Suspended he that task, but ever gazed 125 Meanwhile an Arab maiden brought his food, Her daily portion, from her father's tent, 130 And spread her matting for his couch, and stole From duties and repose to tend his steps: Enamoured, yet not daring for deep awe To speak her love: - and watched his nightly sleep, 135 Parted in slumber, whence the regular breath Of innocent dreams arose: then, when red morn The Poet wandering on, through Arabie down 140 In joy and exultation held his way; Till in the vale of Cashmire, far within 145 Its loneliest dell, where odorous plants entwine Beside a sparkling rivulet he stretched His languid limbs. A vision on his sleep There came, a dream of hopes that never yet 150 Had flushed his cheek. He dreamed a veiled maid Sate near him, talking in low solemn tones. Her voice was like the voice of his own soul Heard in the calm of thought; its music long, Like woven sounds of streams and breezes, held 155 His inmost sense suspended in its web Of many-coloured woof and shifting hues. Knowledge and truth and virtue were her theme, Thoughts the most dear to him, and poesy, 160 Of her pure mind kindled through all her frame A permeating fire: wild numbers then She raised, with voice stifled in tremulous sobs Subdued by its own pathos: her fair hands 165 Strange symphony, and in their branching veins The eloquent blood told an ineffable tale. The beating of her heart was heard to fill 170 175 180 His gasping breath, and spread his arms to meet Involved and swallowed up the vision; sleep," 190 Rolled back its impulse on his vacant brain. Roused by the shock he started from his trance The cold white light of morning, the blue moon Low in the west, the clear and garish hills, The distinct valley and the vacant woods, 195 Spread round him where he stood. Whither have fled The hues of heaven that canopied his bower Of yesternight? The sounds that soothed his sleep, As ocean's moon looks on the moon in heaven. A vision to the sleep of him who spurned That beautiful shape! Does the dark gate of death O Sleep? Does the bright arch of rainbow clouds, While death's blue vault, with loathliest vapours hung, While day-light held The sky, the Poet kept mute conference With his still soul. At night the passion came, 200 205 210 215 220 Like the fierce fiend of a distempered dream, And shook him from his rest, and led him forth In folds of the green serpent, feels her breast 225 Through night and day, tempest, and calm, and cloud, 230 Frantic with dizzying anguish, her blind flight O'er the wide aëry wilderness: thus driven By the bright shadow of that lovely dream, Beneath the cold glare of the desolate night, Through tangled swamps and deep precipitous dells, 235 240 245 Bearing within his life the brooding care That ever fed on its decaying flame. And now his limbs were lean; his scattered hair Sered by the autumn of strange suffering Sung dirges in the wind; his listless hand 250 Hung like dead bone within its withered skin; Life, and the lustre that consumed it, shone That spectral form, deemed that the Spirit of wind In terror at the glare of those wild eyes, 260 To remember their strange light in many a dream 265 That wasted him, would call him with false names At length upon the lone Chorasmian shore 270 275 His eyes pursued its flight. "Thou hast a home, 280 Beautiful bird; thou voyagest to thine home, Where thy sweet mate will twine her downy neck With thine, and welcome thy return with eyes Bright in the lustre of their own fond joy. 285 290 |