She watched the sky: the sunset grew dim;
She raised to Camdeo her evening hymn.
The scent of the night-flowers came on the
air,

And then, like a bird escaped from the snare,
She flew to the river: no moon was bright,
But the stars and the fireflies gave her their
light;

She stood beneath the mangoes' shade,

Half delighted and half afraid;

She trimmed the lamp and breathed on each bloom

Oh, that breath was sweeter than all their perfume

Threw spices and oil on the spire of flame,
Called thrice on her absent lover's name;
And every pulse throbbed as she gave
Her little boat to the Ganges' wave.

There are a thousand fanciful things
Linked round the young heart's imaginings;
In its first love-dream a leaf or a flower
Is gifted then with a spell and a power;

A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign,
From which the maiden can well divine
Passion's whole history. Those only can tell
Who have loved as young hearts can love so
well

And Zaide hath forgotten in Azim's arms All her so false lamp's falser alarms.

This looks not a bridal: the singers are mute;

be dyed

When they have some love-augury tried:
Oh, it is not for those whose feelings are cold,
Withered by care or blunted by gold,
Whose brows have darkened with many

years,

To feel again youth's hopes and fears-
What they might blush now to confess,
Yet what made their spring-day's happiness.

Zaide watched her flower-built vessel glide,
Mirrored beneath on the deep-blue tide,
Lovely and lonely, scented and bright,
Like Hope's own bark, all bloom and light.
There's not one breath of wind on the air;
The heavens are cloudless, the waters are

fair;

No dew is falling; yet woe to that shade! The maiden is weeping-her lamp has decayed.

Hark to the ring of the cimetar!

It tells that the soldier returns from afar;
Down from the mountains the warriors come:
Hark to the thunder-roll of the drum,
To the startling voice of the trumpet's call,
To the cymbal's clash, to the atabal!

The banners of crimson float in the sun :
The warfare is ended, the battle is won.
The mother hath taken the child from her
breast

And raised it to look on its father's crest;
The pathway is lined, as the bands
pass along,
With maidens, who meet them with flowers

and song,

Yet there the bride sits. Her dark hair is bound.

And the robe of her marriage floats white on the ground.

Oh, where is the lover, the bridegroom? oh, where?

Look under yon black pall: the bridegroom is there;

Yet the guests are all bidden, the feast is the

same,

And the bride plights her troth amid smoke and 'mid flame.

They have raised the death-pyre of sweetscented wood

And sprinkled it o'er with the sacred flood Of the Ganges. The priests are assembled ;

their song

Sinks deep on the ear as they bear her along, That bride of the dead. Ay, is not this

love,

That one pure, wild feeling all others above, Vowed to the living and kept to the tomb, The same in its blight as it was in its bloom? With no tear in her eye and no change in her smile

Young Zaide had come nigh to the funeral pile;

The bells of the dancing-girls ceased from

their sound;

Silent they stood by that holiest mound; From a crowd like the sea-waves there came not a breath

When the maiden stood by the place of death.

spare

To the mother, who stood in her weeping there.

She took the jewels that shone on her hand,
She took from her dark hair its flowery band,
And scattered them round. At once they
raise

The hymn of rejoicing and love in her praise.
A prayer is muttered, a blessing said,
Her torch is raised: she is by the dead.
She has fired the pile. At once there came
A mingled rush of smoke and of flame.
The wind swept it off: they saw the bride
Laid by her Azim, side by side.

The breeze had spread the long curls of her

Like to the grass that's newly sprung, Or like a tale that's new-begun, Or like the bird that's here to-day, Or like the pearlèd dew of May, Or like an hour, or like a span, Or like the singing of a swan,E'en such is man, who lives by breath, Is here, now there, in life and death. The grass withers, the tale is ended, The bird is flown, the dew's ascended, The hour is short, the span is long, The swan's near death, man's life is done.

SIMON WASTELL

I FEAR THY KISSES.

FEAR thy kisses, gentle maiden; Thou needest not fear mine: My spirit is too deeply laden

Ever to burden thine.

I fear thy mien, thy tones, thy motion;
Thou needest not fear mine:
Innocent is the heart's devotion
With which I worship thine.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.