O the warm sea sparkling over with waves by the swift wind fann'd!
O the wide sky crystal clear, with bright islands of delicate cloud!
Feel you the waking of life in the world lock'd so long in the frost,
Beautiful birds, with the light flashing bright from your banner-like wings?
Osprey, soaring so high, in the deeps of the sky half lost! Medrake, hovering low where the sandpiper's sweet note rings!
Nothing am I to you, a blot, perhaps, on the day;
Naught do I add to your joy, but precious you are in my sight;
And you seem on your glad wings to lift me up into the ether away,
And the morning divine is more radiant because of your glorious flight.
WE sail tow'rd evening's lonely star
That trembles in the tender blue:
One single cloud, a dusky bar,
Burnt with dull carmine through and through, Slow smouldering in the summer sky,
Lies low along the fading west.
How sweet to watch its splendours die, Wave-cradled thus and wind-caress'd.
The soft breeze freshens, leaps the spray To kiss our cheeks, with sudden cheer : Upon the dark edge of the bay
Lighthouses kindle, far and near, And through the warm deeps of the sky Steal faint star-clusters, while we rest In deep refreshment, thou and I,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caress'd.
How like a dream are earth and heaven Starbeam and darkness, sky and sea: Thy face, pale in the shadowy even Thy quiet eyes that gaze on me! O realize the moment's charm,
Thou dearest! We are at life's best,Folded in God's encircling arm,
Wave-cradled thus and wind-caress'd.
THE lyre I bear-so sweet of sound- I dash it on the frozen ground, For idle are its golden chords, And vain of song the burning words.
I kiss thee; let my kiss avail, Where speech and music both must fail, To tell the love, which else from thee A secret evermore must be!
FAINT splendours of the night of June, Sweet radiance of the summer moon, Upon thy pathway dwell! Farewell, Estelle ! farewell!
Dim fragrance of the violet, And of the briar-rose dew-wet, Breathe from the shadowy dell! Farewell, Estelle ! farewell!
Far murmurs of the summer trees, And voices low of dreamy seas, Around thee sink and swell! Farewell, Estelle! farewell!
And ever sweet, by thee be heard The hum of bee, and song of bird, And sound of holy bell! Farewell, Estelle! farewell!
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH.
Born at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, 1836—
WHEN THE SULTAN GOES TO ISPAHAN.
WHEN the Sultan Shah-Zaman
Goes to the city Ispahan,
Even before he gets so far
As the place where the cluster'd palm-trees are, At the last of the thirty palace-gates, The pet of the harem, Rose-in-Bloom, Orders a feast in his favourite room,- Glittering squares of colour'd ice,
Sweeten'd with syrup, tinctured with spice, Creams, and cordials, and sugar'd dates,
Syrian apples, Othmanee quinces,
Limes, and citrons, and apricots,
And wines that are known to Eastern princes;
And Nubian slaves, with smoking pots
Of spiced meats and costliest fish
And all that the curious palate could wish,
Pass in and out of the cedarn doors:
Scatter'd over mosaic floors
Are anemones, myrtles, and violets, And a musical fountain throws its jets Of a hundred colours into the air. The dusk Sultana loosens her hair, And stains with the henna-plant the tips Of her pearly nails, and bites her lips Till they bloom again,-but, alas, that rose
Not for the Sultan buds and blows! Not for the Sultan Shah-Zaman When he goes to the city Ispahan.
Then at a wave of her sunny hand, The dancing-girls of Samarcand Float in like mists from Fairy-land! And to the low voluptuous swoons Of music rise and fall the moons Of their full brown bosoms. Orient blood Runs in their veins, shines in their eyes: And there, in this Eastern Paradise, Fill'd with the fumes of sandal-wood, And Khoten musk, and aloes and myrrh, Sits Rose-in-Bloom on a silk divan, Sipping the wines of Astrakhan ; And her Arab lover sits with her. That's when the Sultan Shah-Zaman Goes to the city Ispahan.
Now, when I see an extra light Flaming, flickering on the night, From my neighbour's casement opposite, I know as well as I know to pray, I know as well as a tongue can say, That the innocent Sultan Shah-Zaman Has gone to the city Ispahan.
PALABRAS CARIÑOSAS.
GOOD-NIGHT! I have to say good-night To such a host of peerless things! Good-night unto that fragile hand All queenly with its weight of rings, Good-night to fond up-lifted eyes, Good-night to chestnut braids of hair, Good-night unto the perfect mouth And all the sweetness nestled there,- The snowy hand detains me, then I'll have to say Good-night again!
But there will come a time, my love! When, if I read our stars aright,
I shall not linger by this porch
With my adieus. Till then, good-night! You wish the time were now? And I. You do not blush to wish it so?
You would have blush'd yourself to death To own so much a year ago.
What, both these snowy hands! ah, then, I'll have to say Good-night again!
I LIKE not lady-slippers, Nor yet the sweet-pea blossoms, Nor yet the flaky roses,
Red, or white as snow ;
I like the chaliced lilies, The heavy Eastern lilies, The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow!
For they are tall and slender;
Their mouths are dash'd with carmine, And, when the wind sweeps by them, On their emerald stalks
They bend so proud and graceful,- They are Circassian women, The favourites of the Sultan, Adown our garden walks!
And when the rain is falling, I sit beside the window
And watch them glow and glisten,- How they burn and glow!
O for the burning lilies, The tender Eastern lilies, The gorgeous tiger-lilies,
That in our garden grow!
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