<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=447622" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Zenana</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">WHAT is there that the world hath not <br>Gathered in yon enchanted spot?<br>Where, pale, and with a languid eye,<br>The fair Sultana listlessly<br>Leans on her silken couch, and dreams<br>Of mountain airs, and mountain streams.<br>Sweet though the music float around,<br>It wants the old familiar sound;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And fragrant though the flowers are breathing,<br>From far and near together wreathing,<br>They are not those she used to wear,<br>Upon the midnight of her hair.—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She's very young, and childhood's days<br>With all their old remembered ways,<br>The empire of her heart contest<br>With love, that is so new a guest;<br>When blushing with her Murad near,<br>Half timid bliss, half sweetest fear,<br>E'en the beloved past is dim,<br>Past, present, future, merge in him.<br>But he, the warrior and the chief,<br>His hours of happiness are brief;<br>And he must leave Nadira's side<br>To woo and win a ruder bride;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Sought, sword in hand and spur on heel,<br>The fame, that weds with blood and steel.<br>And while from Delhi far away,<br>His youthful bride pines through the day,<br>Weary and sad: thus when again<br>He seeks to bind love's loosen'd chain;<br>He finds the tears are scarcely dry<br>Upon a cheek whose bloom is faded,<br>The very flush of victory<br>Is, like the brow he watches, shaded.<br>A thousand thoughts are at her heart,<br>His image paramount o'er all,<br>Yet not all his, the tears that start,<br>As mournful memories recall<br>Scenes of another home, which yet<br>That fond young heart can not forget.<br>She thinks upon that place of pride,<br>Which frowned upon the mountain's side;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While round it spread the ancient plain,<br>Her steps will never cross again.<br>And near those mighty temples stand,<br>The miracles of mortal hand,<br>Where, hidden from the common eye,<br>The past's long buried secrets lie,<br>Those mysteries of the first great creed,<br>Whose mystic fancies were the seed<br>Of every wild and vain belief,<br>That held o'er man their empire brief,<br>And turned beneath a southern sky,<br>All that was faith to poetry.<br>Hence had the Grecian fables birth,<br>And wandered beautiful o'er earth;<br>Till every wood, and stream, and cave,<br>Shelter to some bright vision gave:<br>For all of terrible and strange,<br>That from those gloomy caverns sprung,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From Greece received a graceful change,<br>That spoke another sky and tongue,<br>A finer eye, a gentler hand,<br>Than in their native Hindoo land.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas thence Nadira came, and still<br>Her memory kept that lofty hill;<br>The vale below, her place of birth,<br>That one charmed spot, her native earth.<br>Still haunted by that early love,<br>Which youth can feel, and youth alone;<br>An eager, ready, tenderness,<br>To all its after-life unknown.<br>When the full heart its magic flings,<br>Alike o'er rare and common things,<br>The dew of morning's earliest hour,<br>Which swells but once from leaf and flower,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">From the pure life within supplied,<br>A sweet but soon exhausted tide.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">There falls a shadow on the gloom,<br>There steals a light step through the room,<br>Gentle as love, that, though so near,<br>No sound hath caught the list'ning ear.<br>A moment's fond watch o'er her keeping.<br>Murad beholds Nadira weeping;<br>He who to win her lightest smile,<br>Had given his heart's best blood the while.<br>She turned—a beautiful delight<br>Has flushed the pale one into rose,<br>Murad, her love, returned to-night,<br>Her tears, what recks she now of those?<br>Dried in the full heart's crimson ray,<br>Ere he can kiss those tears away—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And she is seated at his feet,<br>Too timid his dear eyes to meet;<br>But happy; for she knows whose brow<br>Is bending fondly o'er her now.<br>And eager, for his sake, to hear<br>The records red of sword and spear,<br>For his sake feels the colour rise,<br>His spirit kindle in her eyes,<br>Till her heart beating joins the cry<br>Of Murad, and of Victory.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">City of glories now no more,<br>His camp extends by Bejapore,<br>Where the Mahratta's haughty race<br>Has won the Moslem conqueror's place;<br>A bolder prince now fills the throne,<br>And he will struggle for his own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And yet,' he said, 'when evening falls<br>Solemn above those mouldering walls,<br>Where the mosques cleave the starry air,<br>Deserted at their hour of prayer,<br>And rises Ibrahim's lonely tomb,<br>'Mid weed-grown shrines, and ruined towers,<br>All marked with that eternal gloom<br>Left by the past to present hours.<br>When human pride and human sway<br>Have run their circle of decay;<br>And, mocking—the funereal stone,<br>Alone attests its builder gone.<br>Oh! vain such temple, o'er the sleep<br>Which none remain to watch or weep.<br>I could not choose but think how vain<br>The struggle fierce for worthless gain.<br>And calm and bright the moon looked down<br>O'er the white shrines of that fair town;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">While heavily the cocoa-tree<br>Drooped o'er the walls its panoply,<br>A warrior proud, whose crested head<br>Bends mournful o'er the recent dead,<br>And shadows deep athwart the plain<br>Usurp the silver moonbeam's reign;<br>For every ruined building cast<br>Shadows, like memories of the past.<br>And not a sound the wind brought nigh,<br>Save the far jackal's wailing cry,<br>And that came from the field now red<br>With the fierce banquet I had spread:<br>Accursed and unnatural feast,<br>For worm, and fly, and bird, and beast;<br>While round me earth and heaven recorded<br>The folly of life's desperate game,<br>And the cold justice still awarded<br>By time, which makes all lots the same.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Slayer or slain, it matters not,<br>We struggle, perish, are forgot!<br>The earth grows green above the gone,<br>And the calm heaven looks sternly on.<br>'Twas folly this—the gloomy night<br>Fled before morning's orient light;<br>City and river owned its power,<br>And I, too, gladdened with the hour;<br>I saw my own far tents extend<br>My own proud crescent o'er them bend;<br>I heard the trumpet's glorious voice<br>Summon the warriors of my choice.<br>Again impatient on to lead,<br>I sprang upon my raven steed,<br>Again I felt my father's blood<br>Pour through my veins its burning flood.<br>My scimetar around I swung,<br>Forth to the air its lightning sprung,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A beautiful and fiery light,<br>The meteor of the coming fight.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I turned from each forgotten grave<br>To others, which the name they bear<br>Will long from old oblivion save<br>The heroes of the race I share.<br>I thought upon the lonely isle<br>Where sleeps the lion-king the while,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who looked on death, yet paused to die<br>Till comraded by Victory.<br>And he, fire noblest of my line,<br>Whose tomb is now the warrior's shrine,<br>(Where I were well content to be,<br>So that such fame might live with me.)<br>The light of peace, the storm of war,<br>Lord of the earth, our proud Akbar.<br>'What though our passing day but be<br>A bubble on eternity;<br>Small though the circle is, yet still<br>'Tis ours to colour at our will.<br>Mine be that consciousness of life<br>Which has its energies from strife,<br>Which lives its utmost, knows its power,<br>Claims from the mind its utmost dower—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With fiery pulse, and ready hand,<br>That wills, and willing wins command—<br>That boldly takes from earth its best—<br>To whom the grave can be but rest.<br>Mine the fierce free existence spent<br>Mid meeting ranks and armed tent:—<br>Save the few moments which I steal<br>At thy beloved feet to kneel—<br>And own the warrior's wild career<br>Has no such joy as waits him here—<br>When all that hope can dream is hung<br>Upon the music of thy tongue.<br>Ah! never is that cherished face<br>Banished from its accustomed place—<br>It shines upon my weariest night<br>It leads me on in thickest fight:<br>All that seems most opposed to be<br>Is yet associate with thee—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Together life and thee depart,<br>Dream—idol—treasure of my heart.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Again, again Murad must wield<br>His scimetar in battle-field:<br>And must he leave his lonely flower<br>To pine in solitary bower?<br>Has power no aid has wealth no charm,<br>The weight of absence to disarm?<br>Alas! she will not touch her lute—<br>What!—sing?—and not for Murad's ear?<br>The echo of the heart is mute,<br>And that alone makes music dear.<br>In vain, in vain that royal hall<br>Is decked as for a festival.<br>The sunny birds, whose shining wings<br>Seem as if bathed in golden springs,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Though worth the gems they cost—and fair<br>As those which knew her earlier care.<br>The flowers—though there the rose expand<br>The sweetest depths wind ever fanned.<br>Ah! earth and sky have loveliest hues—<br>But none to match that dearest red,<br>Born of the heart, which still renews<br>The life that on itself is fed.<br>The maiden whom we love bestows<br>Her magic on the haunted rose.<br>Such was the colour—when her cheek<br>Spoke what the lip might never speak.<br>The crimson flush which could confess<br>All that we hoped—but dared not guess.