In lip, cheek, or eyes, for she brightened all over, -
Like any fair lake that the breeze is upon,
When it breaks into dimples, and laughs in the sun.
Such, such were the peerless enchantments that
gave
Nourmahal the proud Lord of the East for her slave;
And though bright was his Harem, a living parterre
Of the flowers of this planet, though treasures were there,
When free and uncrowned as the conqueror roved
By the banks of that lake, with his only beloved, For which Solomon's self might have given all
He saw, in the wreaths she would playfully snatch
From the hedges, a glory his crown could not
match,
And preferred in his heart the least ringlet that
Down her exquisite neck to the throne of the world!
There's a beauty, forever unchangingly bright, Like the long sunny lapse of a summer's day's light, Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, Till love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor. This was not the beauty, O, nothing like this, That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss, But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays Like the light upon autumn's soft shadowy days, Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies From the lips to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes,
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams, Like the glimpses a saint has of heaven in his dreams!
When pensive, it seemed as if that very grace, That charm of all others, was born with her face; And when angry, - for even in the tranquillest
That the navy from Ophir e'er winged to his shore, Yet dim before her were the smiles of them all, And the Light of his Harem was young Nourmahal!
THE gray sea, and the long black land;
And the yellow half-moon large and low;
And the startled little waves, that leap
In fiery ringlets from their sleep,
As I gain the cove with pushing prow,
And quench its speed in the slushy sand.
Then a mile of warm, sea-scented beach;
Three fields to cross, till a farm appears:
A tap at the pane, the quick sharp scratch
And blue spurt of a lighted match,
And a voice less loud, through its joys and fears,
Than the two hearts, beating each to each.
THE LADY'S LOOKING-GLASS.
CELIA and I, the other day,
Walked o'er the sand-hills to the sea:
The setting sun adorned the coast,
His beams entire his fierceness lost :
And on the surface of the deep
The winds lay only not asleep :
The nymphs did, like the scene, appear
Serenely pleasant, calmly fair;
Soft felt her words as flew the air.
With secret joy I heard her say
That she would never miss one day
A walk so fine, a sight so gay,
"But when vain doubt and groundless fear
Do that dear foolish bosom tear;
When the big lip and watery eye
Tell me the rising storm is nigh;
"T is then thou art yon angry main
Deformed by winds and dashed by rain;
And the poor sailor that must try
Its fury labors less than I.
Shipwrecked, in vain to land I make,
While love and fate still drive me back :
Forced to dote on thee thy own way,
I chide thee first, and then obey:
Wretched when from thee, vexed when nigh,
I with thee, or without thee, die."
Dark was her hair; her hand was white,
Her voice was exquisitely tender;
Her eyes were full of liquid light;
I never saw a waist so slender;
Her every look, her every smile,
Shot right and left a score of arrows:
I thought 't was Venus from her isle,
And wondered where she'd left her sparrows
She talked of politics or prayers,
Of Southey's prose or Wordsworth's sonnets, Of danglers or of dancing bears,
Of battles or the last new bonnets; By candle-light, at twelve o'clock, To me it mattered not a tittle,
If those bright lips had quoted Locke,
I might have thought they murmured Little.
Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal;
I spoke her praises to the moon,
I wrote them to the Sunday Journal. My mother laughed; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling: My father frowned; but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling?
She was the daughter of a dean,
Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;
She had one brother just thirteen,
Whose color was extremely hectic;
Her grandmother for many a year,
Had fed the parish with her bounty;
Her second cousin was a peer,
And lord-lieutenant of the county.
But titles and the three-per-cents,
And mortgages, and great relations,
And India bonds, and tithes and rents,
O, what are they to love's sensations?
Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks,
Such wealth, such honors Cupid chooses;
He cares as little for the stocks
As Baron Rothschild for the muses.
She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach, Grew lovelier from her pencil's shading: She botanized; I envied each
Young blossom in her boudoir fading: She warbled Handel; it was grand, She made the Catilina jealous : She touched the organ; I could stand For hours and hours to blow the bellows.
She kept an album too, at home,
Well filled with all an album's glories, Paintings of butterflies and Rome,
Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories,
"His check was redder than the rose;
The comeliest youth was he!
But he is dead and laid in his grave:
Alas, and woe is me!"
"Sigh no more, lady, sigh no more,
Men were deceivers ever :
One foot on sea and one on land,
To one thing constant never.
"Hadst thou been fond, he had been false,
And left thee sad and heavy;
For young men ever were fickle found,
Since summer trees were leafy."
"Now say not so, thou holy friar,
I pray thee say not so;
My love he had the truest heart,
O, he was ever true!
FROM THE EARTHLY PARADISE."
A Man of Cyprus, a Sculptor named Pygmalion, made an Image of a Woman, fairer than any that had yet been seen, and in the end came to love his own handiwork as though it had beea alive: wherefore, praying to Venus for help, he obtained hi, end, for she made the Image alive indeed, and a Woman, and Pygmalion wedded her.
AT Amathus, that from the southern side
Of Cyprus looks across the Syrian sea,
There did in ancient time a man abide
Known to the island-dwellers, for that he
Had wrought most godlike works in imagery,
And day by day still greater honor won,
Which man our old books call Pygmalion.
The lessening marble that he worked upon, A woman's form now imaged doubtfully,
"And art thou dead, thou much-loved youth, And in such guise the work had he begun,
And didst thou die for me?
Then farewell home; for evermore
A pilgrim I will be.
"But first upon my true-love's grave
My weary limbs I'll lay,
And thrice I'll kiss the green-grass turf
That wraps his breathless clay."
