
I turned to where the garden's lord reclined,
And asked, "~Vas not that gate the Gate of Death?"
VI.
The guests were near a fountain.  As I came
They rose in welcome, wedding to my name
Titles of honor, linked in choicest phrase,
For Poets' ears are ever quick to Praise,
The`Open Sesame'!` whose magic art
Forces the guarded entrance of the heart. 
28
Young men were they, whose manly beauty made
Their words the sweeter, and tl~eir speech displayed
Knowledge of men, and of the Prophet's laws.
?leasant our converse was, where every pause
Gave to the fountain leave to sing its song,
Suggesting fYirther speech; until, crc long,
There came a troop of swarthy slaves, who bore
Ewers and pitchers all of silver ore
~Vherein we wasl~ed our hands; then, tables placed,
And brought us meats of every sumptuous taste
That makes tlie blood rich - pheasants stuffed with
spice;
Young lambs, whose entrails were of cloves and rice;
Ducks bursting with pistachio nuts, and fish
That in a bed of parsley swam.  Each dish,
Cooked with such art, seemed better than the last,
And our indulgence in the rich repast
Brought on the darkness crc we missed the day:
But lamps were ligl~ted in the fountain's spray,
Or, pendent from the boughs, their colors told
~~7hat fruits unseen, of crimson or of gold,
Scented the gloom.  Then took the generous host
A basket filled with roses.  Every guest
Cried, " Give n0e roses! " and he thus addressed
His words to all: "He who exalts them most
In song, he only shall the roses wear." 
29
Then sang a guest: "The rose's cheeks are fair;
It crowns the purple bowl, and no one knows
If the rose colors it, or it the rose."
And sang another: " Crimson is its hue,
And on its breast the morning's crystal dew
Is changed to rubies."  Then a third replied:
"It blushes in the sun's enamoured sight,
As a young virgin on hcr wedding night,
~Vhen from hcr face the bridegroom lifls the veil."
~Vhen all had sung their songs, I, Ha ssan, tried.
The Rose," I sang, " is either red or pale,
Like maidens whom the flame of passion burns,
And Love or Jealousy controls, by turns.
Its buds are lips preparing for a kiss;
Its open flowers are like the blush of bliss
On lovers' cheeks; the thorns its armor are
And in its centre shines a golden star,
As on a favorite's cheek a sequin glows -
And thus the garden's favorite is the Rose."
vi'.
The master from his open basket shook
The roses on my head.  The others took
Their silver cupf~, and filling fl~em with wine, 
30
Cried, " Pledge our singing, Hassan, as we thine!"
But I exclaimed, " \Vhat is it I have heard?
~Vine is &rbidden by the Prophet's word
Surely, 0 Friends! ye would not lightly break
The laws which bring ye blessing? " Thea they
spake:
"0 Poet, learn thou that the law was made
For men, and not for poets.  Turn thine eye
~Vithin, and read the nature there displayed
The gifls thou hast doth Allah's grace deny
To common men; they lift thee o'er the rules
The Prophet fixed for sinners and for fools.
The vine is Nature's poet: from his bloom
The air goes reeling, tipsy with perfume,
And wheii the sun is warm within his blood
It mounts and sparkles in a crimson flood;
Rich with dumb songs he speaks not, till they find
Interpretation in the Poet's mind.
If ~Vine be evil, Song is evil too;
Then cease thy singing, lest it bring thee sin;
But wouldst thou know the strains which flafiz knew,
Drink as he drank, and thus the secret win."
They clasped my glowing hands; they held the bowl
Up to my lips, till, losing all control
Of the fierce thirst, which at my scruples laughed,
I drained tl)e goblet at a single draught. 
31
It ran through every limb like fluid fire:
"More, 0 my Friends!" I cried, the new desire
Raging within me: "this is life indeed!
From blood like this is coined the nobler seed
~7hence poets are begotten.  Drink again,
And give us music of a tender strain,
Linking your inspiration unto mine,
For music hovers on the lips of ~7ine!
VIII.
"Music!" they shouted, echoing my demand,
And answered with a beckon of his hand
The gracious host, whereat a maiden, fiiir
As the last star that leaves the morning air,
Came down the leafy paths.  Her veil revealed
The beauty of her face, which, half concealed
Behind its thin blue folds, showed like the moon
Behind a cloud that will forsake it soon.
Her hair was braided darkness, but the glance
Of lightning eyes shot from her countenance,
And showed her neck, that like an ivory tower
Rose o'er the twin domes of her marble breast.
~Vere all the beauty of this age compressed
Into one form, sI~e would transcend its power. 
32
Her step was lighter than the young gazelle's,
And as she walked, her anklet's golden bells
Tinkled with pleasnre, but were quickly mute
~Vith jealousy, as from a ease she drew
~Vith snowy hands tl~e pieces of her lute,
)\nd took her seat before me.  As it grew
To perfect sl~ape, lier lovely arms she bent
Around the neck of the sweet instrument,
Till from l~er soft caresses it awoke
To conscio~~sness, and tl~us its rapture spoke
I ~vas a tree within an Indian vale,
~Vhen first I l~eard the love-sick nightingale
Declare his passion: every leaf wus stirred
With the melodious sorrow of the bird,
And when he ceused, the song remained with me.
~Ien came anon, and felled the harmless tree,
But from the memory of the songs I heard,
The spoiler saved me fron the destiny
Whereby my brethren perished.  O'er the sea
I came, and from its loud, tumultuous moan
I caught a soft and sole~~n undertone
And when I grew beneath the maker's hand
To what thou seest, he sang (the while he planned)
The mirthful measures of a careless heart,
And of my soul his songs became a part.
Now they have laid my head upoa a breast 
33
Whiter than marble, I am wholly blest.
The fair hands smite me, and my strings complain
With such melodious cries, they smite again,
Until, with passion and with sorrow swayed,
My torment moves the bosom of the maid,
Who hears it speak her own.  I am the voice
Whereby the lovers languish or rejoice;
And they caress me, knowing that my strain
Alone can speak the language of their pain."
Ix.
Here ceased the fingers of the maid to stray
Over the strings,; the sweet song died away
In mellow, drowsy murmurs, and il~e lute
Leaned on her fairest bosom, and was mute.
Better than wine that music was to me:
Not the lute only felt her hands, but she
Played on my heartstrings, till the sounds became
Incarnate in the pulses of my frame.
Speech left my tongue, and in my tears alone
Found utterance.  ~Vith stretched arms I implored
Continuance, whereat her fingers poured
A tenderer music, answering the tone
Her parted lips released, the while her throat
3 
34
Throbbed, as a heavenly bird were fluttering there,
And gave her voice the wonder of his note.
"His brow," she sang, "is white beneath his hair;
The fertile beard is soft upon his chin,
Shading the mouth that nestles warm within,
As a rose nestles in its leaves; I see
His eyes, but cannot tell what hue they be,
For the sharp eyelash, like a sabre, speaks
The martial law of Passion; in his cheeks
The quick blood mounts, and then as quickly goes,
Leaving a tint like marble when a rose
Is held beside it: - bid him veil his eyes,
Lest all my soul should unto mine arise,
And he behold it!" As she sang, her glance
Dwelt on my face; her beauty, like a lance,
Transfixed my heart.  I melted into sighs,
Slain by the arrows of her beauteous eyes.
"Why is her bosom made" (I cried) "a snare?
Why does a single nuglet of her hair
Hold my heart captive?" "Would you know?"
she said;
"It is that you are mad with love, and chains
Were made for madmen."  Then she raised her head
With answeflng love, that led to other strains,
Until the lute, which shared with her the smart,
Rocked as in storm upon her beating heart. 
35
Thus to its wires she made impassioned cries:
"I swear it by the brightness of his eyes;
I swear it by the darkness of his hair;
By the warm bloom his limbs and bosom wear;
By the fresh pearls his rosy lips enclose
By the calm majesty of his repose;
By smiles I coveted, and frowns I feared,
And by the shooting myrtles of his beard -
I swear it, that from him the morning drew
Its freshness, and the moon her silvery hue,
The sun his brightness, and the stars their fire,
And musk and camphor all their odorous breath:
And if he answer not my love's desire
Day will be night to me, and Life be Death!"
x.
Scarce had she ceased, when, overcome, I fell
Upon her bosom, where the lute no more
That night was cradled; song was silenced well
~Vith kisses, each one sweeter than before,
Until their fiery dew so long was quaffed,
I drank delirium in the infectious draught.
The guests departed, but the sounds they made
I heard not; in the fountain-haunted shade 
36
The lamps burned out; the moon rode far above,
But the trees chased her from our nest of love.
Dizzy with passion, in mine ears fl~e blood
Tingled and hummed in a tumultuous flood,
Until from deep to deep I seemed to fall,
Like him, who from El Sir~t's hair-dra~vn wall
Plunges to endless gulfs.  In broken gleams
-Glimmered the things I saw, so mixed with dreams
The vain confusion blinded every sense,
And knowledge left me.  Then a sleep intense
Fell on my brain, and held me as the dead,
Until a sudden tumult smote my head,
And a strong glare, as when a torch is hurled
Before a sleeper's eyes, brought back the woAd.
xI.
Most wonderful!  The fountain and the trees
Had disappeared, and in the place of these
I saw the well-known Gate of Victory.
The sun was high; the people looked at me,
And marvelled that a sleeper should be there
On the hot pavement, for the second prayer
~Vas called from all the minarets.  I passed
My hand across my eyes, and found at last 
37
~Vhat man I was. Then straightway through my heart
There ran a double pang - the bitter smart
Of evil knowledge, and the unhealthy lust
Of sinful pleasure; and I threw the dust
Upon my head, the burial of my pride -
The ashen soil, wherein I plant the tree
Of Penitence.  The people saw, and cried,
"iMay God reward thee, Hassan! Truly, thou,
~Vhom men have honored, addest to thy brow
The crowning lustre of Humility:
As thou abasest, God exalteth thee!
~Vhich when I heard, I shed such tears of shame
As might erase the record of my blame,
And from that time I have not dared to curse
The unrighteous, since the man who seemeth worse
Than I, may purer be  for, when I fell,
Temptation reached a loflier pinnacle.
Therefore, 0 ThIan! he Charity thy aim:
Praise cannot harm, but weigh thy words of hlame.
Distrust the Virtue that itself exalts,
But turn to that which doth avow its faults,
And from Repentance plucks a wholesome fruit.
Pardon, not ~Vrath, is God's best attribute. 
38
XII.
"The tale, 0 Poet! which thy lips have told,"
I said, "is words of rubies set in gold.
Precious the wisdom which from evil draws
Strength to fulfil the good, of Allah's laws.
But lift thy head, 0 Hassan! Thine own words
Shall best console thee, for my tongue affords
No phrase but thanks for what thou hast bestowed;
And yet I fain would have thee shake the load
Of shame from off thy shoulders, seeing still
That by this fall thou hast increase~ thy will
To do the work which makes thee truly blest."
Hassan Ben Khaled wept, and smote his breast:
"Hold! hold, 0 Man!" he cried: "why make me
feel
A deeper shame? Must I to thee reveal
That Sin is as the leprous taint no art
Can cleanse the blood from? In my secret heart
I do believe I hold at dearer cost
The vanished Pleasure, than the Virtue lost."
So saying, he arose and went his way;
And Allah grant he go no more astray. 
39
THE ARAB WARRIOR.
FROM THE ARABIC.
Go, ask of men that know my name,
And they the truth will speak,
That I'm the terror of the strong,
The helper of the weak.
My spear has made the dragon brood
Succumb to galling bands,
And tossed before the jaws of War
The forage he demands.
I steer my horse through stormy fights,
As a seaman steers his craft;
My joy, to splinter on my breast
The foeman's flying shaft.
 
40
I am the latest laid to rest,
The earliest in the fight,
And while the others idly feast
I rub my harness bright.
And while the booty they divide
I heap the ranks of slain,
And when they scorn my poverty,
I scorn their greed of gain. 
41
4
ARAB PRAYER.
"La illak ii' AUah! "the muezzin's call
Comes from the minaret, slim and ~ali,
That looks o'er the distant city's wall.
"La illak ii' Allah!" the Faithful heed,
With God and tlie Prophet this hour to plead:
Whose ear is open to bear their need.
The s~~n is sunken; no vapor mars
The path of his going with dusky bars.
The silent Desert awaits the stars.
I bend the knee and I stretch the hand,
I strike my fbrehead upon the sand,
And I pray aloud, that lie understand. 
42
Not for my father, for he is dead
Not in my wandering brothers' stead -
For myself alone I bow the head.
God is Great, and God is Just:
`He knoweth the hearts of the children of dust -
He is the Helper; in Him I trust.
My sword is keen and my arm is strong
With the sense of unforgotten wrong,
And the hate that waits and watches long.
God, let me wait for year on year,
But let the hour at last appear,
When Vengeance makes my honor clear.
Once let me strike till he is slain;
His blood will cleanse my sabre's stain,
And I shall stand erect again.
Till then, I wander to and fro,
Wide as the desert whidwinds go,
And seek, by the sun and stars, my foe.
Better than Stamboul's courts of gold,
Whose harems the Georgian girls infold,
Whiter than snow, but not so cold; 
43
Better than Baghdad's garden bowers,
Or fountains il~at play among Persian flowers;
Better than all delights and powers,
The deed God's justice will abide -
The stern atonement, long denied,
That righteous Vengeance gives to Pride. 
44
EL KflALIL.
I AM no chieflain, fit to lead
~Vhere spears are huMed and warriors bleed;
No poet, in my chanted rhyme
To rouse the ghosts of ancient time
No magian, with a subtle ken
To rule the il~oughts of other men;
Yet far as sounds il~e Arab tongue
My name is known to old and young.
My form has lost its pliant grace,
There is no beauty in my face,
There is no cunning in my arm,
The Children of the Sun to charm;
Yet, where I go, my people's eyes
Are lighted with a glad surprise,
And in each tent a couch is free,
And by each fire a place, for me. 
45
They watch me from the palms, and some
Proclaim my coming ere I come.
The children lift my hand to meet
The homage of their kisses sweet;
~Vitb manly warmth the n~en embrace,
The veiled maidens seek my face,
And eyes, fresh kindled from the heart,
I~eep loving ~vatch when I depart.
On God, the Thlercifrl, I call,
To shed His blessing over all
I praise His n~me, for he is Great,
And Loving, nnd Compassionate;
And for tl~e gift of love I give -
The breath of life whereby I live -
lie gives me back, in overflow,
His children's lovo, where'er I go.
Deep sunk in sin tl~e man must he
That has no friendly word for me.
I pass through tribes whose trade is death,
And not a sabre quits the sheath
For, strong and cruel as they prove,
The sons of men are weak to Love.
The humblest gifts to them I hring;
Yet in the~r hearts I rule, a king. 
46
ODE TO INDOLENCE.
I.
FIND me a bower, in silent dells embayed,
And trebly guarded from each wind that blows,
~Vhere the blue noon o'erroofs tbe tranquil shade,
And poppies breathe an odor of repose;
~Vhere never noises from the distant world
Disturb the happy calm of soul and sense,
But in thy haven every sail is furled,
Divinest Indolence!
There shall I summon all melodious measures,
And feel the hymns to thee, I sing to other Pleasures. 
47
II.
~Vithin thy realm the vexing tempests die
That strip the leaves from Life's aspiring tree,
And fairer blossoms open in thy sky,
To richer fruits maturing peacefully.
~Vhat is the clangor of Ambition's car
To thine eternal silence?  To thy rest,
~Vhat are the stormy joys that shake the breast,
And Passion's cloud, that leaves the thunder.scar?
On brows that burn with Toil's relentless fever
Thy pitying hand is laid, and they have calm forever.
"I.
~~here thou dost sit, the shadow of Despair
Fell never; Hate and Envy thence depart;
Turn from thy gate the baffled hounds of Care,
And the great strength of slumber fills the heart.
Even Love himself, far exiled, in thy bower,
From the bright paths of rapture which he trod,
Folds up his wing: in Indian Song, the god
~Vas born bencath the sleepy lotus.flower.
The only fugitive escaped the riot,
His presence glorifies thy charmed elysian quiet. 
48
Iv.
Far from thee drift the shattered hulks of life;
But the wrecked spirit slumbers at thy feet,
And, harbored now from every wave of strife,
Feels the strong pulses of Existence beat.
There hears the heart its native language, free
From the world's clamor; with enlightened eyes
There doth the soul its features recognize,
And read its destiny!
The dark enigmas which perplexed the sense
Fade in the wisdom, born of Indolence.
V.
Yea, let men struggle, toil, exult, and win
The pigmy triumphs which they fret to wear;
But I will fly the curse of primal sin,
And in thy lap the peace of Eden share.
Serener than a star on Twilight's breast,
A sea-flower, deep below the tropic waves,
Or sparry foliage of the d~dal caves,
My life shall blossom in thine arms of rest.
My breath grows calm; my weary eyelids close;
And the pursuing Fates have left me to repose. 
49
SONG.
DAUGHTER of Egypt, veil thine eyes!
I cannot bear their fire;
Nor will I touch with sacrifice
Those altars of Desire.
For they are flames that shun the day,
And their unholy light
Is fed from natures gone astray
In passion and ia night.
The stars of Beauty and of Sin,
They burn amid the dark,
Like beacons that to ruin win
The fascinated bark.
Then veil their glow, lest I forswear
The hopcs thou canst not crown,
And in the black wavcs of thy hair
My struggling manhood drown!
4 
50
AMRAN'S WOOING.
I.
You ask, 0 Frank! how Love is born
Within these glowIng climes of Morn,
Where envious veils conceal the charms
That tempt a Western lover's arms,
And how, without a voice or sound,
From heart to heart the path is found,
Since on the eye alone is flung
The burden of the silent tongue.
You hearken with a doubtful smile
Wheae'er the wandering bards beguile
Our evening indolence with strains
Whose words gush molten through our veins -
The songs of Love, but half confessed,
Where Passion sobs on Sorrow's breast,
And mighty longings, tender fears,
Steep the strong heart in fire and tears. 
51
The source of each accordant strain
Lies deeper than the Poet's brain.
First from the people's heart must spring
The passions which he learns to sing;
They are the wind, the harp is he,
To voice their fitful melody -
The language of their varying fate,
Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate -
The talisman which holds inwrought
The touchstone of the listener's thought;
That penetrates each vai~ disguise,
And brings his secret to his eyes.
For, like a solitary bird
That hides among the boughs unheard
Until some mate, whose carol breaks,
Its own betraying song awakes,
So, to its eel~o in those lays,
The ardent heart itself betrays.
Crowned with a prophet's honor, stands
The Poet, on Arabian sands;
A chief, whose subjects love his thrall -
The sympathizing heart of all. 
52
II.
Vaunt not your ~Vestern maids to me,
~Vhose charms to every gaze are free:
I~Iy love is selfish, and wo~ild share
Scarce with the sun, or general air,
The sight of beauty wl~ieh has shone
Once for mine eyes, and mine alone.
Love likes concealment  lie can dress
~Viffi fancied grace the loveliness
That shrinks behind its virgin veil,
As hides the moon her fbrehead pale
Behind a cloud, yet leaves the air
Softer than if her orb were there.
And as the splendor of a star,
~Vhen sole in heaven, seems brighter far,
So shines the eye, Love's star and sun,
The brighter, that it sl~ines alone.
The light from out its darkness sent
Is Passion's life and element;
And when the heart is warm and young,
Let but that single ray be flung
Upon its surface, and the deep
I~eaves from its unsuspecting sleep,
As heaves the ocean when its floor
Breaks over the volcano's core. 
53
Who thinks if cheek or lip be fair?
Is not all beauty centred where
The soul looks out, the feelings move,
And Love his answer gives to love?
Look on the sun, and you will find
For other sights your eyes are blind.
Look - if the colder blood you share
Can give your heart the strength to dare -
In eyes of dark and tender fire
What more can blinded love desire?
"I.
I was a stripling, quick and bold,
And rich in pride as poor in gold,
\Vhen God's good will my journey bent
One day to Shekh Ahdallah's tent.
Afy only treasure was a steed
Of Araby's most preeio~is breed
And whether`twas in boastful whim
To show his mettled speed of limb,
Or that presumption, which, in sooth,
Becomes the careless brow of youth, -
~Vhich takes the woAd as birds the air,
And moves in freedom every where, - 
54
It matters not.  But`midst the tents
I rode in easy confidence,
Till to Abdallah's door I pressed
And made myself the old man's guest.
My "Peace be with you!" was returned
~Vith the grave courtesy he learned
From age and long authority,
And in God's name be welcomed mc.
The pipe replenished, wiil~ its stem
Of jasmine wood and amber gem,
~Vas at my lips and while I drew
The rosy.swcet, sofl vapor through
In ringlets of dissolving blue,
~Vaiting his speech with reverence meet,
A woman's garments brushed my feet,
And first through b oyisli senses ran
The pulse of love which made me man.
The handmaid of her father's cheer,
~Vith timid grace she glided near,
And, lightly dropping on l~cr knee,
Held out a silver zerf to me,
~Vithin whose cup the fragrance sent
From Yemen's sunbumt berries blent
N\Tith odors of the Persian rose.
That picture still in memory glows
With the same heat as then - the gush
Of fever, with its fiery flush 
55
Startling my blood; and I can see -
As she this moment knelt to me -
The shrouded graces of her form;
The half-seen arm, so round and warm;
The little hand, whose tender veins
Branched through the henna's orange stains;
The head, in act of offering bent;
And through the parted veil, which lent
A charm for what it hid, the eye,
Gazelle-like, large, and dark, and shy,
That with a soft, sweet tremble shone
Beneath the fervor of my own,
Yet could not, would not, turn away
The fascination of its ray,
But half in pleasure, half in fright,
Grew unto mine, and builded bright
From heart to heart a bridge of light.
Iv.
From the fond trouble of my look
The zerf within her fingers shook,
As with a start, like one who breaks
Some happy trance of thought, and wakes 
56
Unto forgotten toil, she rose
And passed.  I saw the curtains close
Behind her steps: the light was gone,
But in the dark my heart dreamed on.
Some random words - thanks ill expressed
I to the stately Shekh addressed,
With the intelligence which he,
My host, could not demand of me;
How, wnndenng in the desert chase,
I spied from far his camping~place,
And Arab honor bade me halt
To break his bread and share his salt.
Thereto, fit reverence for his name,
The praise our speech is quick to frame,
Which, empty though it seem, was dear
To the old warrio?s willing ear,
And led his thoughts, by many a track,
To deeds of ancient prowess back,
Until my love could safely hide
Beneath the covert of his pride.
And when his "Go with God!" was said,
Upon ~Az~k's back I sped
Into the desert, wide and far,
Beneath the silver evening.star,
And, fierce with passion, without heed
Urged o'er the sands my snorting steed, 
57
As if those afrites, feared of man, -
~Vho watch the lonely caravan,
And, if a loiterer lags behind,
Efface its tracks with sudden wind,
Then fill il~e air with cheating cries,
And make false pictures to his eyes
Till the bewildered sufferer dies, -
Had breathed on me their demon breath,
And spurred me to the hunt of Death.
V.
Yet madness such as this was worth
All the cool wisdom of the earth,
And sweeter glowed its wild unrest
Than the old calm of brain and breast.
The image of that maiden heamed
Through all I saw, or tho~ight, or dreamed,
Till she became, like Light or Air,
A part of life.  And slie shall share,
I vowed, my passion and my flite,~
Or both shall fail me, soon or late,
In the vain effort to possess
For Life lives only in success.
I could not, in her f~tl~er's sigl~t,
Purchase the l~and wl~ich v~as his right 
58
And well I knew how q~~ick denied
The prayer would be to empty pride~
But Heaven and Earth shall sooner move
Than bar the energy of Love.
The sinews of my life became
Obedient to that single aim,
And desperate deed and patient thought
Together in its service wrought.
Keen as a falcon, when his eye
In search of quarry reads the sky,
I stole unseen, at eventide,
Behind the well, upon whose side
The girls their jars of water leaned.
By one long, sandy hillock screened,
I watched the fUrms that went and came,
~Vith eyes that sparkled with the flame
Up from my heart in flashes sent,
As one by one they came and went
Amid the sunset radiance cast
On the red sands: they came and passed,
And she, - thank God! - she came at last!
VI.
Then, while her fair companion bound
The cord her pitcher's tl~roat around, 
59
And stead~ed with a careful hand
Its slow descent, upon the sand
At the Shekh's daughter's feet, I sped
A slender arrow, shaft and head
With breathing jasmine.flowers entwined,
And roses such as on the wind
Of evening with rich odors fan
The white kiosks of Ispahan.
A moment, fired with love and hope,
I stayed upon the yellow slope
El-Azrek's hoofs, to see her raise
lier startled eyes in sweet amaze -
To see her make the unconscious sign
Which recognized the gift as mine,
And place, before sl~e turned to part,
The flowery barb agaiI~st her heart.
VII.
Again the Shekh's divan I pressed:
The jasmine pipe was brought the guest,
And Thlariam, lovelier than before,
Knelt with the steamy cup once more.
O bliss! within those eyes to see
A soul of love look out on me - 
60
A fbunt of passion, which is truth
In the wild dialect of Youth -
~Vhose rich abundance is outpoured
Like worship at a shrine adored,
And on its rising deluge hears
The heart to raptures or despairs.
~Vhile from the cup the zerf contained
The foamy amber juice I drained,
A rosebud in the zerf expressed
The sweet confession of her breast.
One glance of glad intelligence,
And silently she glided thence.
"0 Shekh!` I cried, as she withdrew,
(Short is the speech where hearts are true,)
"Thou hast a daughter: let me be
A shield to her, a sword to thee!
Abdallab turned his steady eye
Full on my face, and made reply:
"It cannot be.  The treasure sent
By God must not he idly spent.
Strong men there are, in service tried,
Who seek the maiden for a bride
And shall I slight their wodh and truth
To feed the passing flame of youth?" 
61
VIII.
"No passing flame!" my answer ran
"But love which is the life of man,
~Varmed with his blood, fed by his breath,
And, when it fails him, leaves but Death.
o Shekh, I hoped not thy consent;
But having tasted in thy tent
An Arab welcome, shared thy bread,
I come to warn tllee I sl~all wed
Thy daughter, though her suitors be
As leaves upon the tamarind tree.
Guard her as thou mayst guard, I swear
No othcr bed than mine shall wear
Her virgin honors, and thy race
Through me shall keep its ancient place.
Thou'rt warned, and duty bids no more;
For, when I next approach thy door,
Her child shall intercessor be
To huild up peace`twixt thee and me."
A little flushed my boyish brow
But calmly then I spake, as now.
The Shekh, with dignity that flung
Rebuke on my impetuous tongue, 
62
Replied: "The young man's hopcs are fair;
The young man's blood would all things dare.
But age is wisdom, and can bring
Confusion on the soaring wing
Of reckless youth.  Thy words are just,
But needless; for I still can trust
A father's jcalousy to sl~icld
From robber grasp the gem concealed
~Vithin his tent, till he may yicld
To fitting hands the precious store.
Go, then, in peace; hut come no more."
Ix.
My only sequin served to bribe
A cunning mother of the trihe
To Mariam's mind my plan to bring.
A feather of the wild dove's wing,
A lock of ravcn gloss and stain
Sheared from El.Azrck's flowing mane,
And that pale flower whose fragrant cup
Is closed until the moon comes up,But then a tenderer beauty holds
Than any flower the sun untolds, - 
63
Declared my purpose.  Her reply
Let loose the winds of ecstasy:
Two roses and the moonlight flower
Told the acceptance, and the hour -
Two daily suns to waste their glow,
And thcn, at moonrise, bliss - or woe.
x.
El.Azrek now, on whom alone
The burden of our fate was thrown,
Claimed from my hands a double meed
Of careful training for the deed.
I gave him of my choicest store -
No guest was ever honored more.
~Vith flesh of kid, with whitest bread,
And dates of Egypt was he fed;
The camel's heavy udders gave
Their frotl~y juice his thirst to lave
A charger, groomed wiil~ better care,
The Sultan never rode to prayer.
iMy burning hope, my tortuflng fear,
I breathed in his sagacious ear
Caressed him as a brother might,
Implored his utmost speed in flight, 
64
Hung on his neck with many a vow,
And kissed the white star on his brow.
