See-light as up their granite steeps
The rock-goats of ARABIA clamber,[208]
Fearless from crag to crag he leaps,
And now is in the maiden's chamber.
She loves--but knows not whom she loves,
Nor what his race, nor whence he came;--
Like one who meets in Indian groves
Some beauteous bird without a name;
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze
From isles in the undiscovered seas,
To show his plumage for a day
To wondering eyes and wing away!
Will he thus fly--her nameless lover?
ALLA forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over
Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,
Alone, at this same witching hour,
She first beheld his radiant eyes
Gleam thro' the lattice of the bower,
Where nightly now they mix their sighs;
And thought some spirit of the air
(For what could waft a mortal there?)
Was pausing on his moonlight way
To listen to her lonely lay!
This fancy ne'er hath left her mind:
And--tho', when terror's swoon had past,
She saw a youth of mortal kind
Before her in obeisance cast,--
Yet often since, when he hath spoken
Strange, awful words,--and gleams have broken
From his dark eyes, too bright to bear,
Oh! she hath feared her soul was given
To some unhallowed child of air,
Some erring spirit cast from heaven,
Like those angelic youths of old
Who burned for maids of mortal mould,
Bewildered left the glorious skies
And lost their heaven for woman's eyes.
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