When round him hung such a perpetual spell,
Whate'er he did, none ever did so well.
Too happy days! when, if he touch'd a flower
Or gem of thine, 'twas sacred from that hour;
When thou didst study him, till every tone
And gesture and dear look became thy own,
Thy voice like his, the changes of his face
In thine reflected with still lovelier grace,
Like echo, sending back sweet music, fraught
With twice th' aerial sweetness it had brought!
Yet now he comes
but ah! not bright for thee;
No- dread, unlook'd for, like a visitant
From the' other world, he comes as if to haunt
Thy guilty soul with dreams of lost delight,
Long lost to all but memory's aching sight:
Sad dreams! as when the Spirit of our Youth
Returns in sleep, sparkling with all the truth
And innocence once ours, and leads us back,
In mournful mockery, o'er the shining track
Of our young life, and points out every ray
Of hope and peace we've lost upon the way!
Once happy pair!-in proud BOKHARA's groves,
Who had not heard of their first youthful loves?
Born by that ancient flood', which from its spring
In the Dark Mountains swiftly wandering,
Enrich'd by every pilgrim brook that shines
With relics from BUCHARIA's ruby mines,
And, lending to the CASPIAN half its strength,
In the cold Lake of Eagles sinks at length;
There, on the banks of that bright river born,
The flowers, that hung above its wave at morn,
Bless'd not the waters, as they murmur'd by,
With holier scent and lustre, than the sigh
And virgin glance of first affection cast
Upon their youth's smooth current, as it pass'd!
But war disturb'd this vision far away
From her fond eyes, summon'd to join th' array
Of PERSIA'S warriors on the hills of THRACE,
The youth exchang'd his sylvan dwelling-place
1 The Amoo, which rises in the Belur Tag, or Dark Mountains, and running nearly from east to west, splits into two branches, one of which falls into the Caspian sea, and the other into Aral Nahr, or the Lake of Eagles.
For the rude tent and war-field's deathful clash;
His ZELICA's sweet glances for the flash
Of Grecian wild-fire, and Love's gentle chains
For bleeding bondage on BYZANTIUM's plains.
Month after month, in widowhood of soul
Drooping, the maiden saw two summers roll
Their suns away
but, ah! how cold and dim
Ev'n summer suns, when not beheld with him!
From time to time ill-omen'd rumours came,
(Like spirit-tongues, muttering the sick-man's name,
Just ere he dies, —) at length, those sounds of dread
Fell withering on her soul, "Azım is dead !”
Oh grief, beyond all other griefs, when fate
First leaves the young heart lone and desolate
In the wide world, without that only tie
For which it lov'd to live or fear'd to die ;-
Lorn as the hung-up lute, that ne'er hath spoken
Since the sad day its master-chord was broken!
Fond maid, the sorrow of her soul was such, Ev'n reason sunk blighted beneath its touch;
And though, ere long, her sanguine spirit rose
Above the first dead pressure of its woes,
Though health and bloom return'd, the delicate chain
Of thought, once tangled, never clear'd again.
Warm, lively, soft as in youth's happiest day,
The mind was still all there, but turn'd astray; -
A wandering bark, upon whose path-way shone
All stars of heav'n, except the guiding one!
Again she smil❜d, nay, much and brightly smil❜d,
But 'twas a lustre, strange, unreal, wild;
And when she sung to her lute's touching strain,
"Twas like the notes, half extacy, half pain,
The bulbul utters, ere her soul depart,
When, vanquish'd by some minstrel's powerful art,
She dies
upon the lute whose sweetness broke her heart!
Such was the mood in which that mission found
Young ZELICA, that mission, which around
The Eastern world, in every region blest
With woman's smile, sought out its loveliest,
To grace that galaxy of lips and eyes,
Which the Veil'd Prophet destin'd for the skies! --
And such quick welcome as a spark receives
Dropp'd on a bed of autumn's wither'd leaves,
Did every tale of these enthusiasts find
In the wild maiden's sorrow-blighted mind.
All fire at once the madd'ning zeal she caught;
Elect of Paradise! blest, rapturous thought;
Predestin'd bride, in heaven's eternal dome,
Of some brave youth-ha! durst they say
No of the one, one only object trac'd
In her heart's core too deep to be effac'd;
The one whose memory, fresh as life, is twin'd
With every broken link of her lost mind;
Whose image lives, though Reason's self be wreck'd,
Safe 'mid the ruins of her intellect !
Alas, poor ZELICA! it needed all
The fantasy, which held thy mind in thrall,
To see in that gay Haram's glowing maids
A sainted colony for Eden's shades;
Or dream that he, of whose unholy flame
From Paradise, to people its pure sphere
With souls like thine, which he hath ruin'd here!
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