His large and lustrous eyeball sent
A look which made me confideat,
As if in me some doubt he spied,
And met it with a human pride.
"Enough: I trust thee.`Tis the hour,
And I have need of all thy power.
~Vithout a wing, God gives thee wings,
And Fortune to thy forelock clings."
XI.
The yellow moon was rising large
Above the Desert's dusky marge,
And save the jackal's whining moan,
Or distant camel's g~irgling groan,
And the lamenting monotone
Of winds that breathe il~eir vain desire
And on the lonely sands expire,
A silent charm, a breatl~less spell,
~Vaited with n~e beside the well.
She is not there - not yet - but soon
A white robe glimmers in the moon. 
65
Her little footsteps make no sound
On the soft sand; and with a bound,
Where terror, doubt, and love unite
To blind her heart to nil but flight,
Trembling, and panting, and oppressed,
She threw herself upon my breast.
By Allah! like a bath of flame
The seething blood tumultuous came
From life's hot centre as I drew
Her mouth to mine: our spirits grew
Together in one long, long kiss -
One swoonil~g, speechless pulse of bliss,
That, throbbing from the heart's core, met
In the united lips.  0, yet
The eternal sweetness of that draught
Renews the tl~irst with which I quaffed
Love's virgin vintage: starry fire
Leapt from the twilights of desire,
And in the golden dawn of dreams
The space grew warm with radiant beams,
~Vhich from that kiss streamed 9'er a sea
Of rapture, in whose bosom we
Sank down, and sank eternally.
5 
66
XII.
Now nerve thy limbs, El-Azrek!  Fling
Thy head aloft, and like a wing
Spread on the wind thy cloudy mane!
The hunt is up: their stallions strain
The urgent shoulders close behind,
And the wide nostril drinks the wind.
But thou art, too, of Nedjid's breed,
My brother! and 4~e falcon's speed
Slant down the storm's advancing line
Would laggard be if matched with thine.
Still leaping fbrward, whistling through
The moonlight.laden air, we flew;
And from the distance, threateningly,
Came il~e pursuer's eager cry.
Still fbrward, forward, stretched our flight
Through Qe long hours of middle night;
One after one the followers lagged,
And even my faithful Azrek flagged
Beneath his double burden, till
The streaks of dawn began to fill
The East, and, freshening in the race,
Their goaded horses gained apace. 
67
I drew my dagger, cut the girth,
Tumbled my saddle to the earth,
And clasped with desperate energies
~1y stallion's side with iron knees;
~7hile Th~riam, clinging to my breast,
The clcscr for that peril pressed.
They come! they come! Their shouts we hear,
Now faint and far, now fierce and near.
O brave El.Azrek! on the track
Let not one fainting sinew slack,
Or know thine agony of flight
Endured in vain! The purple light
Of breaking morn has come at last.
O joy! the thirty leagues are past;
And, glcaming in the sunrise, see
The white tents of the Aneyzee!
The warriors of the waste, the foes
Of Shekh Abdallah's tribe, are those
~Vhose shelter and support I claim,
Which they bestow in Allah's name;
While, wheeling hack, the baffled few
No longer ventured to pursue. 
68
XIII.
And now, 0 Frank! if you would see
How soft il~e eyes that looked on me
Through Mann m's silky lashes, scan
Those of my little Solyman.
And should you marvel if the child
His stately grandsire reconciled
To that hold theft, when years had brought
The golden portion which he sought,
And what upon this theme hefell,
The Shekh himself can better tell. 
0
69
A PLEDGE TO HAFIZ.
BRIM the howls with Shiraz wine!
Roses round your temples twine;
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine -
Maflz pledge we, Bard divine!
~Vith the summer warmth that glows
In the wine and on the rose,
Blushing, fervid, ruby-bright,
~Ve shall pledge his name aright.
Haflz, in whose measures move
Youth and Beauty, Song and Love -
In his veins the nimble flood
~Vas of wine, and not of blood.
All the songs he sang or thought
In his brain were never wrought,
But like rose leaves fell apart
From that bursting rose, his heart. 
70
Youth is morning's transient ray;
Love consumes itself away;
Time destroys what Beauty gives;
But in Song the Poet lives.
While we pledge him - thus - and thus -
lie is present here in us;
`Tis his voice that cries, not mine
Brim the bowls with Shiraz wine! 
71
THE GARDEN OP IREM.
llAVE you seen the Garden of Irem?
No mortal knoweth the road thereto.
Find me a path in the mists that gather
When the sunbeams scatter the morning dew,
And I will lead you thither.
Give me a key to the halls of the sun
When he goes behind the purple sea,
Or a wand to open the vaults that run
Down to the afrite-guarded treasures,
And I will open its doors to thee.
Who hath tasted its countless pleasures?
Who hath breathed, in its winds of spice,
Raptures deeper than Paradise?
Who hath trodden its ivory floors,
Where the fount drops pcarl from a golden shell,
And heard the hinges of diamond doors
Swing to the music of Israfel? 
72
Its roses blossom, its palms arise,
By the phantom stream that flows so fair
Under the Desert's burning skies.
Can you reach that flood, can you drink its tide,
Can you swim its waves to the farther side,
Your feet may enter there.
II.
I have seen the Garden of Irem.
I found it, but I sought it not:
Without a path, without a guide,
I found the enchanted spot:
Without a key its golden gate stood wide.
I was young, and strong, and bold, and free
As the milk.white foal of the Nedjidee,
And the blood in my veins was like sap of the vine,
That stirs, and mounts, and will not stop
Till the breathing blossoms that bring the wine
Have drained its balm to the last sweet drop.
Lance and barb were all I knew,
Till deep in the Desert the spot I found,
Where the marvellous gates of Irem threw
Their splendors over an unknown ground.
Mine were the pearl and ivory floors,
Mine the music of diamond doors, 
73
Turning each on a newer glory:
Mine were the roses whose bloom outran
The spring-time beauty of Gulistan,
And the fabulous flowers of Persian story.
Mine were the palms of silver stems,
And blazing emerald for diadems;
The fretted arch and the gossamer wreath,
So light and frail you feared to breathe;
Yet o'er them rested tl~e pendent spars
Of domes bespangled with silver stars,
And crusted gems of rare adorning:
And ever higher, like a shafi of fire,
The lessening links of the golden spire
Flamed in tl~e myriad-colored morning!
Like one who lies on the marble lip
Of the blessed bath in a tranquil rest,
And stirs not even a finger's tip
Lest the beatific dream should slip,
So did I lie in Ire m's breast.
Sweeter than Life and stronger than Death
~Vas every draugl~t of that blissful breath
~Varmer than Summer came its glow
To tlie youthf~il heart in a migl~ty flood,
And sent its bold and generous blood
To ~vater tlie ~vorld in its onward flow. 
~74
There, where the Garden of Irem lies,
Are the roots of tl~e Tree of Paradise,
And happy are they who sit below,
~Vhea into this world of Strife and Death
The blossoms are shaken by Allah's breath. 
75
THE BIRTH OF THE HORSE.
FROM THE ARABIC.
THE South Wind blows from Paradise -
A wind of fire and force
And yet his proudest merit is
That he begat the Horse.
When Allah's breath created first
The noble Arab steed, -
The conqueror of all his race
In courage and in speed,
To the South ~Vind He spake: From thee
A creature shall have birth,
To be the bearer of my arms
And my renown on Earth.
 
76
The pride of all the Faithfbl, he -
The terror of their foes:
Rider and Horse shall comrades be
In battle and repose.
Then to the perfect Horse He spake:
Fortune to thee I bring;
Fortune, as lon~ as rolls the Earth,
Shall to thy forelock cling.
~Vithout a pinion winged thou art,
And fleetest with thy load;
Bridled art thou without a rein,
And spurred without a goad.
Men shall bestride thee who have made
Their f~me, their service, mine;
And, when they pray upon their way,
Their prayers shall count as thine.
The worship which thy n~aster speaks
Thou sharest silently;
By mutual fate he rises up,
Or falls to Earth with thee. 
77
THE WISDOM OF ALl.
AN ARAB LEGEND.
THE Prophet once, sitting in cairn debate,
Said: " I am ~Visdom's fortress  but the gate
Thereof is Ali."  \Vheretore, some who heard,
With unbelieving jealousy were stirred;
And, that they might on him confusion bring,
Ten of the boldest joined to prove the thing.
"Let us in turn to Ali go," they said,
"And ask if Wisdom should be sought instead
Of earthly riches; then, if he reply
To each of us, in thought, accordantly,
And yet to none, in speech or phrase, the same,
His shall the honor be, and ours the shame."
Now, when the first his bold demand did make,
These were the words which Ali straightway spake: 
"~Visdom is the inheritance of those
~Vhom Allah favors; riches, of his foes."
Unto the second he said: " Thyself must be
Guard to thy wealth; but ~Visdom guardeth thee."
Unto the third: "By ~7isdom wealth is won;
But riches purchased wisdom yet for none."
Unto the fourth  " Thy goods the il~ief may take
But into ~Visdom's house he cannot break."
Unto the fiflh: "Thy goods decrease the more
Thou giv'st; but use enlarges ~Visdom's store."
Unto the sixth: "~Vealtl~ tempts to evil ways
But the desire of ~Visdom is God's praise."
Unto the seventh: "Divide thy wealth, each part
Becomes a pittance.  Give with open heart
Thy wisdom, and each separnte gift shall be
All that thou hast, yet not impoverish thee."
Unto the eighth: "~Vealth cannot keep itself;
But ~7isdom is the steward even of pelf." 
79
Unto the ninth: "The camels slowly bring
Thy goods; but ~Visdom has the swallow's wing."
And lastly, when the tenth did question make,
These were the ready words which Ali spake: -
~~~Tealth is a darkness which the soul should fear;
But ~Visdom is the lau~p that makes it clear."
Crimson with shame the questioners withdrew,
And they declared: "The Prophet's words were
true
The mouth of Ali is il~e golden door
Of ~Visdom."
~Vhen his friends to Ali bore
These words, he smiled and said: "And should they
ask
The same until my dying day, the task
~Vere easy; for the stream from ~Visdom's well,
~Vhich God supplies, is inexhaustible." 
80
AN ORIENTAL IDYL.
A SILVER javelin which the hills
Have hurleJ upon the plain below,
The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills,
Beneath me shoots in flasl~ing flow.
I hear the never-ending laugh
Of jostling waves that come and go,
And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff
The sherbet cooled in mountain snow.
The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;
And in the distant, dim bazaars
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.
 
81
No evil fear, no dream forlorn,
Darkens my heaven of perfect blue;
My blood is tempered to the morn My very heart is steeped in dew.
What Evil is I cannot tell;
But half I guess what Joy may be;
And, as a pearl within its shell,
The happy spirit sleeps in me.
I feel no more the pulse's strife, -
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea, -
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonder jasmine tree.
Upon the glittering pageantries
Of gay Damascus streets I look
As idly as a babe that sees
The painted pictures of a book.
Forgotten now are name and race;
The Past is blotted from my brain,
For Memory sleeps, and will not trace
The weai~ pages o'er again.
6 
82
I only know the morning shines,
And sweet the dewy morning air;
But does it play with tendrilled vines?
Or does it lightly lift my hair?
Deep-sunken in the charmed repose,
This ignorance is hliss extreme:
And whether I he Man, or Rose,
0, pluck me not from out my dream! 
83
THE ANGEL OF PATIENCE.
"Patience is the key of Content." -MAHoMET.
To cheer, to help us, children of the dust,
More than one angel has Our Father given;
But one alone is faithful to her trust -
The hest, the brightest exile out of Heaven.
Her ways are not the ways of pleasantness;
Her paths are not the lightsome paths of joy,
She walks with wrongs that cannot find redress,
And dwells in mansions Time and Death destroy.
She waits until her stern precursor, Care,
Has lodged on foreheads, open as the morn,
To plough his deep, besieging trenches there -
The signs of struggles which the heart has borne.
 
84
But when the first cloud da4~ens in our sky,
And face to face with Life wc stand alone,
Silent and swifl, behold! she drawetli nigh,
And mutely makes our sufferings her own.
Though with its bittcrncss the heart runs o'er,
No words the sweetness of lier lips divide
But when the eye looks up for light once more,
She turns the cloud and sl~ows its goldcn side.
Unto rebellious souls, that, mad with Fate,
To question God's eternal justicc dare,
She points above with looks that whisper, " NVait -
N\That seems confusion here is wisdon~ there."
To the vain challenges of doubt we send,
No answering comfort doth slie minister;
Her face looks ever forward to the end,
And we, who see it not, are led by her.
She doth not chide, nor in reproachf\il guise
The griefs we cherish rudely thrust apart;
But in the light of her immortal eyes
Revives the manly courage of the heart.
 
85
Daughter of God! who walkest with us here,
~Vho mak'st our every trihulation thine,
Such light hast thou in Earth's dim atmosphere,
How must thy seat in Heaven exalted shine!
How fair thy presence hy those living streams
~Vhere Sin and Sorrow from their trouhling cease!
~Vhere on thy hrow il~e crown of amaranth gleams,
And in thy hand the golden key of Peace! 
86
BEDOUIN SONG.
FROM the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left hehind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love hut thee,
~Vith a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I lie on the sands helow,
And I faint in thy disdain.
 
87
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die
Till the sun grows cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of the Judgment
Book unfold!
My steps are nightly driven,
By the fever in my breast,
To hear from thy lattice breathed
The word that shall give me rest.
Open the door of thy heart,
And open thy chamber door,
And my kisses shall teach thy lips
The love that shall fade no more
Till the sun gro?V5 cold,
And the stars are old,
And the leaves of ihe Judgment
Book unfold! 
88
DESERT HYMN TO THE SUN.
I.
Under the arches of the morning sky,
Save in one heart, there beats no life of Man;
The yellow sand-hills bleak and trackless lie,
And far behind them sleeps the caravan.
A silence, as before Creation, broods
Sublimely o'er the desert solitudes.
II.
A silence as if God in Heaven were still,
And meditating some new wonder!  Earth
And Air the solemn portent own, and thrill
With awful prescience of the coming birth.
And Night withdraws, and on their silver cars
Wheel to remotest space the trembling Stars. 