<br>That blush which through the world is known<br>To love, and to the rose alone—<br>A sweet companionship, which never<br>The poet's dreaming eye may sever.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And there were tulips, whose rich leaves<br>The rainbow's dying light receives;<br>For only summer sun and skies<br>Could lend to earth such radiant dyes;<br>But still the earth will have its share,<br>The stem is green—the foliage fair—<br>Those coronals of gems but glow<br>Over the withered heart below—<br>That one dark spot, like passion's fire,<br>Consuming with its own desire.<br>And pale, as one who dares not turn<br>Upon her inmost thoughts, and learn,<br>If it be love their depths conceal,<br>Love she alone is doomed to feel—<br>The jasmine droopeth mournfully<br>Over the bright anemone,<br>The summer's proud and sun-burnt child:<br>In vain the queen is not beguiled,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They waste their bloom. Nadira's eye<br>Neglects them—let them pine and die.<br>Ah! birds and flowers may not suffice<br>The heart that throbs with stronger ties.<br>Again, again Murad is gone,<br>Again his young bride weeps alone:<br>Seeks her old nurse, to win her ear<br>With magic stories once so dear,<br>And calls the Almas to her aid.<br>With graceful dance, and gentle singing,<br>And bells like those some desert home<br>Hears from the camel's neck far ringing.<br>Alas! she will not raise her brow;<br>Yet stay—some spell hath caught her now:<br>That melody has touched her heart.<br>Oh, triumph of Zilara's art;<br>She listens to the mournful strain,<br>And bids her sing that song again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Song.<br>'My lonely lute, how can I ask<br>For music from thy silent strings?<br>It is too sorrowful a task,<br>When only swept by memory's wings:<br>Yet waken from thy charmed sleep,<br>Although I wake thee but to weep.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet once I had a thousand songs,<br>As now I have but only one.<br>Ah, love, whate'er to thee belongs.<br>With all life's other links, has done;<br>And I can breathe no other words<br>Than thou hast left upon the chords.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'They say Camdeo's place of rest, <br>When floating down the Ganges' tide,<br>Is in the languid lotus breast,<br>Amid whose sweets he loves to hide.<br>Oh, false and cruel, though divine,<br>What dost thou in so fair a shrine?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And such the hearts that thou dost choose,<br>As pure, as fair, to shelter thee;<br>Alas! they know not what they lose<br>Who chance thy dwelling-place to be.<br>For, never more in happy dream<br>Will they float down life's sunny stream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'My gentle lute, repeat one name,<br>The very soul of love, and thine:<br>No; sleep in silence, let me frame<br>Some other love to image mine;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Steal sadness from another's tone,<br>I dare not trust me with my own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Thy chords will win their mournful way,<br>All treasured thoughts to them belong;<br>For things it were so hard to say<br>Are murmured easily in song—<br>It is for music to impart<br>The secrets of the burthened heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Go, taught by misery and love,<br>And thou hast spells for every ear:<br>But the sweet skill each pulse to move,<br>Alas! hath bought its knowledge dear—<br>Bought by the wretchedness of years,<br>A whole life dedicate to tears.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The voice has ceased, the chords are mute,<br>The singer droops upon her lute;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But, oh, the fulness of each tone<br>Straight to Nadira's heart hath gone—<br>As if that mournful song revealed<br>Depths in that heart till then concealed,<br>A world of melancholy thought,<br>Then only into being brought;<br>Those tender mysteries of the soul,<br>Like words on an enchanted scroll,<br>Whose mystic meaning but appears<br>When washed and understood by tears.<br>She gaged upon the singer's face;<br>Deeply that young brow wore the trace<br>Of years that leave their stamp behind:<br>The wearied hope—the fever'd mind—<br>The heart which on itself hath turned,<br>Worn out with feelings—slighted—spurned—<br>Till scarce one throb remained to show<br>What warm emotions slept below,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Never to be renewed again,<br>And known but by remembered pain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Her cheek was pale—impassioned pale—<br>Like ashes white with former fire,<br>Passion which might no more prevail,<br>The rose had been its own sweet pyre.<br>You gazed upon the large black eyes,<br>And felt what unshed tears were there;<br>Deep, gloomy, wild, like midnight skies,<br>When storms are heavy on the air—<br>And on the small red lip sat scorn,<br>Writhing from what the past had borne.