STANZAS FOR AN ARABIAN AIR.
We sat by the fount at even' close,
The star was softly bright-
And a whispered dream from the wave's repose,
Stole on the ear of night!
Sweet, sweet, said I, is that fountain's dream,
And sweet is yon blue star's tender shine-
Oh! love me, maid! and my soul shall rest,
More gently lulled, and more deeply blessed,
In the beam of those eyes of thine!
Wild is the bound of the antelope,
When he seeks his sunny cliff;
When his far-home dawns on the plunging skiff,
Wild, wild, is the sea-boy's hope:
But wilder, maiden! oh, wilder yet,
Shall the joy of my spirit be
When the day that hath made thee mine has set,
And the sound of the dance and the castanet
Is under the citron tree!
AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.
OUR task is done!-On Gunga's breast
The sun is sinking down to rest:
And, moored beneath the tamarind bough,
Our bark has found its harbour now.
With furled sail, and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride,
Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslem's savoury supper steams;
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.
Come, walk with me the jungle through;
If yonder hunter told us true,
Far off, in desert dank and rude,
The tiger holds his solitude;
Nor (taught by recent harm to shun
The thunders of the English gun)
A dreadful guest, but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on! no venomed snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake;
Child of the sun! he loves to lie
'Mid Nature's embers, parched and dry,
Where o'er some tower in ruin laid,
The peepul spreads its haunted shade,
Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe,
Fit warder in the gate of death!
Come on! Yet pause !-behold us now
Beneath the bamboo's archéd bough,
Where gemming oft that sacred gloom,
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom,
And winds our path through many a bower,
Of fragrant tree and crimson flower;
The ceiba's crimson pomp displayed
O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade,
And dusk anana's prickly blade;
While o'er the brake, so wild and fair,
The betel waves his crest in air.
With pendent train and rushing wings,
Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs;
And he, the bird of hundred dyes,
Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize,
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod;
Yet who in Indian bower has stood,
But thought on England's good green-wood
And blessed, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade,
And breathed a prayer (how oft in vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again.
AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.
A truce to thought! the jackal's cry
Resounds like silvan revelry;
And through the trees yon falling ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet, mark as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes;
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring;
While to this cooler air confessed
The broad Dhatura bares her breast
Of fragrant scent, and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night!
Still as we pass, in softened hum,
Along the breezy alleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum.
Still as we pass, from bush and briar,
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And what is she, whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?
I know that soul-entrancing swell!
It is it must be-Philomel.
Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,-
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;
And we must early sleep, to find
Betimes the morning's healthy wind.
But, oh! with thankful hearts confess
E'en here there may be happiness;
And He, the bounteous Sire, has given
His peace on earth-his hope of heaven.
THE POET'S DEATHBED.
BY JOHN MALCOLM.
Oh, alas, and alas !
Green grows the grass!
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass.
YE tell me 'tis the opening hour;-then ere the day be flown
The casement ope, that I may see my last of suns go
And wake the world with life and light,-but shine for me in vain.
Yes-of the azure sky above, and the green earth below,
I yet would take a last farewell to cheer me as I go; And I will deem the light that glows along the verge
And plays upon my faded cheek, the smile of opening heaven.
And let my fainting heart inhale sweet Nature's fragrant breath,
That wafts a message from the bowers to soothe the bed of death;
That bears a whisper from the woods, a farewell from the spring,
A tale of open leaf and bud—while I am withering.
And let me hear the small birds sing among the garden
Their evening hymn, that wont to bless my solitary hours:
That choral anthem, warbled wild upon the leafy spray, Will glad this ear, that to the strain must soon be deaf for aye.
And blame me not, that, called away unto a land of bliss,
I fondly linger on the shore of such a world as this; And better love, than ought I know of bright immortal spheres,
This earth, so lovely in her woe, so beautiful in tears.
WE break the glass, whose sacred wine
To some beloved health we drain,
Lest future pledges, less divine,
Should e're the hallowed cup profane;
And thus I broke a heart that poured
Its tide of feeling out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.
But still the old impassioned ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays
Thine image chambered in my brain.
And still it looks as when the hours
Went by like flights of singing birds,
On that soft chain of spoken flowers,
And airy gems, thy words.
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