89
"I.
See! an increasing brightness, broad and fleet,
Breaks on the morning in a rosy flood,
As if He smiled to see His work complete,
And rested from it,' and pronounced it good.
The sands lie still, and every wind is furled
The Sun comes~up, and looks upon the world.
Iv.
Is there no burst of music to proclaim
The pomp and majesty of this new lord? -
A golden trumpet in each beam of flame,
Startling the universe with grand accord?
~Iust Ea~li be dun~b beneath the splendors thrown
From his full orb to glonfy her own?
V.
No: wid~ an answering splendor, more than sound
Instinct with gratulation, she adores.
~Vith purple flame the porpl~yry hills are crowned,
And burn watli ~old the Desert's boundless floors;
And the lone Alan compels his haughty knee,
And, prostrate at thy footstool, worships thee. 
90
VI.
Before the dreadful glory of thy face
He veils his sight; he fears the fiery rod
Which thou dost wield amid the hrightening space,
As if the sceptre of a visible god.
If not the shadow of God's lustre, thou
Art the one jewel flaming on His hrow.
VII.
Art thou, 0 Sun, Vicegerent of His will,
To make on Earth His presence mani&st?
By Him created, yet creator still,
Great Nature draws her being from thy breast
Where thou art, Life's innumeroi~s pulses play;
And where thou art not, Death and fell Decay.
VIII.
Wrap me within the mantle of thy beams,
And feed my pulses with thy keenest fire!
Ilere, where thy full meridian deluge streams
Across the Desert, let my hlood aspire
To ripen in the vigor of thy blaze,
And catch a warmth to shine through darker days! 
9'
Ix.
I am alone before thee: Lord of Light!
Begetter of the life of things that live
Beget in me thy calm, self-balanced might;
To me thine own immortal ardor give.
Yea, though, like her who gave to Jove her charms,
My being wither in thy fiery arms.
x.
Whence came thy splendors?  Heaven is filled with
thee;
The sky's blue walls are dazzling with thy train;
Thou sitt'st alone in the Immensity,
And in thy lap the`voAd grows young again.
Bathed in such brightness, drunken with the Day,
He deems the Dark forever passed away.
XI.
But thou dost sheathe thy trenchant sword, and lean
With tempered grandeur towards the western gate;
Shedding thy glory with a brow serene,
And leaving heaven all golden with thy state:
Not as a king discrowned and overthrown,
But one who keeps, and shall reclaim, his own. 
92
NILOTIC DRINKING-SONG.
I.
You may water your bays, brother-poets, with lays
That brighten the cup from the stream you doat on,
By the Schuylkill's side, or Cochituate's tide,
Or the crystal lymph of the mountain Croton:
(\\Te may pledge from these
In our summer ease,
Nor even Anacreon's shade revile us -)
But I, from the flood
Of his own brown blood,
Will drink to the glory of ancient Nilus!
II.
Cloud never gave birth, nor cradle the Earth,
To river so grand and fair as this is:
Not the waves that roll us the gold of Pactolus,
Nor cool Cepliissus, nor classic Ilissus.
 
93
The lily may dip
Her ivory lip
To kiss the ripples of clear Eurotas;
But the Nile brings balm
From the i~yrrb and palm,
And the ripe, voluptuous lips of the lotus.
III.
The waves that ride on his migI~ty tide
~Verc poured from the urns of unvisited mountains;
And their sweets of the South mingle cool in the mouth
~Vith the freshness and sparkle of Northern fountains.
Again and again
The goblet we dn~in  Diviner a stream never Nero id swam on
For Isis and Orus
Have quaffed before us,
And Ganymede dipped it for Jupiter Am mon.
Iv.
Its blessing he pours o'er his thirsty shores,
And floods the regions of Sleep and Silence,
\Vl~en he makes oases in desert places,
And the plain is a sea, the hills are islands.
 
94
And had I the brave
Anacreon's stave,
And lips like the honeyed lips of Hylas,
I'd dip from his brink
My bacchanal drink,
And sing for the glory of ancient Nilus! 
95
CAMADE VA.
TIlE sun, the moon, the mystic planets seven,
Shone with a purer and serener flame,
And there was joy on Earth and joy in Heaven
~Vhea Camadeva came.
The blossoms burst, like jewels of the air,
Putting the colors of t!)O morn to shame;
Breathing their odorous secrets every where
~Vhea Camadeva came.
The birds, upon the tufled tamarind spray,
Sat side by side and cooed in amorous blame,
The lion sheathed his claws and lefi his prey
When Camadeva came. 
9(3
The sea slept, pill owed on the happy shore;
The mountain-peaks were bathed in rosy flame;
The clouds went down the sky - to mount no more
~Vhen Camadeva came.
The hearts of all men brightened like the morn;
The poet's harp then first deserved its fame,
For rapture sweeter than he sang was horn
~Vhen Camadeva came.
All breathing life a newer spirit quaffed,
A second life, a bliss beyond a name,
And Death,half-conquered, dropped his idle shaft
~Then Camadeva came. 
97
NUBIA.
A LAND of Dreams and Sleep - a poppied land!
~Vith skies of endless calm above her head,
The drowsy wurmtb of summer noonday shed
Upon her hills, and silence stern and grand
Throughout her Desert's temple.burying sand.
Before her threshold, in their ancient place,
YVith closed lips, and fiNed, niujestic face,
Noteless of Time, her dumb colossi stand.
0, pass them not with light, irreverent tread
Respect the dream tl~at builds her fallen throne,
And soothes her to oblivion of her woes.
Hush! for she does hut sleep; she is not dead
Action and Toil have made the world their own,
But she bath built an altar to Repose.
7 
98
KILIMANDJARO.
I.
HAIL to thee, monarch of Afric~n mountains,
Remote, inaccessible, silent, and lone -
Who, from the heart of the tropical fervors,
Liftest to heaven thine alien snows,
Feeding forever the fountains that make thee
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!
II.
The years of the woAd are engraved on thy fbrehead;
Time's morning blushed red on thy first-fallen snows;
Yet lost in the wilderness, nameless, unnoted,
Of Man unbeholden, thou wert not till now.
Knowledge alone is the being of Nature, 
99
Giving a soul to her manifold features,
Lighting through paths of the primitive darkness
The footsteps of Truth and the vision of Song.
Knowledge has born thee anew to Creation,
And long. ba~ed Time at thy baptism.rejoices.
Take, then, a name, and be filled with existence,
Yea, be exultant in sovereign glory,
~Vl0iIe from the hand of the wandeAng poet
Drops the first garland of song at thy feet.
"I.
Floating alone, on the flood of thy making,
Through Africa's mystery, silence, and fire,
Lo! in my palm, like the Eastern enchanter,
I dip from the waters a magical mirror,
And thou art revealed to my puri~ed vision.
I see thee, supreme in the midst of thy co-mates,
Standing alone`twixt the Earth and the Heavens,
Heir of il~e Sunset and Herald of Morn.
Zone above zone, to thy shoulders of granite,
The clim~tes of Earth are displayed, as an index,
Giving the scope of the Book of Creation.
There, in the gorges that widen, descending
~rom cloud and from cold into summer eternal,
:.: 
`00
Gather the threads of the ice-gendered fountains -
Gather to riotous torrents of crystal,
And, giving each shelvy rccess where they dally
The blooms of the North and its evergrcea turfitge,
Leap to the land of the lion and lotus
There, in the wondering airs of the Tropics
Shivers the Aspen, still dreaming of cold
There stretches the Oak, from tl~e loftiest ledges,
His arms to the fitr-away lands of his brothers,
And the Pine-tree looks down on his rival, the Palm
Iv
Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air,
Thy battlements hang o'er the slopes and tl0e forests,
Seats of the Gods in the limitless ether,
Looming sublimely aloft and afar.
Above them, like folds of imperial ermine,
Sparkle the snow-fields that ft~rrow thy fbrehead -
Desolate realms, inaccessible, silent,
Chasms and caverns where Day is a stranger,
Garners where storeth his treasures the Thunder,
The Lightning his falchion, his arrows the Hail! 
101
V.
Sovereign i~Iountain, thy brothers give welcome:
They, the baptized and the crown~d of ages,
~Vatch.towers of Continents, altars of Earth,
~Telcome thee now to their mighty assembly.
Thlont Blanc, in the roar of his mad avalanches,
Hails thy accession; superb Orizaba,
Belted with beech and ensandalled with palm
Chimborazo, the lord of the regions of noonday, -
Mingle their sounds in magnificent chorus
~`~ith greeting august from the Pillars of Heaven,
~Vho, in the urns of il~e Indian Ganges
Filter the snows of their sacred dominions,
Unmarked with a footprint, unseen but of God.
VI.
Lo! unto each is the seal of his lordship,
Nor questioned the right that his majesty giveth:
Each in his awful supremacy forces
~Vorship and reverence, wonder and joy.
Absolute all, yet in dignity varied, 
102
None has a claim to the honors of story,
Or the superior splendors of song,
Greater than thou, in thy mystery mantled -
Thou, the sole monarch of African mountains,
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt! 
103
MIMOSA BLOOMS.
I BREATHE your perfume, blessed flowers;
And looking out, the blue waves o'er,
From Cadiz and her snow.white towers,
I see the Egyptian shore.
Grateful as ~oy that comes again
~Viffi solace sweeter than erewbile,
Your balsam fills my heart, as then,
Beside the pal my Nile.
Your gol den dust is on the sands
~Vhere yet my transient footprint lies;
And in the heaven of brighter lands
Your little stars arise. 
104
Ye fringe with down the thorny stems;
Ye flood the year with balm and spice,
More precious than the plant that gems
The dells of Paradise.
Pure as a sinless virgin's prayer,
Sweet as a sleeping infant's breath,
Ye mingle with the solemn air
Of old Repose and Death.
Ye bear the bliss of Spring to realms
~~here endless Summer rules the hours;
Noon's fiery deluge ne' er 0' erwhelms
The morning of your flowers.
Types of a Faith whose odors free
Gently the stress of Life beguile,
Long may ye bloom and breathe for me,
Ye darlings of the Nile 
105
THE BIRTfl OF THE PROPHET.
I.
THRICE three rnoons had waxed in heaven, thrice three
moons had waned away,
Since Abdullall, faint and thirsty, on tile Desert's bosom
lay
In the fiery lap of Summer, the meridian of the
day;
II.
Since from out the sand upgushing, lo! a sudden foun        tain loapt
Sweet as musk and clear as amber, to his parching lips
it crept.
~Vhea he drank it straightway vanisl~ed, but his blood
its virtue l~ept. 
10(3
Ii'.
Ere the morn his forehead's lustre, signet of the Proph        et's line,
To the beauty of Amina liad transferred its flame di        vine:
Of the germ within her sleeping, such the consecrated
sI(~n.
Iv
And with every moon tl~at faded waxed the splendor
more and more,
Till Amina's beauty lightened through the matron veil
she wore,
And the tent was filled with glory, and of Heaven it
seemed the door.
V.
~Vhen her quickened womb its hurden had matured,
and Life began
Struggling in its living prison, through the wide Crea        tion ran
Premonitions of the  coming of a God-appointed
man. 
107
VI.
For the oracles of Nature recognize a Prophet's
birth -
Blossom of the tardy ages, crowning type of human
worth -
And by miracles and wonders he is welcomed to the
Earth.
VII
Then the stars in heaven grew brighter, stooping down        ward from their zones;
Wheeling round the towers of Mecca, sang the moon
in silver tones,
And the Kaaba's grisly idols trembled on il~eir granite
thrones.
VIII.
Mighty arcs of rainbow splendor, pillared shafis of pur        ple fire,
Split the sky and spanned the darkness, and with many
a golden spire,
Beacon-like, from all tlie monntains streamed the lan~        bent meteors higher. 
108
Ix.
But when first ~he breath of being to the sacred infant
came,
Paled the pomp of airy lustre, and the stars grew dim
with shame,
For tl~e glory of his countenance outshone their feebler
flame.
x.
Over Nedjid's sands it lightened, unto Oman's coral
deep,
Startling all the gorgeous regions of the Orient from
sleep,
Till, a sun on night new-risen, it illumed the Indian
steep.
XI.
They who dwelt in Mecca's borders saw the distant
realms appear
All around the vast horizon, shining marvellous and
clear,
From the gardens of Damascus unto those of Bende        meer. 
109
XII.
From the colonnades of Tadmor to the bills of Hadra       n~aut,
Ancient Araby was lighted, and her sands the splendor
caught,
Till the magic sweep of vision overtook the track of
Thou ght.
XIII.
Such oni~aflh tlie wondrous glory, but beyond the
sevenfold skies
God Hisn~ansions filled with gladness, and the serapbs
saw arise
Palaces of pearl and ruby from tlie founts of Para       dise.
XIV.
As the surge of heavenly antl~cms shook tlie solemn
midnigbt air,
From tlie shrines of false religions came a wailing of
despair,
And thefires on Pagan altars were extinguished every
where. 
110
XV.
`Mid the sounds of salutation,`mid the splendor and the
balm,
I~nelt the sacred child, proclaiming, ~vitl~ a brow of
heavenly calm
"God is God; there is none other; I his chosen Prophet
am! 
TO THE NILE.
~IYsTEaIoUs F~lood, - that through the silent sands
Hast wandered, century on century,
~~atcring tl~e length of green Egyptian lands,
~~~l~icb were not, but for thee, -
Art thou the keeper of that eldest lore,
~Vritten ere yet thy hieroglyphs began,
~Vhen dawned upon thy fresh, untrampled shore
The earliest life of ~Ian?
Thou guardcst tei~ple and vast pyra~~id,
`~~hcre the gray Past records its ancient speech;
But in thine unrevealing breast lies hid
~Vhat they refuse to teach. 
112
All other streams with human joys and fears
Run blended, o'er the plains of History:
Thou tak'st no note of Man; a thousand years
Are as a day to thee.
Thou, from thine unknown sources to the sea,
Art of the Human Race a type sublime;
And Ocean waits thee, as Eternity
~Vaits for the stream of Time.
~~hat were to thee the Osirian festivals?
Or Thiemnon`5 music on the Theban plain?
The carnage, when Cambyses made thy halls
Ruddy with royal slain?
