Gleaming o'er yellow sands?

Beneath the lofty bank reclined,

With idle eye he views its little waves,
Quietly listening to the quiet flow;

While in the breathings of the stirring gale,

The tall canes bend above,

Floating like streamers in the wind

Their lank uplifted leaves.

Nor rich, nor poor, was Moath; God hath given
Enough, and blest him with a mind content.
No hoarded gold disquieted his dreams;
But ever round his station he beheld

Camels that knew his voice,

And home-birds, grouping at Oneiza's call,

And goats that, morn and eve,

Came with full udders to the damsel's hand.

Dear child! the tent beneath whose shade they dwelt

It was her work; and she had twined

His girdle's many hues;

And he had seen his robe

Grow in Oneiza's loom.

How often with a memory-mingled joy

Which made her mother live before his sight,

He watch'd her nimble fingers thread the woof!
Or at the hand-mill, when she knelt and toil'd,
Toss'd the thin cake on spreading palm,
Or fix'd it on the glowing oven's side
With bare wet arm, and safe dexterity.

"Tis the cool evening hour:

The tamarind from the dew

Sheathes its young fruit, yet green.
Before their tent the mat is spread;

The old man's solemn voice

Intones the holy book.

What if beneath no lamp-illumined dome,
Its marble walls bedeck'd with flourish'd truth,
Azure and gold adornment? Sinks the word
With deeper influence from the Imam's voice
Where in the day of congregation crowds
Perform the duty-task?

Their Father is their Priest,

The Stars of Heaven their point of prayer,

And the blue Firmament

The glorious Temple, where they feel

The present Deity.

Yet through the purple glow of eve

Shines dimly the white moon.

The slacken'd bow, the quiver, the long lance,

Rest on the pillar of the tent.

Knitting light palm-leaves for her brother's brow,

The dark-eyed damsel sits;

The old man tranquilly

Up his curl'd pipe inhales

The tranquillising herb.

So listen they the reed of Thalaba,

While his skill'd fingers modulate

The low, sweet, soothing, melancholy tones.

Or if he strung the pearls of poesy,

Singing with agitated face

And eloquent arms, and sobs that reach the heart,

A tale of love and woe;

Then, if the brightening moon that lit his face,

In darkness favour'd hers,

Oh! even with such a look, as fables say,

The Mother Ostrich fixes on her egg,

Till that intense affection

Kindle its light of life,

Even in such deep and breathless tenderness
Oneiza's soul is centred on the youth,

So motionless, with such an ardent gaze,
Save when from her full eyes

She wipes away the swelling tears

That dim his image there.

She call'd him Brother; was it sister-love

For which the silver rings,

Round her smooth ankles and her tawny arms,

Shone daily brighten'd? for a brother's eye

Were her long fingers tinged,

As when she trimm'd the lamp,

And through the veins and delicate skin

The light shone rosy? that the darken'd lids
Gave yet a softer lustre to her eye?

That with such pride she trick'd
Her glossy tresses, and on holy-day
Wreath'd the red flower-crown round

Their waves of glossy jet?

How happily the days

Of Thalaba went by!

Years of his youth, how rapidly ye fled!

SUNLIGHT ON THE OCEAN.

TO BARDSEY was the Lord of Ocean bound;
Bardsey, the holy Islet, in whose soil
Did many a Chief and many a saint repose,
His great progenitors. He mounts the skiff;
The canvas swells before the breeze, the sea
Sings round her sparkling keel, and soon the Lord

Of Ocean treads the venerable shore.

There was not, on that day, a speck to stain

The azure heaven; the blessed sun alone

In unapproachable divinity

Career'd, rejoicing in his fields of light.

How beautiful beneath the bright blue sky
The billows heave! one glowing green expanse,

Save where along the bending line of shore
Such hue is thrown, as when the peacock's neck

Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst,

Embathed in emerald glory. All the flocks

Of Ocean are abroad; like floating foam
The sea-gulls rise and fall upon the waves;
With long protruded neck the cormorants
Wing their far flight aloft, and round and round
The plovers wheel, and give their note of joy.
It was a day that sent into the heart

A summer feeling; even the insect swarms
From their dark nooks and coverts issued forth,
To sport through one day of existence more;
The solitary primrose on the bank

Seem'd now as though it had no cause to mourn
Its bleak autumnal birth; the rocks and shores,
The forest and the everlasting hills,

...

Smiled in that joyful sunshine, they partook The universal blessing.