Calm is the wave—heaven's brilliant lights
Reflected dance beneath the prow;—
Time was when on such lovely nights
She who is there so desolate now
Could sit all cheerful tho' alone
And ask no happier joy than seeing
That starlight o'er the waters thrown—
No joy but that to make her blest,
And the fresh, buoyant sense of Being
Which bounds in youth's yet careless breast,—
Itself a star not borrowing light
But in its own glad essence bright.
How different now!—but, hark! again
The yell of havoc rings—brave men!
In vain with beating hearts ye stand
On the bark's edge—in vain each hand
Half draws the falchion from its sheath;
All's o'er—in rust your blades may lie:—
He at whose word they've scattered death
Even now this night himself must die!
Well may ye look to yon dim tower,
And ask and wondering guess what means
The battle-cry at this dead hour—
Ah! she could tell you—she who leans
Unheeded there, pale, sunk, aghast,
With brow against the dew-cold mast;—
Too well she knows—her more than life,
Her soul's first idol and its last
Lies bleeding in that murderous strife.
But see—what moves upon the height?
Some signal!—'tis a torch's light
What bodes its solitary glare?
In gasping silence toward the Shrine
All eyes are turned—thine, HINDA, thine
Fix their last fading life-beams there.
'Twas but a moment—fierce and high
The death-pile blazed into the sky
And far-away o'er rock and flood
Its melancholy radiance sent:
While HAFED like a vision stood
Revealed before the burning pyre.
Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of fire
Shrined in its own grand element!
"'Tis he!"—the shuddering maid exclaims,—
But while she speaks he's seen no more;
High burst in air the funeral flames,
And IRAN'S hopes and hers are o'er!
One wild, heart-broken shriek she gave;
Then sprung as if to reach that blaze
Where still she fixt her dying gaze,
And gazing sunk into the wave.—
Deep, deep,—where never care or pain
Shall reach her innocent heart again!
* * * * *
Farewell—farewell to thee. ARABY'S daughter!
(Thus warbled a PERI beneath the dark sea,)
No pearl ever lay under OMAN'S green water
More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee.
Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till Love's witchery came,
Like the wind of the south[266] o'er a summer lute blowing,
And husht all its music and withered its frame!
But long upon ARABY'S green sunny highlands
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom
Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands
With naught but the sea-star[267] to light up her tomb.
And still when the merry date-season is burning
And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old,
The happiest there from their pastime returning
At sunset will weep when thy story is told.
The young village-maid when with flowers she dresses
Her dark flowing hair for some festival day
Will think of thy fate till neglecting her tresses
She mournfully turns from the mirror away.
Nor shall IRAN, beloved of her Hero! forget thee—
Tho' tyrants watch over her tears as they start,
Close, close by the side of that Hero she'll set thee,
Embalmed in the innermost shrine of her heart.
Farewell—be it ours to embellish thy pillow
With everything beauteous that grows in the deep;
Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow
Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep.