There was a terrace that looked eastward from the gardens. Thither Nehushta bent her steps, slowly, as though in deep thought, and when she reached the smooth marble balustrade, she leaned over it and let her dark eyes rest on the quiet landscape. The peace of the evening descended upon her; the birds of the day ceased singing with the growing darkness; and slowly, out of the plain, the yellow moon soared up and touched the river and the meadows with mystic light; while far off, in the rose-thickets of the gardens, the first notes of a single nightingale floated upon the scented breeze, swelling and trilling, quivering and falling again, in a glory of angelic song. The faint air fanned her cheek, the odours of the box and the myrtle and the roses intoxicated her senses, and as the splendid shield of the rising moon cast its broad light into her dreaming eyes, her heart overflowed, and Nehushta the princess lifted up her voice and sang an ancient song of love, in the tongue of her people, to a soft minor melody, that sounded like a sigh from the southern desert.
"Come unto me, my beloved, in the warmth of the darkness, come—
Rise, and hasten thy footsteps, to be with me at night-time, come!
"I wait in the darkness for him, and the sand of the desert whirling
Is blown at the door of my tent which is open toward the desert.
"My ear in the darkness listeth for the sound of his coming nearer,
Mine eyes watch for him and rest not, for I would not he found me sleeping.
"For when my beloved cometh, he is like the beam of the morning;[2]
Ev'n as the dawn in a strange land to the sight of a man journeying.
"Yea, when my beloved cometh, as dew that descendeth from heaven,