COME, PLAY ME THAT SIMPLE AIR AGAIN.
A BALLAD.
Come, play me that simple air again,
I used so to love, in life's young day,
And bring, if thou canst, the dreams that then
Were wakened by that sweet lay
The tender gloom its strain
Shed o'er the heart and brow
Grief's shadow without its pain—
Say where, where is it now?
But play me the well-known air once more,
For thoughts of youth still haunt its strain
Like dreams of some far, fairy shore
We never shall see again.
Sweet air, how every note brings back
Some sunny hope, some daydream bright,
That, shining o'er life's early track,
Filled even its tears with light.
The new-found life that came
With love's first echoed vow;—
The fear, the bliss, the shame—
Ah—where, where are they now?
But, still the same loved notes prolong,
For sweet 'twere thus, to that old lay,
In dreams of youth and love and song,
To breathe life's hour away.
POEMS FROM THE EPICUREAN
(1827.)
THE VALLEY OF THE NILE.
Far as the sight can reach, beneath as clear
And blue a heaven as ever blest this sphere,
Gardens and pillared streets and porphyry domes
And high-built temples, fit to be the homes
Of mighty gods, and pyramids whose hour
Outlasts all time, above the waters tower!
Then, too, the scenes of pomp and joy that make
One theatre of this vast peopled lake,
Where all that Love, Religion, Commerce gives
Of life and motion, ever moves and lives,
Here, up in the steps of temples, from the wave
Ascending, in procession slow and grave,
Priests in white garments go, with sacred wands
And silver cymbals gleaming in their hands:
While there, rich barks—fresh from those sunny tracts
Far off, beyond the sounding cataracts—
Glide with their precious lading to the sea,
Plumes of bright birds, rhinoceros' ivory,
Gems from the isle of Meroë, and those grains
Of gold, washed down by Abyssinian rains.
Here, where the waters wind into a bay
Shadowy and cool, some pilgrims on their way
To Saïs or Bubastus, among beds
Of lotos flowers that close above their heads,
Push their light barks, and hid as in a bower
Sing, talk, or sleep away the sultry hour,
While haply, not far off, beneath a bank
Of blossoming acacias, many a prank
Is played in the cool current by a train
Of laughing nymphs, lovely as she whose chain
Around two conquerors of the world was cast;
But, for a third too feeble, broke at last.