The harp, the song, the nightingales
She hears, beyond. The night-wind wails
Without, to sound of feast within,
While here she stands, shut out by sin.
And be that revel
Of angel or devil,
She longs to sit beside the giver,
That she at last her prize may win.
Her lamp has fallen; her eyes are wet;
Frozen she stands, she lingers yet;
But through the garden's gladness steals
A whisper that each heart congeals—
A moan of grieving
Beyond relieving,
Which makes the proudest of them shiver.
And suddenly the sultan kneels!
The lamp was quenched; he found her dead,
When dawn had turned the threshold red.
Her face was calm and sad as fate:
His sin, not hers, made her too late.
Some think, unbidden
She brought him, hidden,
A truer bliss that came back never
To him, unblest, who closed the gate.
CHARITY
I
Unarmed she goeth; yet her hands
Strike deeper awe than steel-caparison'd bands.
No fatal hurt of foe she fears,—
Veiled, as with mail, in mist of gentle tears.
II
'Gainst her thou canst not bar the door:
Like air she enters, where none dared before.
Even to the rich she can forgive
Their regal selfishness,—and let them live!