Even then thou wast a God, and shrines were built
For worship of thine own majestic flood
For thee the incense burned - for thee was spilt
The sacrificial blood.
And past the bannered pylons that arose
Above thy palms, the pageantry and state,
Thy current flowed, calmly as now it flows,
Unchangeable as Fate. 
113
Thou givest blessing as a God mignt give,
Whose being is his bounty: from the slime
Shaken from off thy skirts the nations live,
Through all the years of Time.
In thy solemnity, thine awful calm,
Thy grand indifference of Destiny,
Aly soul forgets its pain, and drinks the balm
Which thou dost proffer me.
-Thy godship is unquestioned still: I bring
No doubtful worship to thy shrine supreme;
But thus my homnge as a chaplet fling,
To float upon thy stream!
S 
lH
HASSAN TO HIS MARE.
COME, my beauty! come, my desert darling!
On my shoulder lay thy glossy head!
rear not, thougl~ the barley-sack be empty,
Here's the half of Hassan's scanty bread.
Thou shalt have thy share of dates, my beauty!
And thou know'st my water-skin is free
Drink and welcome, for the wells are distant,
And my strength and safety lie in thee.
Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses!
Lift in love tlly daA and splendid eye:
Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle -
Thou art proud l~e owns tl~ce: so am I.
 
~15
Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,
Prancing with their diamond.studdcd reins;
They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness
~~hen they course with thee the desert.plains!
Let the Sultan bring his famous horses,
Lct him bring his golden swords to meflMng his slaves, his eunuchs, and his harem
He would offer them in vain for thee.
~~e have seen Daii~ascus, 0 my beauty
And the splendor of the Pashas there
~\~hat's their pomp and riches?  ~Vhy, I would not
Take them for a handful of thy hair!
&haled sings the praises of his mistress,
And, because I've none, he pities me:
~~hat care I if he should have a thousand,
Fairer than the morning?  I have thee.
I-Ic will find his passion growing cooler
Should her glance on other suitors fall;
Thou wilt ne'er, my mistress and my darling,
Fail to answer at thy master's call.
 
116
By and by some snow-white Nedjid stallion
Shall to thee his spring-time ardor bring;
And a foal, il~e fairest of the Desert,
To thy milky dugs shall crouch and cling.
Then, when Khaled sl~ows to me his cl~ildren,
I shall laugh, and bid him look at il~ine
Thou wilt neigh, and lovingly caress me,
~Vith thy glossy neck laid close to mine. 
117
CHARMIAN.
I.
oDAUGHTER of the Sun!
~Vho gave the keys of passion unto thee?
~Vho taught the powerful sorcery
\Vherein my soul, too willing to be won,
Still feebly struggles to be free,
But more than half undone?
~Vithin the mirror of thine eyes,
Full of the sleep of warm Egyptian skies, -
The sleep of lightning, bound in airy spell,
And deadlier, because invisible, -
I see the reflex of a feeling
~Vhieh was not, till I looked on thee:
A power, involved in mystery,
That shrinks, affrighted, from its own revealing. 
118
II.
Thou sitt'st in stately indolence,
Too calm to reel a hreatb of passion start
The listless fibres of thy sense,
The fiery slumber of thy heart.
Tb inc eyes are wells of darkness, by the veil
Of languid lids half-sealed: the pale
And bloodless olive of thy face,
And the full, silent lips that wear
A ripe serenity of grace,
Are dark heneath the shadow of tl~y hair.
Not from the brow of templed Athor beams
Such tropic warmth along the path of dreai~s
Not from the lips of horn~d Isis flows
Such sweetness of repose
For thou art Passion's self a goddess too,
And aught but worship never knew;
And thus thy glances, calm and sure,
Look for accustomed homage, and betray
No effort to assert thy sway
Thou deem'st my fealty secure. 
119
III.
O Sorceress! those looks unseal
The undisturbed mysteries that press
Too deep in nature for the heart to feel
Their terror and their loveliness.
Thine eyes are torches that illume
On secret shrines their unforeboded fires,
And fill the vaults of silence and of gloom
~Vith the un resting life of ne~v desires.
I follow where their arrowy ray
Pierces the veil I would not tear away,
And with a dread, delicious awe behold
Another gate of li~e unfold,
Like the rapt neophyte who sees
Some march of grand Osirian mysteries.
The startled chambers I explore,
And every entrance open lies,
Forced by the magic thrill il~at runs before
Thy slowly.lifted eyes.
I tremble to the centre of my being
Thus to confbss the spirit's poise o'erthrown,
And all its guiding virtues blown
Like leaves before the whirlwind's fury fleeing. 
120
Iv.
But see! one memory rises in my soul,
And, beaming steadily and clear,
Scatters the lurid thunder-clouds that roll
Through Passion's sultry atmosphere.
An alchemy more potent borrow
For thy dark eyes, enticing Sorceress!
For on the casket of a sacred Sorrow
Their shafts fall poweHess.
Nay, frown not, Athor, from thy mystic shrine:
Strong Goddess of Desire, I will not be
One of the myriad slaves thou callest thine,
To cast my manhood's crown of royalty
Before thy dangerous beauty: I am free 
121
THE SHE NH.
FROM THE ARABIC.
NOT a single
Star is twinkling
Through the wilderness of cloud:
On the mountain,
In the darkness,
Stands il~e Shekh, and prays aloud: -
God, who kindlest aspiration,
Kind lest hope the heart within, -
God, who promisest Thy mercy,
N\~iping out the deht of sin, -
God, protect me, in il~e darkness,
~Vhen the awful thunders roll:
Evil walks the wodd unsleeping,
Evil sleeps ~~ithin my soul.
 
122
Keep my mind from every impulse
~Vhich from Thee may turn aside
Keep my heart from every passion
By Thy breath unsanetified.
God, preserve me from a spirit
~Vbieh Tliy knowledge cannot claim;
From a knee that hendeth never
In il~e worship of thy name
From a beart whose every feeling
Is not wholly vowed to Thee
From an eye th~~t, through its weeping,
Thy compassion cannot see;
From a prayer that goes not upward,
In the darkness and the fear,
From the soul's impassioned centre,
Seeking access at Thy ear
\Vhen the might of Evil threatens,
Throw Thy shelter over me
Let my spirit feel Thy presence,
And my days be full of Thee!
 
123
SMYRNA.
THE "Ornament of Asia" and the "Crown
Of fair Ion in."  Yea; but Asia stands
No more an empress, and lonia's hands
Have lost their sceptre.  Thou, majestic town,
Art as a diamond on a faded robe
Tl~e freshncss of thy bcauty scatters yet
The radiance of tl~at sun of Empire set,
~Vhose disc sublime illumed the ancient globe.
Thou sitt'st bctwccn the mountains and tlie sea
The sca and mountains flattcr thine array,
And fill thy courts with (Arandcur, not Decay
And Power, not Dcath, proclaims thy cypress tree.
Through thce, t he sovereign symbols Nat~ire lent
Her rise, make Asia's fall magnificent. 
124
TO A PERSIAN BOY,
IN THE BAZAAR AT SMYRNA.
THE gorgeous blossoms of tl~at magic tree
Beneath whose shade I sat a thousand nights,
Breathed from their opening petals all delights
Emb~lmed in spice of Orient Poesy,
~Vhen first, young Persian, I beheld thine eyes,
And felt the wonder of thy beauty grow
~Vithin my brain, as some fair planet's glow
Deepens, and fills the summer evening skies.
From under thy dark lashes shone on me
The rich, voluptuous soul of Eastern land,
Impassioned, tender, calm, serenely sad -
Such as immortal Hafiz felt when he
Sang by the fbuntain.streams of Rocaabad,
Or in the bowers of blissful Samarcand. 
125
THE GOBLET.
I.
~ViiLN Life l~is lusty course began,
And first I felt myself a man,
And Passion's unforeboded glow -
The il~irst to feel, the will to know -
Gave courage, vigor, fervor, truth,
The glory of tl~e heart of Youth,
And each awaking pulse was fleet
A livelier march of joy to beat,
Presaging in its hudding hour
The ripening of the human flower,
There came, on some divine intent,
One whom the Lord of Life had sent,
And from his lips of wisdom fell
This fair and woadmus oracle: - 
126
II.
Life's arcl~ing temple holds for thee
Solution quick, and radiant key
To rnany an early mystery;
And thou art cager to pursuc,
Through many a dimly-lighted clew,
The l~opes tl~at turn tIly blood to fire,
The pl0antoms of thy young desire
Yet not to rccklcss l~aste is poured
The ncctar of the generous lord,
l~~r mirth nor giddy riot jar
The penetralia, higl~ and far;
But steady hope, and passion pure,
And manly truth, the crnwa secure.
"I.
Within that temple's secret heart,
In mystic silence shrined apart,
There is a goblet, on whose brim
All raptures of Creation swim.
No light that ever beamed in wine
Can match the glory of its shine, 
127
Or lure with such a mighty art
The tidal flow of every heart.
But in its warm, bewildering blaze,
An ever.shifling magic plays,
And few who round il~e altar throng
Shall find the sweets for which they long.
~Vho, unto brutish life akin,
Comes to the goblet dark with sin,
And with a coarse band grasps, for him
The splendor of the gold grows dim,
The gems are dirt, the liquor's flaa~e
A n~addenii~g beverage of shame,
And into caverns sl~ut from day
The hot inebriate reels away.
Iv.
For each shall give the draught he drains
Its nectar pure, or poison stains;
From out his heart tl~e flavor flows
That gives him fury, or repose
And some shall drink a tasteless wave
And some increase the thirst they lave;
And otl~ers loathe as soon as taste,
And others pour the tide to waste; 
128
And some evoke from out its deeps
A torturing fiend that never sleeps -
For vain all arts to exorcise
From the seared heart its haunting eyes.
V.
But he who burns with pure desire,
~7ith chastened love and sacred fire,
N\Tith soul and being all a-glow
Life's holiest mystery to know,
Shall see the goblet flash and gleam
As in the glory of a dream;
And from its starry lip shall drink
A bliss to lift him on the brink
Of mighty rapture, joy intense,
That far outlives its subsidence.
The draught shall strike Life's narrow goal,
And make an outlet for his soul,
That down the ages, broad and far,
Shall brighten like a rising star.
In other forms his pulse shall beat,
His spirit walk in other feet, 
129
And every generous hope and aim
That spurred him on to honest fame,
To other hearts give warmth and grace,
And keep on earth his honored place,
Become immortal in his race..
9 
130
THE ARAB TO THE PALM.
NEXT to thee, 0 fair gazelle,
o Beddowee girl, beloved so well;
Next to the fearless Nedjidee,
Whose fleetness shall bear me again to thee;
Next to ye both I love the Palm,
With his leaves of beauty, his fruit of balm;
Next to ye both I love the Tree
Whose fluttering shadow wraps us three
With love, and silence, and mystery!
Our tribe is many, our poets vie
With any under the Arab sky;
Yet none can sing of the Palm but I. 
131
The marble minarets that begem
Cairo's citadel~diadem
Are not so light as his slender stem.
He lifts his leaves in the sunbeam's glance
As the Almehs lifi their arms in dance -
A slumberous motion, a passionate sign,
That works in the cells of il~e blood like wine.
Full of passion and sorrow is he,
Dreaming where the beloved may be.
And when the warm south-winds arise,
He breathes his longing in fervid sighs -
Quickening odors, kisses of balm,
That drop in il~e lap of l0is chosen palm.
The sun may flame and the sands may stir,
But the breath of his passion reaches her.
o Tree of Love, by that love of thine,
Teach me how I shall soflen mine
Give me the secret of the sun,
~Vherehy the wooed is ever won! 
132
If I were a King, 0 stately Tree,
A likeness, glorious as might be,
In the court of my palace I'd build for thee!
~ViQ a shaft of silver, burnished bright,
And leaves of beryl and malachite;
~Vitb spikes of golden bloom a-blaze,
And fruits of topaz and chrysoprase:
And there the poets, in thy praise,
Should nght and morning frame new lays -
New measures sung to tunes divine
But none, 0 Palm, should equal mine! 
133
AURUM POTABILE.
I.
BROTHER Bards of every region -
Brother Bards, (your name is Legion!)
~Vere you with me while il~e twilight
Darkens up my pine-tree skylight -
~~ere you gathered, representing
Every land beneath the sun,
0, what songs would be indited,
Ere the earliest star is lighted,
To the praise of vino d'oro,
On the Ilills of Lebanon!
II.
Yes; while all alone I quaff its
Lucid gold, and brightly laugh its 
134
Topaz waves and amber bubbles,
Still the thought my picasure troubles,
That I quaff it all alone.
Oh for LIaflz - gloMous Persian!
I~eats, with buoyant, gay diversion
Thlocking Schiller's grave immersion;
Oh for wreathed Anacreon
~~et enough to l~avc the living -
They, il~e few, the rapture-giving
(Blessed more than in receiving,)
Fate, that frowns when laurels wreathe them,
Once il~e solace might bequeath them,
Once to taste of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!
III.
Lebanon, thou mount of story,
~Vell we know thy sturdy glory,
Since the days of Solomon;
~Vell we know the Five old Cedars,
Scarred by ages - silent pleaders,
Preaching, in their gray sedateness,
Of thy forest's fallen greatness, 
135
Of the vessels of the Tyrian,
And the palaces Assyrian,
And the temple on Morian
To the High and Holy One!
Know the wealth of thy appointment -
Myrrh and aloes, gum and ointment;
But we knew not, till we clomb thee,
Of the nectar dropping from thee -
Of the pure, pellucid Ophir
In the cups of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!
Iv.
~Ve have drunk, and we have eaten,
\Vhere Egyptian sheaves are beaten;
Tasted Judah's milk and honey
On his mountains, bare and sunny;
Drained ambrosial bowls, that ask us
Never more to leave Damascus;
And have sung a vintage prean
To the grapes of isles ~gean,
And the flasks of Orvieto,
Ripened in the Roman sun: 
136
But the liquor here surpasses
All that beams in earthly glasses.
`Tis of this that Paracelsus
(His elixir vit~) tells us,
That to happier shores can float us
Than Letbean stems of lotus,
And the vigor of the morning
Straight restores when day is done.
