And does the long-left home she seeks
Light up no gladness on her cheeks?
The flowers she nurst--the well-known groves,
Where oft in dreams her spirit roves--
Once more to see her dear gazelles
Come bounding with their silver bells;
Her birds' new plumage to behold
And the gay, gleaming fishes count,
She left all filleted with gold
Shooting around their jasper fount;[248]
Her little garden mosque to see,
And once again, at evening hour,
To tell her ruby rosary
In her own sweet acacia bower.--
Can these delights that wait her now
Call up no sunshine on her brow?
No,--silent, from her train apart,--
As if even now she felt at heart
The chill of her approaching doom,--
She sits, all lovely in her gloom
As a pale Angel of the Grave;
And o'er the wide, tempestuous wave
Looks with a shudder to those towers
Where in a few short awful hours
Blood, blood, in streaming tides shall run,
Foul incense for to-morrow's sun!
"Where art thou, glorious stranger! thou,
"So loved, so lost, where art thou now?
"Foe--Gheber--infidel--whate'er
"The unhallowed name thou'rt doomed to bear,
"Still glorious--still to this fond heart
"Dear as its blood, whate'er thou art!
"Yes--ALLA, dreadful ALLA! yes--
"If there be wrong, be crime in this,
"Let the black waves that round us roll,
"Whelm me this instant ere my soul
"Forgetting faith--home--father--all
"Before its earthly idol fall,
"Nor worship even Thyself above him--
"For, oh, so wildly do I love him,
"Thy Paradise itself were dim
"And joyless, if not shared with him!"
Her hands were claspt--her eyes upturned,
Dropping their tears like moonlight rain;
And, tho' her lip, fond raver! burned
With words of passion, bold, profane.
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