ALAS! HOW LIGHT A CAUSE MAY MOVE

FROM THE LIGHT OF THE HAREM

Alas!

how light a cause may move Dissension between hearts that love!

Hearts that the world in vain had tried,

And sorrow but more closely tied;

That stood the storm when waves were rough,
Yet in a sunny hour fall off,

Like ships that have gone down at sea,
When heaven was all tranquillity!
A something light as air- - a look,

A word unkind or wrongly taken

O, love, that tempests never shook,

A breath, a touch like this has shaken!

And ruder words will soon rush in
To spread the breach that words begin;
And eyes forget the gentle ray
They wore in courtship's smiling day;
And voices lose the tone that shed
A tenderness round all they said;
Till fast declining, one by one,
The sweetnesses of love are gone,
And hearts, so lately mingled, seem
Like broken clouds, - or like the stream,
That smiling left the mountain's brow

As though its waters ne'er could sever, Yet, ere it reach the plain below,

Breaks into floods, that part forever.

O you, that have the charge of Love,
Keep him in rosy bondage bound,

As in the Fields of Bliss above

He sits, with flowerets fettered round; Loose not a tie that round him clings, Nor ever let him use his wings; For even an hour, a minute's flight Will rob the plumes of half their light. Like that celestial bird, — whose nest

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SYRIA

FROM PARADISE AND THE PERI

Now, upon Syria's land of roses,
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

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To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls; ·
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

Of the warm west, - as if inlaid

With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span

The unclouded skies of Peristan.

And then the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting through the flowery vales; And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine, And woods, so full of nightingales!

ΙΟ

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ΙΟ

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A noble range it was, of many a rood,
Walled and tree-girt, and ending in a wood.
A small sweet house o'erlooked it from a nest
Of pines: - all wood and garden was the rest,
Lawn, and green lane, and covert:- and it
had

A winding stream about it, clear and glad,
With here and there a swan, the creature born
To be the only graceful shape of scorn.
The flower-beds all were liberal of delight:
Roses in heaps were there, both red and white,
Lilies angelical, and gorgeous glooms

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Of wall-flowers, and blue hyacinths, and blooms Hanging thick clusters from light boughs; in short,

All the sweet cups to which the bees resort,
With plots of grass, and leafier walks between
Of red geraniums, and of jessamine,
And orange, whose warm leaves so finely suit,
And look as if they shade a golden fruit;

And midst the flowers, turfed round beneath a shade

Of darksome pines, a babbling fountain played,

And 'twixt their shafts you saw the water bright, Which through the tops glimmered with showering

light.

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So now you stood to think what odours best
Made the air happy in that lovely nest;
And now you went beside the flowers, with eyes
Earnest as bees, restless as butterflies;

And then turned off into a shadier walk,
Close and continuous, fit for lovers' talk;
And then pursued the stream, and as you trod
Onward and onward o'er the velvet sod,

Felt on your face an air, watery and sweet, 270
And a new sense in your soft-lighting feet.
At last you entered shades indeed, the wood,
Broken with glens and pits, and glades far-
viewed,

Through which the distant palace now and then
Look'd lordly forth with many-windowed ken;
A land of trees, - which reaching round about
In shady blessing stretched their old arms out;
With spots of sunny openings, and with nooks
To lie and read in, sloping into brooks,
Where at her drink you startled the slim deer, 280
Retreating lightly with a lovely fear.

And all about, the birds kept leafy house,
And sung and darted in and out the boughs;
And all about, a lovely sky of blue

Clearly was felt. or down the leaves laughed

And formed of both, the loveliest portion lay,
A spot, that struck you like enchanted ground:
It was a shallow dell, set in a mound
Of sloping orchards, fig, and almond trees,
Cherry and pine, with some few cypresses;
Down by whose roots, descending darkly still, 300
(You saw it not, but heard) there gushed a rill,
Whose low sweet talking seemed as if it said,
Something eternal to that happy shade.

The ground within was lawn, with fruits and flowers

Heaped towards the centre, half of citron bowers;
And in the middle of those golden trees,
Half seen amidst the globy oranges,

Lurked a rare summer-house, a lovely sight,
Small, marble, well-proportioned, creamy white,

King, ladies, lovers, all look on; the occasion is divine;

I'll drop my glove, to prove his love; great glory will be mine.

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She dropped her glove, to prove his love, then looked at him and smiled;

He bowed, and in a moment leaped among the lions wild;

The leap was quick, return was quick, he has regained his place,

Then threw the glove, but not with love, right in the lady's face.

"By Heaven," said Francis, "rightly done!" and he rose from where he sat;

"No love," quoth he, "but vanity, sets love a task like that."

ABOU BEN ADHEM

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Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold:-
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the presence in the room he said,
"What writest thou?" The vision raised its head,
And, with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered, "The names of those who love the Lord."
"And is mine one?" said Abou. "Nay, not so,"
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still; and said, "I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow-men."

The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again, with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had
blessed,

And, lo! Ben Adhem's name led all the rest!