SONG. DAUGHTER of Egypt, veil thine eyes! I cannot bear their fire; Nor will I touch with sacrifice Those altars of Desire. For they are flames that shun the day, And their unholy light Is fed from natures gone astray In passion and in night. The stars of Beauty and of Sin, Like beacons that to ruin win The fascinated bark. Then veil their glow, lest I forswear The hopes thou canst not crown, And in the black waves of thy hair My struggling manhood drown! AMRAN'S WOOING. I. You ask, O Frank! how Love is born You hearken with a doubtful smile Whene'er the wandering bards beguile Whose words gush molten through our veins The source of each accordant strain First from the people's heart must spring The language of their varying fate, That hides among the boughs unheard Until some mate, whose carol breaks, Its own betraying song awakes, So, to its echo in those lays, The ardent heart itself betrays. Crowned with a prophet's honor, stands The Poet, on Arabian sands; A chief, whose subjects love his thrallThe sympathizing heart of all. II. Vaunt not your Western maids to me, When sole in heaven, seems brighter far, The light from out its darkness sent Is Passion's life and element; And when the heart is warm and young, Let but that single ray be flung Upon its surface, and the deep Heaves from its unsuspecting sleep, Who thinks if cheek or lip be fair? The soul looks out, the feelings move, What more can blinded love desire ? III. I was a stripling, quick and bold, Of Araby's most precious breed ; |