"Yet stay, fair lady: rest awhile Beneath this cloister wall;
Because when he the untouched block did see
In wandering veins that form there seemed to be,
Whereon he cried out in a careless mood,
"O lady Venus, make this presage good!
"And then this block of stone shall be thy maid,
And, not without rich golden ornament,
Shall bide within thy quivering myrtle-shade."
So spoke he, but the goddess, well content,
Unto his hand such godlike mastery sent,
That like the first artificer he wrought,
See through the hawthorn blows the cold wind, Who made the gift that woe to all men brought.
And drizzly rain doth fall."
"O stay me not, thou holy friar,
O stay me not, I pray;
No drizzly rain that falls on me
Can wash my fault away."
"Yet stay, fair lady, turn again,
And dry those pearly tears;
For see, beneath this gown of gray
Thy own true-love appears.
"Here forced by grief and hopeless love,
These holy weeds I sought;
And here, amid these lonely walls,
To end my days I thought.
"But haply, for my year of grace
Is not yet passed away,
Might I still hope to win thy love,
No longer would I stay."
"Now farewell grief, and welcome joy
Once more unto my heart;
For since I have found thee, lovely youth,
We nevermore will part.'
And yet, but such as he was wont to do,
At first indeed that work divine he deemed,
And as the white chips from the chisel flew
Of other matters languidly he dreamed,
For easy to his hand that labor seemed.
And he was stirred with many a troubling thought,
And many a doubt perplexed him as he wrought.
And yet, again, at last there came a day
When smoother and more shapely grew the stone,
And he, grown eager, put all thought away
But that which touched his craftsmanship alone,
And he would gaze at what his hands had done,
Until his heart with boundless joy would swell
That all was wrought so wonderfully well.
Yet long it was ere he was satisfied,
And with his pride that by his mastery
This thing was done, whose equal far and wide
In no town of the world a man could see,
Came burning longing that the work should be
E'en better still, and to his heart there came
A strange and strong desire he could not name.
The night seemed long, and long the twilight With something like to hope, and all that day seemed,
A vain thing seemed his flowery garden fair; Though through the night still of his work he dreamed,
And though his smooth-stemmed trees so nigh it
That thence he could behold the marble hair;
Naught was enough, until with steel in hand
He came before the wondrous stone to stand.
Blinded with tears, his chisel up he caught,
And, drawing near, and sighing, tenderly
Upon the marvel of the face he wrought,
E'en as he used to pass the long days by;
But his sighs changed to sobbing presently,
And on the floor the useless steel he flung,
And, weeping loud, about the image clung.
"Alas!" he cried, "why have I made thee then,
That thus thou mockest me? I know indeed
That many such as thou are loved of men,
Whose passionate eyes poor wretches still will lead
Into their net, and smile to see them bleed;
But these the Gods made, and this hand made thee
Who wilt not speak one little word to me."
Then from the image did he draw aback
To gaze on it through tears and you had said,
Regarding it, that little did it lack
To be a living and most lovely maid;
Naked it was, its unbound locks were laid
Over the lovely shoulders; with one hand
Reached out, as to a lover, did it stand,
The other held a fair rose over-blown ;
No smile was on the parted lips, the eyes
Seemed as if even now great love had shown
Unto them something of its sweet surprise,
Yet saddened them with half-seen mysteries,
And still midst passion maiden-like she seemed,
As though of love unchanged for aye she dreamed.
Reproachfully beholding all her grace, Pygmalion stood, until he grew dry-eyed, And then at last he turned away his face As if from her cold eyes his grief to hide; And thus a weary while did he abide, With nothing in his heart but vain desire, The ever-burning, unconsuming fire.
No word indeed the moveless image said,
But with the sweet grave eyes his hands had
wrought
Still gazed down on his bowed imploring head,
Yet his own words some solace to him brought,
Gilding the net wherein his soul was caught
Some tender words he ever found to say;
And still he felt as something heard him speak;
Sometimes he praised her beauty, and sometimes
Reproached her in a feeble voice and weak,
And at the last drew forth a book of rhymes,
Wherein were writ the tales of many climes,
And read aloud the sweetness hid therein
Of lovers' sorrows and their tangled sin.
And when the sun went down, the frankincense
Again upon the altar-flame he cast
That through the open window floating thence
O'er the fresh odors of the garden passed;
And so another day was gone at last,
And he no more his lovelorn watch could keep,
But now for utter weariness must sleep.
But the next morn, e'en while the incense-smoke
At sunrising curled round about her head,
Sweet sound of songs the wonted quiet broke
Down in the street, and he by something led,
He knew not what, must leave his prayer unsaid,
And through the freshness of the morn must see
The folk who went with that sweet minstrelsy;
Damsels and youths in wonderful attire,
And in their midst upon a car of gold
An image of the Mother of Desire,
Wrought by his hands in days that seemed grown
Though those sweet limbs a garment did enfold. Colored like flame, enwrought with precious things,
Most fit to be the prize of striving kings.
Then he remembered that the manner was
That fair-clad priests the lovely Queen should take
Thrice in the year, and through the city pass,
And with sweet songs the dreaming folk awake;
And through the clouds a light there seemed to
break
When he remembered all the tales well told
About her glorious kindly deeds of old.
So his unfinished prayer he finished not,
But, kneeling, once more kissed the marble feet,
And, while his heart with many thoughts waxed
hot,
He clad himself with fresh attire and meet
For that bright service, and with blossoms sweet
Entwined with tender leaves he crowned his head,
And followed after as the goddess led.
So there he stood, that help from her to gain,
Bewildered by that twilight midst of day;
Downcast with listening to the joyous strain
He had no part in, hopeless with delay
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