from Lalla Rookh

“How sweetly,” said the trembling maid,

Of her own gentle voice afraid,

So long had they in silence stood,

Looking upon that tranquil flood—

“How sweetly does the moon-beam smile

To-night upon yon leafy isle!

Oft in my fancy’s wanderings,

I’ve wish’d that little isle had wings,

And we, within its fairy bow’rs,

      Were wafted off to seas unknown,

Where not a pulse should beat but ours,

      And we might live, love, die alone!

Far from the cruel and the cold,—

      Where the bright eyes of angels only

Should come around us, to behold

      A paradise so pure and lonely.

Would this be world enough for thee?”—

Playful she turn’d, that he might see

      The passing smile her cheek put on;

But when she mark’d how mournfully

      His eyes met hers, that smile was gone;

And, bursting into heart-felt tears,

“Yes, yes,” she cried, “my hourly fears

My dreams have boded all too right—

We part—for ever part—to-night!

I knew, I knew it could not last—

’Twas bright, ’twas heav’nly, but ’tis past!

Oh! ever thus, from childhood’s hour,

I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;

I never lov’d a tree or flow’r,

      But ’twas the first to fade away.

I never nurs’d a dear gazelle

      To glad me with its soft black eye,

But when it came to know me well

      And love me, it was sure to die!

Now too—the joy most like divine

      Of all I ever dreamt or knew,

To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—

      Oh misery! must I lose that too?

Yet go—on peril’s brink we meet;—

      Those frightful rocks—that treach’rous sea—

No, never come again—though sweet,

      Though heav’n, it may be death to thee.

Farewell—and blessings on thy way,

      Where’er thou goest, beloved stranger!

Better to sit and watch that ray,

And think thee safe, though far away,

      Than have thee near me, and in danger!”