Читать книгу Ismael; an oriental tale. With other poems онлайн

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In earliest youth, ere yet the toils of man,

Ambitious fire, and war’s alarms, began,

He lov’d a maid, the flow’r of Ava’s race;

No rose, no lily match’d that maiden’s face.

He sigh’d his love, and Selyma return’d

The chasten’d flame with which his bosom burn’d.

Oh! mid the beauties of those heav’nly shores,

Where all her charms, luxuriant Nature pours;

Not such cold charms, as, in the frozen North,

Few, and half ripe, her niggard hand puts forth;70

But such, as on Love’s warmest, brightest shrine

She strews around, all glowing, all divine.

Oh, it were sweet to mark those lovers’ bliss—

Bliss far too great for such a world as this.

And they would sit beneath some spreading palm,

When mellowing eve put forth her fragrant balm,

And watch the setting sun’s last dazzling sheen,

Sink slow, as loth to quit so soft, so fair a scene.

And he would cull fresh flowrets’ varied glow, To form a wreath to deck her lovely brow,80 And twine his fingers in her locks of night, As down her breast they stray’d, as envious of its white;— And, as they lay, their breathing lips would meet, And hearts, that love first taught th’ ecstatic beat. And oh, to part at night, the ling’ring pain, And oh, the happiness to meet again. Yes, love like their’s so rapturous, yet so pure, Alas! could never, never long endure!