Читать книгу Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 - Various - Страница 2

What! offer thee the tribute of my numbers?

Thou daughter of the East! whose infancy

The warring desert winds rocked to its slumbers —

Dost thou demand incense of Poesy?

Flower of Aleppo! whom the Bulbul choosing

Would wander from his worshiped rose of May,

O'er thy fair chalice her remembrance losing,

To languish 'mid thy leaves his moonlight lay!

Bear odors to the balm pure sweets exhaling?

Hang on the orange bough a riper load?

Lend fires to Syria's East at dawn unveiling?

Pave with new stars 1 the Night's all-glittering road?

No verses here! – Verse would despair of raising

Aught save an image dark and faint of thee;

But gently in yon basin's mirror gazing

Behold thyself! Embodied Poesy!

When through the kiosque's grated ogive straying,

The sea-breeze mingles with the Moka's fume,

Where softly o'er thy form the moonbeams playing

Glance on thy couch, rich from Palmyra's loom —

When on the jasmine tube thy lip half closes,

Veiled with its golden threads in bright array,

While ruffling at thy breath, fragrant with roses,

Murmur the drops within the Narquité —

When as winged perfumes rise into thy brain,

In light caressing clouds around thee wreathing

All love's and youth's lost visions throng again,

An atmosphere of dreams thy listeners breathing —

When in thy tale the Arab steed forth starting

Yields foaming to thy curb of infancy,

And that triumphant glance obliquely darting

Equals the summer-lightning of his eye —

When thy fair arm, of loveliest symmetry,

Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining,

While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh

In quick reflection of the torch's shining —

Naught is there in the murmured words of feeling,

Naught in the Poet's ever dreaming brow,

Naught in pure sighs from purest bosoms stealing,

Naught redolent of Poesy as thou!

With me the age has flown when Love, life's flower,

Perfumes the heart – my warmest accents falter,

And beauty o'er my soul has lost her power —

Cold is the light I kindle on her altar!

The harp is this chilled bosom's only queen,

But how would homage from its depths have burst

In gushing minstrelsy at bright sixteen,

If then these eyes had rested on thee first!

How many stanzas had thy lover given

To one sweet vaporous wreath that lately graced

Thy meditative lip, or how had striven

To stay that form by unseen artist traced!

That shadow's vague enchanting outline cast

On yonder wall, to arrest with poet's finger

Thy beauty's mystic image fading fast,

As round thy form fond moonbeams cease to linger!