I. 3.
O’er solid seas, where Winter reigns,
And holds each mountain-wave in chains,
The fur-clad savage, ere he guides his deer[[4]]
By glistering star-light thro’ the snow,
Breathes softly in her wondering ear
Each potent spell thou bad’st him know.
By thee inspir’d, on India’s sands,[[5]]
Full in the sun the Bramin stands;
And, while the panting tigress hies
To quench her fever in the stream,
His spirit laughs in agonies,[[6]]
Smit by the scorchings of the noontide beam.
Mark who mounts the sacred pyre,
Blooming in her bridal vest:
She hurls the torch! she fans the fire!
To die is to be blest:[[7]]
She clasps her lord to part no more,
And, sighing, sinks! but sinks to soar.
O’ershadowing Scotia’s desert coast,
The Sisters sail in dusky state,[[8]]
And, wrapt in clouds, in tempests tost,
Weave the airy web of fate;
While the lone shepherd, near the shipless main,[[9]]
Sees o’er her hills advance the long-drawn funeral train.