Cheered by this hope she bends her thither;--
Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven,
Nor have the golden bowers of Even
In the rich West begun to wither;--
When o'er the vale of BALBEC winging
Slowly she sees a child at play,
Among the rosy wild flowers singing,
As rosy and as wild as they;
Chasing with eager hands and eyes
The beautiful blue damsel-flies,[173]
That fluttered round the jasmine stems
Like winged flowers or flying gems:--
And near the boy, who tired with play
Now nestling mid the roses lay.
She saw a wearied man dismount
From his hot steed and on the brink
Of a small imaret's rustic fount
Impatient fling him down to drink.
Then swift his haggard brow he turned
To the fair child who fearless sat,
Tho' never yet hath day-beam burned
Upon a brow more fierce than that,--
Sullenly fierce--a mixture dire
Like thunder-clouds of gloom and fire;
In which the PERI'S eye could read
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed;
The ruined maid--the shrine profaned--
Oaths broken--and the threshold stained
With blood of guests!--_there_ written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel's pen,
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.
Yet tranquil now that man of crime
(As if the balmy evening time
Softened his spirit) looked and lay,
Watching the rosy infant's play:--
Tho' still whene'er his eye by chance
Fell on the boy's, its lucid glance
Met that unclouded, joyous gaze,
As torches that have burnt all night
Tho' some impure and godless rite,
Encounter morning's glorious rays.
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