And flirts his filmy wings, and looks around,
Exulting in his distance from the ground.
The tender speckled moth here dancing seen,
The vaulting grasshopper of glossy green,
And all prolific Summer's sporting train,
Their little lives by various powers sustain,
But what can unassisted vision do?
What, but recoil where most it would pursue;
His patient gaze but finish with a sigh,
When music waking speaks the skylark nigh!
Just starting from the corn she cheerly sings,
And trusts with conscious pride her downy wings;
Still louder breathes, and in the face of day
Mounts up, and calls on Giles to mark her way.
Close to his eyes his hat he instant bends,
And forms a friendly telescope, that lends
Just aid enough to dull the glaring light,
And place the wandering bird before his sight;
Yet oft beneath a cloud she sweeps along,
Lost for awhile, yet pours her varied song.
He views the spot, and as the cloud moves by,
Again she stretches up the clear blue sky;
Her form, her motion, undistinguish'd quite,
Save when she wheels direct from shade to light:
The fluttering songstress a mere speck became
Like fancy's floating bubbles in a dream;
He sees her yet, but yielding to repose,
Unwittingly his jaded eyelids close
Delicious sleep! From sleep who could forbear,
With no more guilt than Giles, and no more care?
Peace o'er his slumbers waves her guardian wing,
Nor Conscience once disturbs him with a sting:
He wakes refresh'd from every trivial pain,
And takes his pole and brushes round again.
FAREWELL,-farewell to thee, Araby's daughter!
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea,)
No pearl ever lay, under Oman's green water,
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing,
How light was thy heart till love's witchery came, Like the wind of the South o'er a summer lute blowing, And hush'd all its music and wither'd its frame !
But long, upon Araby's green sunny highlands,
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her, who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With nought but the sea-star to light up her tomb.
And still, when the merry date-season is burning,
And calls to the palm-groves the young and the old,
The happiest there, from their pastime returning,
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told.
The young village-maid, when with flowers she dresses
Her dark flowing hair for some festival day,
Will think of thy fate till, neglecting her tresses,
She mournfully turns from the mirror away.
Nor shall Iran, belov'd of her Hero: forget thee-Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start, Close, close by the side of that Hero she'll set thee, Embalm'd in the innermost shrine of her heart.
Farewell-be it ours to embellish thy pillow
With everything beauteous that grows in the deep; Each flower of the rock and each gem of the hollow Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep.
Around thee shall glisten the loveliest amber
That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept;
With many a shell, in whose hollow-wreath'd chamber,
We, Peris of Ocean, by moonlight have slept.
We'll dive where the gardens of coral lie darkling,
And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head;
We'll seek where the sands of the Caspian are sparkling,
And gather their gold to strew over thy bed.
Farewell-farewell-until Pity's sweet fountain
Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave, They'll weep for the Chieftain who died on that mountain, They'll weep for the Maiden who sleeps in this wave.
THE BEAUTY OF EXPRESSION.
THERE's a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright,
Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day's light,
Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till love falls asleep in the sameness of splendour.
This was not the beauty,-oh! 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 flics
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 hath of Heav'n in his dreams!
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