Then, before the sunset waneth,
~Vhile the rosy tide, that staineth
Earth, and sky, and sea, remaineth,
~Ve will take the fortune proffered -
Ne'er again to be reoffered -
We will drink of vino d'oro,
On the Hills of Lebanon!
Vino d'oro! vino d'oro! -
Golden blood of Lebanon! 
137
ON THE SEA.
THE pathway of the sinking moon
Fades from the silent bay;
The mountain-isles looun large and faint,
Folded in shadows gray,
And the lights of land are setting stars
That soon will pass away.
O boatman, cease thy mellow song!
O minstrel, drop thy lyre!
Let us hear the voice of the midnight sea,
Let us speak as the waves inspire,
While the plashy dip of the languid oar
Is a flirrow of silver fire.
Day cannot make thee half so fair,
Nor the stars of eve so dear:
 
138
The arms that clasp and il~e breast that keeps,
They tell me thou art near,
And the perfect beauty of thy face
In thy murmured words I hear.
The lights of land have dropped below
The vast and glimmering sea;
The woild we leave is a tale that is told, -
A fable, that cannot be.
There is no life in the sphery dark
But the love in thee and me! 
`39
TYRE.
I.
THE wild and windy morning is lit with lurid fire;
The thundering surf of ocean beats on the rocks of
TyreBeats on the fallen columns and round the headland
roars,
And hurls its foamy volume along the hollow shores,
And calls with hungry clamor, that speaks its long de         sire:
~Vhere are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of
Tyre?"
II.
~Vithin her cunning harbor, choked with invading sand,
No galleys bring their freightage, the spoils of every land, 
140
And like a prostrate forest, when autumn gales have
blown,
Her colonnades of granite lie shattered and o'erthrown;
And from the reef the pharos no longer flings its fire
To beacon home from Tarshish the lordly ships of Tyre.
"I.
~Vhere is thy rod of empire, once mighty on the
waves -
Thou that thyself exalted, till Kings became thy slaves?
Thou that didst speak to nations, and saw thy will
obeyed -
~Vliose favor made them joyful, whose anger sore
afraid -
~Vho laid'st thy deep foundations, and thought them
strong and sure,
And boasted midst the waters: shall I not aye endure?
Iv.
Where is the wealth of ages that heaped thy princely
mart?
The pomp of purple trappings; the gems of Syrian art; 
141
The silken goats of Kedar; Sab~a's spicy store;
The tributes of the islands thy squadrons homeward
bore,
~Vhen in thy gates triumphant they entered from the
sea
\Vith sound of horn and saokbut, of harp and psaltery?
V.
Howl, howl, ye ships of Tarshish! the glory is laid
waste:
There is no habitation; the mansions are defaced.
No mariners of Sidon unfurl your mighty sails;
No workmen fell the fir-trees that grow in Shenir's
vales,
And Bashan's oaks that boasted a thousand years of
sun,
Or hew the masts of cedar on frosty Lebanon.
VI.
Rise, thou forgotten harlot! take up thy harp and
sing:
Call the rebellious islands to own their ancient king: 
142
Bare tothe spray thy bosom, and with thy hair Un
bound,
Sit on il~e piles of ruin, thou throneless and discrowned!
There mix thy voice of wailing with the thunders of the
sea,
And sing thy songs of sorrow, that thou remembered
be!
VII.
Though silent and forgotten, yet Nature still laments
The pomp and power departed, the lost magnificence:
The hills were proud to see thee, and they are sadder
now;
The seawas proud to hear thee, and wears a troubled
brow,
And evermore the surges chant forth their vain desire:
" ~Vhere are the ships of Tarshish, the mighty ships of
Tyre?" 
143
AN ANSWER.
You call me cold: you wonder why
The marble of a mien like mine
Gives fiery sparks of Poesy,
Or softens at Love's touch divine.
Go, look on Nature, you will find
It is the rock that feels the sun
But you are blind- and to the blind
The touch of ice and fire is one.
 
144
REQUIEM IN THE SOUTH.
Tiiou hast no charm to turn te edge of Sorrow,
Bird of the mournful strain!
From thee doth Love a love more fervent borrow,
But Pain a sharper pain.
~Vl)y sing so loud, the passion-dream recalling,
That ceased in sudden gloom?
~Vhy sing from boughs, whose ripened bloom is falling
Upon a maiden's tomb?
There needs no prompter for the love, belonging
To that sweet memory;
The heart's wild outcry, not its perished longing,
Demands a voice from thee. 
145
The blackness of a grief tha{~will not soften
Clings round me through the day,
And to the grave that hides her, wandenag often,
I weep the nights away.
In this fierce sorrow there is no partaker -
It seeks no healing balm
Yet, though my lamentations cannot wake her,
The exhausted heart grows calm.
Here,filled with sorrows of its own creation,
The night.wind swells and dies;
And, drooping in their dumb commiseration,
The palms around me rise.
Here,from the friry of my passion fleeing,
The barriers slowly fret,
~Vhich dam the restless river of my being
To stagilate in regret.
And Imay conquer this o'ermastering anguish,
And find my peace again;
The manly heart must sometime cease to languish,
Ruled by the manly brain.
10 
146
And what is wax shall be as steel within me,
And be my fortune then:
All sofl indulgence powerless to win me
From the stern ways of men.
And let them say: "His heart is cold and cruel,
He knows not love's desire:"
I gave the essence of my life as fuel
To one extinguished fire. 
147
GULISTAN.
AN ARABIC METRE.
~Vii~a~ is Gulistan, the Land of Roses?
Not on hills where Northern winters
Break their spears in icy splinters,
And inshrouded snow the woAd reposes
But amid il~e glow lud splendor
~Vhieh the Orient summers lend her,
Blue the heaven above her beauty closes:
There is Gulistan, the Land of Roses.
Northward stand the Persian mountains;
Southward spring il~e silver fountains
~Vhiebto LIafi~ taught hiS sweetest measures,
Cle~Ay ringing to the singing
~Vhieh the nightingales delight in,
~7hen the Spring, from Oman winging
Unto Shiraz, showers her fragrant treasures
On the land, till valleys brighten,
 
14S
Mountains lighten with returning
Fires of scarlet poppy burning,
And the stream meanders
Through its roseate oleanders,
And Love's golden gate, unfolden,
Opens on a universe of pleasures.
There the sunshine blazes over
Meadows gemmed with ruby clover;
There the rose's heart uncloses,
Prodigal with hoarded stores of sweetness,
And the lily's cup so still is
~Vhere the river's waters quiver,
That no wandering air can spill his
Honeyed balm, or blight his beauty's fleetness.
Skies are fairest, days are rarest -
Thou, 0 Earth! a glory wearest
From the ecstasy thou bearest,
Once to feel the Summer's full completeness.
Twilight glances, moonlit dances,
Song by stailight, there en trances
Youthful hearts with fervid fancies,
And the blushing rose of Love uncloses:
Love that, lapped in summer joyance,
Far from every rude annoyance,
Calmly on the answering love reposes 
149
And in song, in music only
Speaks the longing, vague and lonely,
~Thich to pain is there the nearest,
Yet of joys the sweetest, dearest,
As a cloud when skies are clearest
On its folds intcnser light discloses
This is Gulistan, the Land of Roses. 
150
JE RUSALE1~I.
FAIR shines the n~oon, Jerusalem,
Upon tl~e hills that ~vore
Thy glory once, tl~eir diaden~
Ere Judal~'s reigti ~vas o'er
The stars on hullowed Olivet
And over Zion burn,
But when shall rise tliy splendor set?
Thy majesty return?
The peaceful shades that wrap thee now
Thy desolation hide;
The moonlit beauty of thy brow
Restores il~ine ancient pride
Yet there, where Rome tliy Temple rent,
The dews of midnight wet
The marble dome of Omar's tent,
And Aksa's minaret 
151
Thy strength, Jerusalem, is o'er,
And broken are thy walls;
The harp of Israel sounds no more
In thy deserted halls
But where thy Iiings and Prophets trod,
Triumphant over Death
Behold the living Soul of God -
The Christ of Nazareth
The halo of his presence fills
Thy courts, thy ways of men
His footsteps on thy holy hills
Are beautiful as then
The praycr, whose bloody sweat betrayed
His human agony,
Still haunts tl~e awful olive shade
Of old Gethsemaae.
~Voe unto thee, Jerusalem
Slayer of Prophets, thou,
That in thy fury stonest them
God seat, and sends thee now: -
~~~here thou, 0 Cl~rist! with anguish spent,
Forgave tl~y foes, and dicd,
Tliy garments yet are daily rent -
Thy soul is crucified
 
152
They darken with the Christian name
The light that from thee beamed,
And by the hatred they proclaim
Thy spirit is blasphemed;
Unto thine ear the prayers they send
~Vere fit for Belial's reign,
And Moslem ci meters defend
The temple they profane.
~Vho shall rebuild Jerusalem? -
Her scattered children bring
From Earth's fitr ends, and gather them
Beneath her sheltenng ~ving?
For Judah's sceptre broken lies,
And from his kingly stem
No new Messiah shall arise
For lost Jerusalem!
But let the wild ass on her hills
Its foal unfrighted lead,
And by the source of Kedron's rills
The desert adder breed:
For where the love of Christ has made
Its mansion in the heart,
He builds in pomp that will not fade
Her heavenly counterpart.
 
153
How long, 0 Christ, shall men obscure
Thy holy charity -
How long the godless rites endure,
N\7hich they bestow on thee?
Thou, in whose soul of tenderness
The Father's mercy shone,
\Vho came, the sons of men to bless
By Truth and Love alone.
The suns of eighteen hundred years
Have seen thy reign expand,
And Morning, on her patl~way, hears
Thy name in every land
But where thy sacred steps were sent
The Father's will to bide,
Thy garments yet are daily rent -
Thy soul is crucified
 
154
THE VOYAGE OF A DREAM.
THERE is a cloud helow the mountain peak,
Thloored in the pauses of the uncertain air.
Its fleecy folds piled idly, self.involved,
Fashion tl~e semblance of a floating throne,
Torn, in the clash of airy anarchy,
From the halls of Thunder; haply, once surcharged
\Vith elemental fire and threatening deathFit seat for the Destroying Gods! - but no'v
Of ivory all compact, and touched with gold
And opal radiance on its sunny liem,
As if a peaceful Angel steered it down
From empyreal heights, with folded wing
Slow sinking through the yielding deeps.  A throne
It seems, where disembodied Thought may sit,
Unquestioned take the sceptre of the world,
And, exercising power anticipant,
Go forth to try his lordship. 
155
I accept
The moment's offer, mount the seat sublime,
And on the ~vinds whose ~~ings I feel no more,
Because I move before them, boldly try
The blue abyss`vl~ose n~easure no man kno~vs.
Straigl~t down tlie moui~tain sinks  the mountain pines
Send a last drowning murmur faiatly up
The ingulfing air, then s~and in moveless calm,
Like coral forests rooted on the floors
c)f Ocean.  Plummeted witl~ all lier sins,
The Earth, down-sliding througl~ tlie limpid sea,
Bears far below, tle noises of her broilsThe greeds, the struggles, tl~e devouring cares,
The end!es~ ag;tat ions - leaving free
To the enfl~ncliised spirit the still fields
Of ai~plest ctl~er.  S1)eed, lay winge'd throne
~Vhercvcr Thought may pilot, stretch thy flight,
Higher than eagle dares, above the peaks
Of Himalayan snow, o'er seas and sands,
Tl~rougli tropic green, or where the eternal ice
Stiffens around the forehead of the Pole
The ~~~orld is mine  the secrets of lier heart
Lie at my feet  slie cannot shut them out
And as she spins on her appointed round
From daylight into dark, from dark to dawn,
The mysteries of ages, problems which 
15~
A hundred centuries l~ave left ui~solved,
Give one by one their answers  ~~onder burst
From tlie hot heart of Yf\'ica the sprin~s
Of ~`~aters that have rocl~ed Egyptian gods,
~Vhen the great stream tli('it leaped in thunder down
From Pri ma is and Sycue's barrier, bore
Tl0e chap lets and the consecrated oil
To his own godship poured: - Beyond those hills,
~Vltose tops against the Indian Caucasus
Uplift their snowy helms, behold the vast
~~Tind~driven platforms, ~~hence the earliest Thien
~Vent ~~ith the streams to greener pasture-fields,
And bore - their only heritage - God's name,
The altars of his worship, and the truths
~Vhose rude foundations underlie the piles
Of states and sovereigaties, upholding firm
The masonry of Time: and whntsoe'er
Of summer beauty in the virgin isles,
Of lifeless grandeur in the emerald crags
Of undissolving ice, was never yet
By bold Adventure wrested from the keep
Of savage Nature, gives its secret up,
Helpless beneath the master-gaze of Thought,
As that of God.
Sweep downward, streams of air!
And thou, my cloudy chariot, drop thy shade 
15~7
To roli, like dust, behii~d thy silent ~vheels,
And draw round Earth the trii~mph of our march!
See where, from zone to zone, the shadow moves -
A spot upon tl~e Desert's golde a glare -
A deeper blue on the far-stretching plains
Of Ocean's fbamy azure - pausing now
To cloak with purple gloom the shoulders bare
Of mighty mountains, or ingulfed and lost
Deep in their folded chasms, or sailing slow
On wide savannas, the elysian home
Of flowery life, or quenching splendors vain
That dance upon the gilded domes of men,
And blind their eyes to the great light of I1eaven.
As in tl)is rarer ether I surmount
Life's numberless obstructions, and my gaze
Takes in the whole expanded round of Earth,
So, lifted o'er tlie narrow walks of Time,
The weary years have dwindled to a point,
And all their lessons compassed in the sphere
Of one sole tl~ought, as in the dew-drop lies
The large orb of the morning sun.  The years -
The ages, that from their accretion grow -
The cyclic eras - shrink, and ull tlie Past
Lies round and clear bencatl~ me, swallowing up
In one grand circumspect the separate lives,
The individual links wherehy our hearts 
158
~Valk slowly back tlie difT~cult paths of Time,
Or climb son~e lesser eminence, to gain
i~ forward look that dimly pelietrates
Tl~e nenrest Future.  Past and Future now
Unite their worlds in equal counterpoise,
And, effortless as drean~s, the wisdon~ comes
That reads the hidden issues of all life,
The purpose of Creation.
