The board was spread with fruits and wine,
With grapes of gold, like those that shine
On CASBIN hills;[321]—pomegranates full
Of melting sweetness, and the pears,
And sunniest apples[322] that CAUBUL
In all its thousand gardens[323] bears;—
Plantains, the golden and the green,
MALAYA'S nectared mangusteen;[324]
Prunes of BOCKHARA, and sweet nuts
From the far groves of SAMARCAND,
And BASRA dates, and apricots,
Seed of the Sun,[325] from IRAN'S land;—
With rich conserve of Visna cherries,[326]
Of orange flowers, and of those berries
That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles
Feed on in ERAC's rocky dells.[327]
All these in richest vases smile,
In baskets of pure santal-wood,
And urns of porcelain from that isle[328]
Sunk underneath the Indian flood,
Whence oft the lucky diver brings
Vases to grace the halls of kings.
Wines too of every clime and hue
Around their liquid lustre threw;
Amber Rosolli,[329]—the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green-Sea gushing;[330]
And SHIRAZ wine that richly ran
As if that jewel large and rare,
The ruby for which KUBLAI-KHAN
Offered a city's wealth,[331] was blushing
Melted within the goblets there!
And amply SELIM quaffs of each,
And seems resolved the flood shall reach
His inward heart,—shedding around
A genial deluge, as they run,
That soon shall leave no spot undrowned
For Love to rest his wings upon.
He little knew how well the boy
Can float upon a goblet's streams,
Lighting them with his smile of joy;—
As bards have seen him in their dreams,
Down the blue GANGES laughing glide
Upon a rosy lotus wreath,[332]
Catching new lustre from the tide
That with his image shone beneath.
But what are cups without the aid
Of song to speed them as they flow?
And see—a lovely Georgian maid
With all the bloom, the freshened glow
Of her own country maidens' looks,
When warm they rise from Teflis' brooks;[333]
And with an eye whose restless ray
Full, floating, dark—oh, he, who knows
His heart is weak, of Heaven should pray
To guard him from such eyes as those!—
With a voluptuous wildness flings
Her snowy hand across the strings
Of a syrinda[334] and thus sings:—
Come hither, come hither—by night and by day,
We linger in pleasures that never are gone;
Like the waves of the summer as one dies away
Another as sweet and as shining comes on.
And the love that is o'er, in expiring gives birth
To a new one as warm, as unequalled in bliss;
And, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.[335]
Here maidens are sighing, and fragrant their sigh
As the flower of the Amra just oped by a bee;[336]
And precious their tears as that rain from the sky,[337]
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.
Oh! think what the kiss and the smile must be worth
When the sigh and the tear are so perfect in bliss,
And own if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
Here sparkles the nectar that hallowed by love
Could draw down those angels of old from their sphere,
Who for wine of this earth[338] left the fountains above,
And forgot heaven's stars for the eyes we have here.
And, blest with the odor our goblet gives forth,
What Spirit the sweets of his Eden would miss?
For, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
The Georgian's song was scarcely mute,
When the same measure, sound for sound,
Was caught up by another lute
And so divinely breathed around
That all stood husht and wondering,
And turned and lookt into the air,
As if they thought to see the wing
Of ISRAFIL[339] the Angel there;—
So powerfully on every soul
That new, enchanted measure stole.
While now a voice sweet as the note
Of the charmed lute was heard to float
Along its chords and so entwine
Its sounds with theirs that none knew whether
The voice or lute was most divine,
So wondrously they went together:—
There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two that are linkt in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on thro' all ills and love on till they die!
One hour of a passion so sacred is worth
Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And, oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
'Twas not the air, 'twas not the words,
But that deep magic in the chords
And in the lips that gave such power
As music knew not till that hour.
At once a hundred voices said,
"It is the maskt Arabian maid!"
While SELIM who had felt the strain
Deepest of any and had lain
Some minutes rapt as in a trance
After the fairy sounds were o'er.
Too inly touched for utterance,
Now motioned with his hand for more:—
Fly to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab's tents are rude for thee;
But oh! the choice what heart can doubt,
Of tents with love or thrones without?
Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
The acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.