Mount no more,
Thou flying cloud, but rather turn to dew
And ~~eep thyself upon the clover meads,
And mix thy being with their honeyed bloom,
Than float alone within the highest vault
Of blue-cold ether, to dissolve alone
Into the thin, unfriendly air.  Come down
Come down! and let me quit this perilous height,
This icy royalty of thought, to glide
Nearer the homes of n~en, the en~bowered nests
Of unaspiring, lowliest content,
And joy, that from the beams of many hearts
Gathers:t5 radiant focus, like a star
In the warm mists of Earth: nor yet enough
To glide above, but dro1~ i~e in the fields
Or in the vales at evening, when from work
Accomplished, rest tlie glowing limbs of Toil, 
159
And men have time to love - and I will kiss
The rugged cheek of Earth, with thankful tears
For every throb of every human heart
That welcomes me to sl~are tl~e general law,
And bear the mutual burden.  ThIan alone
(?reates Elysium for the soul of m~n.
The ample Future, and the godlike reach
Of new existence, are the prophecies
Of humblest Love, and in the souls that love
And are beloved the shining ether swims,
~~hereon exalted, we o'erlook the world,
And Life. and Death and evcrv thing but Heaven. 
160
L' ENVOl.
UNTO the Desert and the oesert steed
F~arewell!  Tl~e journey is completed now:
Struel are the tents of Isl~mael's wandeMng breed,
And I unwind the turban from my brow.
Tlie sun has ceased to shine  the palms that bent,
inebriate ~vith ligl~t, l~ave disappeared
And naught is left me of tl~e Orient
But the tanned bosom and the unshorn beard.
Yet froin that life my blood a glow retains,
As the red sunsl~ine in the ruby glows;
These songs are echoes of its fiercer strains -
Dreams, that recall its I)assion and repose.
 
1(31
I found, among those Children of the Sun,
The cipher of my nature - the release
Of baffled powers, which else had never won
That free fulfilment, whose reward is peace.
For not to any race or any clime
Is the completed sphere of life revealed;
He who would make his own that round suhlime,
Must pitch his tent on many a distant field.
Upoa his home a dawning lustre heams,
But through the world he walks to open day,
Gathering from every land the prismul gleams,
~Vhich, when united, form the perfect ray.
Go, therefbre, Songs! - which in the East were born
And drew your nurture - from your sire's control:
Haply to wander through the ~Vest forlorn,
Or find a shelter in some Orient soul.
And if il~e temper of our colder sky
Less warmth of passion and of speech demands,
They are the hlossoms of my life - and I
Have ripened in the suns of many lands.
11  
II.
(i~  
165
HYMN TO AIR.
I.
Tn~ mightiest thou, among the Powers of Earth,
The viewless Agent of il~e unseen God,
~Vhat immemorial era saw thy birth?
~Vhat pathless fields of new Creation trod
Thy noiseless feet?  ~Vhere was thy dwelling-place
In the blind realm of Chaos, ere the word
Of Sovereign Order by the stars was heard,
Or the young planet knew her Maker's face?
No wrecks are hid in thine unfathomed sea;
Thy crystal tablets no inscription bear;
The awfbl Infinite is shrined in thee,
Immeasurable Air! 
~66
II
Thou art tl~e Soul`vherein tlie Earth rene~vs
The nobler life, that heals her primal scars;
Thine is the n~antle of all-glorious hues,
~Vl~icii makes her beautiful among the stars
Thine is tl~e essence that informs l~er frame
~Vith manifold existence, tl~ine the ~~ing
From gulfs of outer darkness sheltering,
And from the Sun's uplifled sword of flame.
She sleeps in tlly protection, lives in thee
Thou mak'st tl~e foreheads of her mountains smile;
His heart to thine, the all-surrounding Sea
Spreads thy blue drapery o'er his cradled isle.
Thou art the breath of Nature, and tlie tongue
Unto her dumb matenal being granted,
And by thy voice her sorrowing psalms are chanted -
Her hymns of triumph sung!
"I
Thine azure fountains nourish all that lives;
Forever drained, yet ever brimming o'er,
 
167
Their billows in eternal freshness pour,
And from her choicest treasury Nature gives
A glad repayment of the debt she owes,
Replenishing thy sources: - balmy dews,
That on thy breast their summer tears diffuse;
Strength from the pine, and sweetness from the rose;
Tl~e spice of gorgeous Ind, il~e scents that till
Ambrosial forests in the i~les of palm
Leagues of perennial bloom on every hill;
Lily and lotus in the water's calm
And where the torrent leaps to take thy wing,
But dashes out its life in diamond spray,
Or multitudinous waves of ocean fling
Their briny strength along thy rapid way -
Escapes some virtue which from thee il~ey hold
And even the grosser exhalations, fed
From Earth's decay, Time's crowded charnel-bed,
Fused in thy vast alembic, turn to gold.
Iv.
~Ian is thy nursling, universal Air!
No kinder parent fosters him il~an thou:
Mow soft thy fingers dally with his l~air!
flow sweet their pressure on liis fevered brow! 
168
In the dark lanes where squalid Misery dwells,
Where the fresh glories of existence shun
The childhood nurtured in the city's hells,
And eyes that never saw the morning sun,
Pale cheeks for thee are pining, heavy sighs
Drawn from the depth of weary hearts, arise -
The flower of Life is withered on its stem,
And the black shade tl~e loathsome walls enclose
Day after day more drear and stifling grows,
Till Heaven itself seems fbr&ited to them!
What marvel, then, as from a fevered dream
The dying wakes, to feel l)is fbrel~ead fanned
By tl0y celestial freshness, he sho~~ld deem
The death-sweat dried beneath an angel's hand?
fhat tokens of the violet-sprinkled sod,
Breathed like a blessing o'er his closing eyes,
Should pmmise hiin the peace of Paradise -
The pardon of his God?
V
~Vhat is the scenery of Earth to thine?
Here all is fixed in everlasting shapes,
B~~t where the realms of gorgeous Cloudland shine,
There stretch afar thy sun-illumined capes,
 
169
Embaying reaches of the amber seas
Of sunset, on whose tranquil bosom lie
The happy islands of the upper sky,
The halcyon shores of tI~ine Atiantides.
Anon the airy headlands change, and drifl
Into sublimer forms, that slowly heave
Their toppling masses up the front of eve,
Crag heaped on crag, with many a fiery rift,
And hoary summits, throned beyond the reach
Of Alp or Caueas~~s: again tl~ey change,
And down the vast, interminable range
Of towers and palaces, t~inscending each
The wo4~manship of Fable-Land, we see
The  crystaI~l~yaIine" of Reaven's own floor -
The radiance of tl~e far Eternity
Reflected on thy shore!
`TI
To the pure calm of il~y cerulean deeps
Tl~e jar of earth-horn tumult cannot climb;
Tl~ere ancient Silence her dominion keeps,
Beyond tl~e narmw boundaries of Time.
The taint of Sin, the vapors of tl~e woAd,
The smokes of godless altars, hang below,
 
Staining thy marge, but not a cloud is curled
~Vhere those supernal tides of etI~cr flow.
N\That vistas ope from those sercuer plains!
~Vhat dawniug splendors touch tl~ine azure towers
~Vhen some fair soul, whose path on Earth was ours
Tl~e starry freedom of its wing regains,
Shall it not liuger for a moment there,
One last divine regret to Earth returning, -
One look, where Light ineffable is burning
In Heaven's immortal Air
V".
Thine are the treasuries of Hail and Snow;
Thy hand lets fall the Thunder's bolt of fire
And when from out thy seething caldrons blow
The vapors of the wl~irlwind, spire on spire
In terrible convolution wreathed and blent,
The unimagined strength that lay concealed
~Vithia thy quiet bosom is revealed
To the racked Earth and trembling firmament.
And thou dost hold, awaiting God's decree,
The keys of all destruction: - in that hour
~Vhen the Almighty ~7rath shall loose thy power,
Before thy breath shall disappear the sea, 
171
To ashes turn the mountain's mighty frame,
And as the seven-fold fervors wider roll,
Thou, sel~consuming, shrivel as a scroll,
And wrap the world in one wide pall of flame! 
172
SONG.
Now the days are brief and drear:
Naked lics the new-born Year
In his cradle of the snow,
And il~e winds unbridled blow,
And the skics hang dark and lowFor the Summcrs come and go.
Leave the clashing cymbals mute!
Pipe no morc the happy flute
Sing no morc that dancing rhyme
Of the rosc's ha~~vcst-time -
Sing a reqt~icm, sad and low
For the Summers comc and go.
Where is Youth?  Uc strayed away
Through the i~ncadow-flowers of May. 
1~3
~Vhere is Love?  The leaves that fell
From his trysting.hower, can tell.
N\~isdom stays, sedate and slow,
And the Summers come and go.
Yet a few more years to run,
N\~heeling round in gloom and sun;
Other raptures, other woes -
Toil alternate with Repose
Then to sleep where daisies grow,
~Vhile the Summers come and go. 
174
THE MYSTERY.
Tiiou art not dend; thou art not gone to dust;
No line of all thy loveliness shall fall
To formless ruin, smote by Time, and thrust
Into the solemn gnlf that covers all.
Thou canst not wholly perish, though the sod
Sink with its violets closer to thy breast;
Though by the feet of generations trod,
The head-stone crumbles from thy place of rest.
The marvel of thy beauty cannot die;
The sweetness of thy presence shall not fade;
Earth gave not all the glory of thine eye -
Death may not keep what Death has never made.
 
1~5
It was not thine, that forehead strange and cold,
Nor those dumb lips, they hid beneath the snow;
Thy heart would throb beneath that passive fold,
Thy hands for me that stony clasp forego.
But thou hadst gone - gone from the dreary land,
Gone from tl~e storms let loose on every hill,
Lured by the sweet persuasion of a hand
~Vliicb leads thee somewhere in tl~e distance still.
NVhere'er thou art, I know thou wearest yet
The same bewildering beauty, sanctified
By calmer joy, and touched with sofl regret
For him who seeks, but cannot reach thy side.
I keep for thee the living love of old,
And seek thy place in Nature, as a child
~Vhose hand is parted from his playmate's hold,
~~anders and cries along a lonesome wild.
~Vhen, in the watcl~es of my heart, I hear
The messages of purer life, and know
The footsteps of thy spirit lingering near,
The darkness hides the way that I should go.
 
I~6
Canst thou not bid the en~pty rcal~~s restore
That forn~, tiie sy n~hol of thy heavenly part?
Or on the fields of barren silence pour
That voice, the perfect music of thy heart?
O once, once bending to these widowed lips,
Take hack the tender warmth of life from me,
Or let il~y kisses cloud with swift eclipse
Tl~e light of mii~e, and give me death with thee 
`77
A PICTURE.
SOMETIMES, in sleeping dreams of night,
Or waking dreams of day,
The selfsame picture seeks my sight
And will not fade away.
I see a valley, cold and still,
Beneath a leaden sky:
~`he woods are leafless on the hill,
The fields deserted lie.
The gray November eve henumhs
The damp and cheerless air;
A wailing from the forest comes,
As of the world's despair.
12 
1~s
But on the verge of night and storm,
Far down the valley's line,
I see the lustre, red and warm,
Of cottage windows shine.
And men are housed, and in their place,
In snug and happy rest,
Save one, who walks with weary pace
The highway's frozen breast.
His lin~bs, il~at tremble with the cold,
Shrink from tl~e coming storm;
But underneath his mantle's fold,
His heart beats quick and warm.
He hears the laugh of those who sit
In Home's contented air;
He sees tlie busy shadows flit
Across the window's glare.
His heart is full of love unspent,
His eyes are wet and dim;
For in those circles of content
There is no room for him.
 
1~9
He clasps his hands and looks above;
He makes the bitter cry:
"All, all are happy in their love -
All are beloved but I!"
Across no threshold streams il~e light,
Expeetai~t, o'er his track;
No door is opened on tl~e nigl~t,
To bid him welcome back.
There is no other man abroad
In all the wintry vale,
And lower upon his lonely road
Tl~e darkness and the gale.
I see him through the doleful shades
Press onward, sad and slow,
Till from my dream tlie picture fades,
And from my heart the woe.
 
180
IN THE MEADOWS.
I LIE in the summer meadows,
In tl)e meadows all alone,
With the infinite sky above me
And the sun on his mid-day throne.
The smell of the flowering grasses
Is sweeter than any rose,
And a million happy insects
Sing in the warm repose.
The mother lark that is brooding
Feels the sun on her wings,
And tl~e deeps of the noonday glitter
With swarms of fairy things.
 
181
From the billowy green beneath me
To the fathomless blue above,
The creatures of God are happy
In the warmth of il~eir summer love.
The infinite bliss of Nature
I feel in every vein;
The light and the life of Summer
Blossom in heart and brain.
But darker than any shadow
By thunder-clouds unfurled,
The awful truth arises,
That Death is in the world!
And the sky may beam as ever,
And never a cloud be curled;
And the airs be living odors,
But Death is in the world
Out of the deeps of sunshine
The invisible bolt is hurled:
There's life in the summer meadows,
But Death is in the world!
 
182
SONNET.
TiiE soul goes &rth and finds no resting place
On the wide hrenst of Life's unquiet sea
But in the heart of ~I~n.  Tlie blazonry
Of ~Vealth and Power fLides out, and leaves no trace;
Renown's fresh laurels fur awhile may grace
The brow that wears them, hut the dazzling tree
Has canker in its heart  Pl~ilosophy
Is not Content, and Art's immortal face
Is trenched with weary furrows  but the l~eart
Hoards in its cells the satisfying dew
~Vhich all our thirst is powerless to exhaust.
Let Life's uncertain dignities del)art,
And if one single manly heart be true,
Aly own, contented, counts the in cheaply lost. 
183
THE WINTER SOLSTICE.
O DARKEST day of all the year!
O day of Winter and of Death!
Thy reign is in the North, yet here,
The Southern Ocean feels thy breath.
Yon ruddy sun, that from il~e wave
Climbs up his path in summer glow,
Will light, ere long, a frozen grave,
Too cold to m~lt its pall of snow.
And I must find il~e sunshine pale,
The tropic breezes chill and drear,
1'or when the gray autumnal gale
Caine to despoil the dying year,
Passed with the slow retreating sun,
As day by day some beams depart,
The beauty and the life of one,
Whose love made sumn~er in my heart.
 
~84
Day after day, the latest flower,
ller faded being waned away,
More pale and dim with every hour
And ceased upon the darkest day!
The warmth and glow that with her died
No light of coming suns shall bring;
The heart its wintry gloom may hide,
But cannot feel a second Spring.
o darkest day of all the year!
In vain thou com'st with balmy skies,
For, blotting out their azure sphere,
The phantoms of my Fate arise:
A blighted life, whose shattered plan
No afler fortune can restore
The perfect lot, designed for Man,
That should he mine, but is no more.
She was the sun, that rose above
The landscape of the life I dreamed,
And through the portals of her love
The promise of my Future beamed.
Though buried long, those dreams arise
To mock me wheresoe'er I roamThe happy light of household eyes,
The blessing and the peace of Home.
 
185
And I behold the cbanging fire
Of alien heavcns increase and pale
On many a sunbcarn-gildcd spire
And n~any a i~oonlight-silvered sail
The pomp and glory of the lands,
The range of Earth, is given to me;
But every touch of loving bands
Recalls my blighted destiny. 
lSG
IX ART[CULO ThIORTIS.
1 ~~0ULD be left alone - ~vitb none but you,
The last, sole friend, ~vl'erc all l~ave fallen off
Like sun~n~er birds, and left your nest alone
An~~dst tl~e ~vitl~ered foliage of n~y heart.
Give n~e your band: your soul ~vill ~valk ~vitb n~ine
Into the sl~adows, far as life may go
~Vitbin tbe porcl~ of Death, and send its cry
Of faithful love across the mighty gulf,
~Vlien we are forced asunder.
Nay, Priest! nay
Stand not between mc and tl~e fading light
Of my last l~our.  I ki~o~v my soul is ~vcigl~ed
~Vith many sins - tl~e pages of my life
Soiled ~vith un~vortl~y records  tl~at I go
Redder than scarlet to the awf~il bar
~~Therc God shall judge me: hut even, knowing this,
And stung ~vith wild, unutterable woe, 
187
As the lost chances of my life arise,
~Vith all their opportunities of good
Deepeniag the blackness of the evil choice,
I ~vill nat lean upon another's arm,
Or lift my soul upon another's prayer,
Or bid a hui~an intercessor plead
~Iy perilous cause; but I ~vill stagger on,
Beneatl~ my sins, unto il~e feet of God,
For, were the crushing burden tenfold great,
He sees tl~e secret heart which tl~ey obscure
And not witlil~olds His mercy.  He is just,
And I am sick of human justice.  I
~~rill go to Ilim, who sent me on the carfl~
~Visely, thougl~ I have trampled on His gifts
In love, though I have tasted most of pain
And justly, tl~ough il~c monstrous`vron~s that men
Perpetuate in His name have borne me down
Beyond all virtue, but my f~ith in Him.
Go, Priest! the absolat~en which I seek
No prayer of yours can purchase: I have gone
Beyond your reach already, and the last
~Veak props of li~e one after one give way.
O fatl~er - father!  In wl~at fi~tal school
Learned yea il~e iron creed tl~at lrove yo1~r child,
Sore with ~he sco~0.r~ii~( of its rigid laws, 
18S
To the alluring license of the ~~orld?
~Vhy did you crush the l~ealthy joys that craved
Gro~~th in a liberal air, tlie u~otions free
That leap along tl~e bounding pulse of Youth
And pluck delight in tl~e fresh fields of Time,
Building your stern religion round the dreams
That fill, self-born, the n)orning sleep of Life,
And give us courage for its day of toil?
Had you not hedged each simple joy with sin,
And from tlie guileless blooms of Nature driven
~Jy steps, to falter on your arid wastes
Of harshest duty, I had never looked
To Sin for joy, nor plunged amid the rank,
Dense overgrowths of Pleas ure, which conceal
Her soundless quicksands: had you turned the tide
Of warm, impetuous blood, that beat so strong
In every vein, to mingle witl~ the streams
Of manly action, I had spent its force
In watering many a pleasant field of life
\V~th fertilizing increase  but you set
Your unrelenting dogmas in its path,
Locked the dark barrier witl~ a cruel hand,
And thought tlie fierce rebellion you provoked
By tyranny against my nature's law,
The evidence of Hell!  The buttressed walls
You built to stay me madly burst away, 
189
And like a captive by recovered light
Blinded, and in the long-lost airs of Heaven
Reeling inebriate, I was tossed along
Upon a flood I kne~v not ho~v to stem,
Through the wide sea of desolating years,
Until the flying wreck on which you hurled
~~our stern anathemas, is thrown at last,
A heap of ruin, on the barren sl~orcs
~Vhere the wodd's outcnsts tuke their bitter leave
Of tbe cold woAd's injustice.
~Vholly lost
Not then was I, 0 fntl~er! l~ad you shown
The awful pntl~os of a fi~ther's grier,
Or dropped one word tl~at spoke a ft~ther's love,
Bursting, as from a heart at lava.glo'v,
Through the cold wrath that made you adamant,
In that brief time, when loatl~ingly I turned
From the pulled company of Vice, to throw
My heart, repentant, at the feet of one
M7ho might have lifled me from out the deeps,
And set my feet upon the steady paths
I labored to recover.  But, when you,
ThIy father, spurned and drove me hack to sin,
You snapped the teeble chain to wl~ich I clung,
And she, and you, and all the blinded world - 
190
O God, ho~v blind - yo}~ sa~v me fidl, and fall,
And loosed my flantic clntcl~ fiom every prop
ITntil tl)e floods above n~y head ~vere roll ccl
So deep, I bade ff~re~ell to ligl~t and took
i~ry portion ~vith tl~e darkness.  ~~ou have passed
To otber life already:1 ~vill think
~ou did but deal`vith me as you ~vere taugbt
J3y heartless laws of Sect, which you mistook
For Heaven s con~mandinents.  In this solemn hour
Death wnsl~es out the bitterness that filled
The Past, and I forgive: - God! that a son
Should ever l~ave such need
She, whom I found
Amid those dreary haunts where brazen Sin
Laughed o'er her fall from virtue - sl~e, whose love,
Her only weakness, to the brink betruyed
~Vhere one blind step condemns to endless woeShe was not false: she threw before my feet
Iler bruised and trainpled heart, and from the wrecks
Of outraged tenderness built up anew
The shrine of Love, tl~e saddened counterfeit
Of that, whicl~ flom the bowers of innocent hearts
Sends the pure incense of its perfect joy
To God's high throne.  She clung to me with truth
That might have cleansed l~er from the stains of shame, 
191
N\Tere ~Ian less cruel.  Hunted, driven to bay
By persecution and by keenest want,
She spurned the tempters who would blight the last
Pale flower, that in her ravaged fields of life
Recalled the happy days when she was pure.
Rest thee, tho~~ weary spirit!  ~Vere there tears
In tl~e cold eyes of men, thy touel~ing faith
Should draw them fl~rth, and gentlest Cl~arity,
~~eiling thy frailties, leave thy men~ory white
~~ith the redemption of that saving love
~ou, too, my friend - (still keep my hand in yours,
For we are nigl~ the parting) - you were true,
Faitl~ful wl~ere all were faitl~less.  In the clark
~Vl~ich filled the cl~ambers of my soul, you saw
Tl~e wreck of i~aaliness that might have been,
Capacities for love which never came,
And the deserted shrines whence Faith had fled
But you alike had suffered from the laws
That wrought such devastation  you l~ad felt
In suffering, the kind regard of Heaven,
And all the guilty records of my life
Knit you the closer, till your love became
The agent of God's pity.  I will think
He shall not wholly cast me off, nor doom
Thly soul to endless company with sins
I loathed while I committed: that, if He 
192
Shut His bright Heaven against me, there may be
Among bis myriad worlds some lonely place,
Though far remote, within the radiant sphere
His glory blesses, where she waits for me,
And you will join us in a little while.
He gave us to each other: will He now
Break the sweet links whereby we felt our l~earts
First drawn to Him?  He, the All-AIcreiful,
N\Tho not deserted us when men forsook,
And loved when they despised us, will not judge
Too harshly, when our naked souls go up
To meet His awful presence.
*      *       *       *
I am chill,
And the room darkens: let me feel your hand
Here, where my heart beats feebly.  Friend - dear
friend!
Kiss me upon the cheek, before it grows
Too cold, and lifl my head upon your breast.
Tears on my face?  The scalding tears of man,
Not lightly shattered from their iron cells,
Shed thus for me?  It sweetens Death, to know
Sueh.-r~in as this will consecrate my dust. 
193
SATURDAY NIGHT AT SEA.
COME, messmates, fill the cheerful bowl!
To-night let no one fail,
No matter how the billows roll,
Or roars the ocean gale.
There's toil and danger in our lives,
But let us jovial be,
And drink to sweethearts and to wives,
On Saturday night at sea!
The chill nor'wester hurls the spray
Our icy bulwarks o'er
As swifl we cleave our stormy way,
A thousand miles from shore
And while the good ship onward drives,
Let none forget that he
Must drink to sweethe~rts and to wives,
On Saturday night at sea!
13 
194
The joys that landsmen little reck
N\7e best can understand,
Who live a year upon the deck,
A month upon the land.
And rough as are our sailor lives,
Full tender hearts have we
To drink to sweethearts and to wives,
On Saturday night at sea!
Our frames are worn and little worth,
And hard our rugged hands;
We struggle for our hold on Earth
With the storms of many lands:
But the only love that lights our lives
Shall still rcmcmhered bc;
We drink to sweethearts and to wives,
On Saturday night at sea!
 
195
SONG.
THEY call thee false as thou art fair,
They call thee fair and free -
A creature pliant as the air
And changeful as the sea:
But I, wbo gaze witb other eyes -
Who stand and watcb afar,
Behold thee pure as yonder skies
And steadfast as a star!
Thine is a rarer nature, horn
To rule the common crowd,
And il~ou dost lightly laugb to scorn
The hearts before thee bowed.
Thou dreamest of a different love
Than comes to such as these
That soars as high as heaven above
Their shallow sympathies.
 
196
A star that shines with flickering spark,
Thou dost not wane away,
But shed'st adown the purple dark
The fulness of thy ray:
A rose, whose odors freely part
At every zephyr's will,
Thou keep'st within thy folded heart
Its virgin sweetness still! 
197
TflE MID-WATCrI.
I PACE the deck in the dead of night,
When the moon and starlight fail,
And the cordage creaks to the lazy swells,
And heavily flaps the sail.
On the darkness glimmers the binnacle~lamp
With feeble and loacly spell
No sound hut the passing sentry's tramp
Or his measured cry: "All's well!"
To and fro, with accustomed step,
I walk in the night alone,
And I think of a thousand watches kept
In the years forever flown;
Of the friends in whose manly fellowship
I labored long ago,
Till Death relieved their watch on earth,
And they went to rest below.
 
198
I think of the gallant ones who died
When our broadsides shook the sea,
And sorrow for them subdued the pride
Of our cheers of victory:
Of those who fell in the fevered lands,
Or sank in the whelming wave -
Whose corpses waste 011 the barren sands,
Or float iu a ft~thomless grave.
And the looks revive that were faint and dim
In the sl~adows~of the years,
And I scan them o'er till my eyelids swim
With the strange deligl~t of tears
They people tl~e dark with their pallid brows
As they silently throng around,
And the sea its phosphor radiance throws
On the faces of the drowned.
So many a noble heart is cold
That shared my duties then,
I have looked full oft in the face of Death,
But he comes to better men
And let hm come in his chosen time,
Some friend will think of me,
And I shall live in the lonely hours
Of his midnight watch at sea.
 
199
THE PHANTOM.
AGAIN 1 sit within the mansion,
in the old, familiar seat;
And shade and sunshine chase each other
O'er the carpet at iny feet.
But the sweet.hrier's arms have wrestled upwards
in il~e summers that are past,
And the willow trails its branches lower
Than when I saw them last.
They strive to shut the sunshine wholly
From out the haunted room
To fill the house, that once was joyful,
~Vith silence and with gloom.
 
200
And many kind, remembered faces
~Vithin the doorway come -
Voices, that wake the sweeter music
Of one that now is dumb.
They sing, in tones as glad as ever,
The songs she loved to hear;
They braid the rose in summer garlands,
~Vhose flowers to her were dear.
And still, her footsteps in the passage,
Her blushes at the door,
Her timid words of maiden welcome,
Come back to me once more.
And, all forgetful of my sorrow,
Unmindful of my pain,
I think she has but newly left me,
And soon will come again.
She stays without, perchance, a moment,
To dress her dark-brnwn hair;
I hear the rustle of her garments -
Her light step on il~e stair
 
201
0, fluttering heart! control thy tumult,
Lest eyes profane should see
My cheeks betray the rush of rapture
Her coming brings to me!
She tarries long: but lo! a whisper
Beyond the open door,
And, gliding through the quiet sunshine,
A shadow on the floor!
Ah!`tis the whispering pine that calls me,
The vine, whose shadow strays;
And my patient heart must still await her,
Nor chide her long delays.
But my heart grows sick with weary waiting,
As many a time before:
Her foot is ever at the threshold,
Yet never passes o'er.
 
202
LAMENT AND CONSOLATION.
FALSE, fleetii~g Youth, ah! whither fled
Thy golden promise?
Thy joy is l)ast, thy love is dead,
And every arrowy l~ope we sped
Falls distant from us.
Ah, where the wondrous alchemy
Thy steps that haunted?
The happy airs of Aready
That fanned thy hrow, the fancy free,
The ft~ith undaunted?
The glories caught from Nature die,
And men deceive me
Star after star goes down the sky,
And darker, sadder hours are nigh,
If Song should leave me.
 
203
For Song can still the living light
Of Memory borrow,
With faded dawns to flush the night,
And hide with gleams of old delight
The present sorrow.
Let Faith and Love and Hope depart,
Since Fate so wills it
Some foliage yet may shade the heart,
And blossom in the beams of Art,
Whose presence fills it.
On thee, dear Song! the loss I cast,
Beyond redressing:
Let gone be gone, and past be past,
But, Angel! I will hold thee fast,
And force thy blessing!