<br>But far too proud to sigh—the will,<br>Though crushed, subdued, was haughty still;<br>Last refuge of the spirit's pain,<br>Which finds endurance in disdain.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Others wore blossoms in their hair,<br>And golden bangles round the arm.<br>She took no pride in being fair,<br>The gay delight of youth to charm;<br>The softer wish of love to please,<br>What had she now to do with these?<br>She knew herself a bartered slave,<br>Whose only refuge was the grave.<br>Unsoftened now by those sweet notes,<br>Which half subdued the grief they told,<br>Her long black hair neglected floats<br>O'er that wan face, like marble cold;<br>And carelessly her listless hand<br>Wandered above her lute's command<br>But silently—or just a tone<br>Woke into music, and was gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Come hither, maiden, take thy seat,'<br>Nadira said, 'here at my feet.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And, with the sweetness of a child<br>Who smiles, and deems all else must smile,<br>She gave the blossoms which she held,<br>And praised the singer's skill the while;<br>Then started with a sad surprise,<br>For tears were in the stranger's eyes.<br>Ah, only those who rarely know<br>Kind words, can tell how sweet they seem.<br>Great God, that there are those below<br>To whom such words are like a dream.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Come,' said the young Sultana, 'come<br>To our lone garden by the river,<br>Where summer hath its loveliest home,<br>And where Camdeo fills his quiver.<br>If, as thou sayest, 'tis stored with flowers,<br>Where will he find them fair as ours?<br>And the sweet songs which thou canst sing<br>Methinks might charm away his sting.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The evening banquet soon is spread—<br>There the pomegranate's rougher red<br>Was cloven, that it might disclose<br>A colour stolen from the rose—<br>The brown pistachio's glossy shell,<br>The citron where faint odours dwell;<br>And near the watermelon stands,<br>Fresh from the Jumna's shining sands;<br>And golden grapes, whose bloom and hue<br>Wear morning light and morning dew,<br>Or purple with the deepest dye<br>That flushes evening's farewell sky.<br>And in the slender vases glow—<br>Vases that seem like sculptured snow—<br>The rich sherbets are sparkling bright<br>With ruby and with amber light.<br>A fragrant mat the ground o'erspread,<br>With an old tamarind overhead,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">With drooping bough of darkest green,<br>Forms for their feast a pleasant screen.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Tis night, but such delicious time<br>Would seem like day in northern clime.<br>A pure and holy element,<br>Where light and shade, together blent,<br>Are like the mind's high atmosphere,<br>When hope is calm, and heaven is near.<br>The moon is young—her crescent brow<br>Wears its ethereal beauty now,<br>Unconscious of the crime and care,<br>Which even her brief reign must know,<br>Till she will pine to be so fair,<br>With such a weary world below.<br>A tremulous and silvery beam<br>Melts over palace, garden, stream;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Each flower beneath that tranquil ray,<br>Wears other beauty than by day,<br>All pale as if with love, and lose<br>Their rich variety of hues—<br>But ah, that languid loveliness<br>Hath magic, to the noon unknown,<br>A deep and pensive tenderness,<br>The heart at once feels is its own—<br>How fragrant to these dewy hours,<br>The white magnolia lifts its urn<br>The very Araby of flowers,<br>Wherein all precious odours burn.<br>And when the wind disperses these,<br>The faint scent of the lemon trees<br>Mingles with that rich sigh which dwells<br>Within the baubool's golden bells. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">The dark green peepul's glossy leaves, <br>Like mirrors each a ray receives,<br>While luminous the moonlight falls,<br>O'er pearl kiosk and marble walls,<br>Those graceful palaces that stand<br>Most like the work of peri-land.<br>And rippling to the lovely shore,<br>The river tremulous with light,<br>On its small waves, is covered o'er<br>With the sweet offerings of the night—<br>Heaps of that scented grass whose bands<br>Have all been wove by pious hands,<br>Or wreaths, where fragrantly combined,<br>Red and white lotus flowers are twined.<br>And on the deep blue waters float<br>Many a cocoa-nut's small boat,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Holding within the lamp which bears<br>The maiden's dearest hopes and prayers,<br>Watch'd far as ever eye can see,<br>A vain but tender augury.<br>Alas! this world is not his home,<br>And still love trusts that signs will come<br>From his own native world of bliss,<br>To guide him through the shades of this.<br>Dreams, omens, he delights in these,<br>For love is linked with fantasies,<br>But hark! upon the plaining wind<br>Zilara's music floats again;<br>That midnight breeze could never find<br>A meeter echo than that strain,<br>Sad as the sobbing gale that sweeps<br>The last sere leaf which autumn keeps,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Yet sweet as when the waters fall<br>And make some lone glade musical.<br>Song.<br>'Lady, sweet Lady, song of mine<br>Was never meant for thee,<br>I sing but from my heart, and thine—<br>It cannot beat with me.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'You have not knelt in vain despair,<br>Beneath a love as vain,<br>That desperate—that devoted love,<br>Life never knows again.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'What know you of a weary hope,<br>The fatal and the fond,<br>That feels it has no home on earth,<br>Yet dares not look beyond?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The bitterness of wasted youth,<br>Impatient of its tears;<br>The dreary days, the feverish nights,<br>The long account of years.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The vain regret, the dream destroy'd,<br>The vacancy of heart,<br>When life's illusions, one by one,<br>First darken—then depart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The vacant heart! ah, worse,—a shrine<br>For one beloved name:<br>Kept, not a blessing, but a curse,<br>Amid remorse and shame.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'To know how deep, how pure, how true<br>Your early feelings were;<br>But mock'd, betray'd, disdain'd, and chang'd,<br>They have but left despair.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And yet the happy and the young<br>Bear in their hearts a well<br>Of gentlest, kindliest sympathy,<br>Where tears unbidden dwell.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Then, lady, listen to my lute;<br>As angels look below,<br>And e'en in heaven pause to weep<br>O'er grief they cannot know.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The song was o'er, but yet the strings<br>Made melancholy murmurings;<br>She wandered on from air to air,<br>Changeful as fancies when they bear<br>The impress of the various thought,<br>From memory's twilight caverns brought.<br>At length, one wild, peculiar chime<br>Recalled this tale of ancient time.<br>THE RAKI. <br>'There's dust upon the distant wind, and shadow on the skies,<br>And anxiously the maiden strains her long-expecting eyes<br>And fancies she can catch the light far flashing from the sword,<br>And see the silver crescents raised, of him, the Mogul lord.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She stands upon a lofty tower, and gazes o'er the plain:<br>Alas! that eyes so beautiful, should turn on heaven in vain.<br>'Tis but a sudden storm whose weight is darkening on the air,<br>The lightning sweeps the hill, but shows no coming warriors there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet crimson as the morning ray, she wears the robe of pride<br>That binds the gallant Humaioon, a brother, to her side;<br>His gift, what time around his arm, the glittering band was rolled,<br>With stars of ev'ry precious stone enwrought in shining gold.<br>'Bound by the Raki's sacred tie, his ready aid to yield,<br>Though beauty waited in the bower, and glory in the field:<br>Why comes he not, that chieftain vow'd, to this her hour of need?<br>Has honour no devotedness? Has chivalry no speed?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The Rajpoot's daughter gazes round, she sees the plain afar,<br>Spread shining to the sun, which lights no trace of coming war.<br>The very storm has past away, as neither earth nor heaven<br>One token of their sympathy had to her anguish given.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And still more hopeless than when last she on their camp looked down,<br>The foeman's gathered numbers close round the devoted town:<br>And daily in that fatal trench her chosen soldiers fall,<br>And spread themselves, a rampart vain, around that ruined wall.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her eyes upon her city turn—alas! what can they meet,<br>But famine, and despair, and death, in every lonely street?<br>Women and children wander pale, or with despairing eye<br>Look farewell to their native hearths, and lay them down to die.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'She seeks her palace, where her court collects in mournful bands,<br>Of maidens who but watch and weep, and wring their weary hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One word there came from her white lips, one word, she spoke no more;<br>But that word was for life and death, the young queen named—the Jojr.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">[ the last,<br>'A wild shriek filled those palace halls—one shriek, it was<br>All womanish complaint and wail have in its utterance past:<br>They kneel at Kurnavati's feet, they bathe her hands in tears,<br>Then hurrying to their task of death, each calm and stern appears.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'There is a mighty cavern close beside the palace gate,<br>Dark, gloomy temple, meet to make such sacrifice to fate:<br>There heap they up all precious woods, the sandal and the rose,<br>While fragrant oils and essences like some sweet river flows.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And shawls from rich Cashmere, and robes from Dacca's golden loom,<br>And caskets filled with Orient pearls, or yet more rare perfume:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And lutes and wreaths, all graceful toys, of woman's gentle care,<br>Are heaped upon that royal pile, the general doom to share.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'But weep for those the human things, so lovely and so young,<br>The panting hearts which still to life so passionately clung;<br>Some bound to this dear earth by hope, and some by love's strong thrall,<br>And yet dishonour's high disdain was paramount with all.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Her silver robe flowed to her feet, with jewels circled round,<br>And in her long and raven hair the regal gems were bound;<br>And diamonds blaze, ruby and pearl were glittering in her zone,<br>And there, with starry emeralds set, the radiant Kandjar shone. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The youthful Ranee led the way, while in her glorious eyes<br>Shone spiritual, the clear deep light, that is in moonlit skies:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Pale and resolved, her noble brow was worthy of a race<br>Whose proud blood flowed in those blue veins unconscious of disgrace.<br>'Solemn and slow with mournful chaunt, come that devoted band,<br>And Kurnavati follows last—the red torch in her hand:<br>She fires the pile, a death-black smoke mounts from that dreary cave—<br>Fling back the city gates—the foe, can now find but a grave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Hark the fierce music on the wind, the atabal, the gong,<br>The stem avenger is behind, he has not tarried long:<br>They brought his summons, though he stood before his plighted bride;<br>They brought his summons, though he stood in all but victory's pride.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yet down he flung the bridal wreath, he left the field unwon,<br>All that a warrior might achieve, young Humaioon had done,<br>Too late—he saw the reddening sky, he saw the smoke arise,<br>A few faint stragglers lived to tell the Ranee's sacrifice.<br>'But still the monarch held a sword, and had a debt to pay;<br>Small cause had Buhadour to boast—the triumph of that day:<br>Again the lone streets flowed with blood, and though too late to save,<br>Vengeance was the funereal rite at Kurnavati's grave.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Deep silence chained the listeners round,<br>When, lo, another plaintive sound,<br>Came from the river's side, and there<br>They saw a girl with loosened hair</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Seat her beneath a peepul tree,<br>Where swung her gurrah mournfully, <br>Filled with the cool and limpid wave,<br>An offering o'er some dear one's grave.<br>At once Zilara caught the tone,<br>And made it, as she sung, her own.<br>Song.<br>'Oh weep not o'er the quiet grave,<br>Although the spirit lost be near;<br>Weep not, for well those phantoms know<br>How vain the grief above their bier.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Weep not—ah no, 'tis best to die,<br>Ere all of bloom from life is fled;<br>Why live, when feelings, friends, and faith<br>Have long been numbered with the dead?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'They know no rainbow-hope that weeps<br>Itself away to deepest shade;<br>Nor love, whose very happiness<br>Should make the trusting heart afraid.<br>Ah, human tears are tears of fire,<br>That scorch and wither as they flow;<br>Then let them fall for those who live,<br>And not for those who sleep below.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Yes, weep for those, whose silver chain<br>Has long been loosed, and yet live on;<br>The doomed to drink from life's dark spring,<br>Whose golden bowl has long been gone.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Aye, weep for those, the weary, worn,<br>The bound to earth by some vain tie;<br>Some lingering love, some fond regret,<br>Who loathe to live, yet fear to die.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">A moment's rest, and then once more<br>Zilara tried her memory's store,<br>And woke, while o'er the strings she bowed,<br>A tale of Rajahstan the proud.<br>KISHEN KOWER. <br>'Bold as the falcon that faces the sun,<br>Wild as the streams when in torrents they run,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Fierce as the flame when the jungle's on fire,<br>Are the chieftains who call on the day-star as Sire.<br>Since the Moghuls were driven from stately Mandoo,<br>And left but their ruins their reign to renew,<br>Those hills have paid tribute to no foreign lord,<br>And their children have kept what they won by the sword.<br>Yet downcast each forehead, a sullen dismay<br>At Oudeypoor reigns in the Durbar to-day, <br>For bootless the struggle, and weary the fight,<br>Which Adjeit Sing pictures with frown black as night:—</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Oh fatal the hour, when Makundra's dark pass<br>Saw the blood of our bravest sink red in the grass;<br>And the gifts which were destined to honour the bride,<br>By the contest of rivals in crimson were dyed.<br>Where are the warriors who once wont to stand<br>The glory and rampart of Rajahstan's land?<br>Ask of the hills for their young and their brave,<br>They will point to the valleys beneath as their grave.<br>The mother sits pale by her desolate hearth,<br>And weeps o'er the infant an orphan from birth;<br>While the eldest boy watches the dust on the spear,<br>Which as yet his weak hand is unable to rear.<br>The fruit is ungathered, the harvest unsown,<br>And the vulture exults o'er our fields as his own:<br>There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air,<br>And all for a woman whose face is too fair.'<br>There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound<br>Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">When the voice of a woman arose in reply,<br>'The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Day breaks, and the earliest glory of morn<br>Afar o'er the tops of the mountains is borne;<br>Then the young Kishen Kower wandered through the green bowers,<br>That sheltered the bloom of the island of flowers;<br>Where a fair summer palace arose mid the shade,<br>Which a thousand broad trees for the noon-hour had made<br>Far around spread the hills with their varying hue,<br>From the deepest of purple to faintest of blue;<br>On one side the courts of the Rana are spread,<br>The white marble studded with granite's deep red;<br>While far sweeps the terrace, and rises the dome,<br>Till lost in the pure clouds above like a home.<br>Beside is a lake covered over with isles,<br>As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs<br>From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings;<br>Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair,<br>Alone like a column aloft in the air;<br>While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend<br>Their boughs to the stream o'er whose mirror they bend.<br>The lily that queen-like uprears to the sun,<br>The loveliest face that his light is upon;<br>While beside stands the cypress, which darkens the wave<br>With a foliage meant only to shadow the grave.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all<br>Where ran the carved trellis around the light hall;<br>Where the green creeper's starry wreaths, scented and bright.<br>Wooed the small purple doves 'mid their shelter to light;<br>There the proud oleander with white tufts was hung,<br>And the fragile clematis its silver showers flung,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">And the nutmeg's soft pink was near lost in the pride<br>Of the pomegranate blossom that blushed at its side.<br>There the butterflies flitted around on the leaves,<br>From which every wing its own colour receives;<br>There the scarlet finch past like a light on the wind,<br>And the hues of the bayas like sunbeams combined;<br>Till the dazzled eye sought from such splendours to rove<br>And rested at last on the soft lilac dove;<br>Whose song seemed a dirge that at evening should be<br>Pour'd forth from the height of the sad cypress tree.<br>Her long dark hair plaited with gold on each braid;<br>Her feet bound with jewels which flash'd through the shade;<br>One hand filled with blossoms, pure hyacinth bells<br>Which treasure the summer's first breath in their cells;<br>The other caressing her white antelope,<br>In all the young beauty of life and of hope.<br>The princess roved onwards, her heart in her eyes,<br>That sought their delight in the fair earth and skies.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh, loveliest time! oh, happiest day!<br>When the heart is unconscious, and knows not its sway,<br>When the favourite bird, or the earliest flower,<br>Or the crouching fawn's eyes, make the joy of the hour,<br>And the spirits and steps are as light as the sleep<br>Which never has waken'd to watch or to weep.<br>She bounds o'er the soft grass, half woman half child,<br>As gay as her antelope, almost as wild.<br>The bloom of her cheek is like that on her years;<br>She has never known pain, she has never known tears,<br>And thought has no grief, and no fear to impart;<br>The shadow of Eden is yet on her heart.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'The midnight has fallen, the quiet, the deep,<br>Yet in yon Zenana none lie down for sleep.<br>Like frighted birds gathered in timorous bands,<br>The young slaves within it are wringing their hands.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The mother hath covered her head with her veil,<br>She weepeth no tears, and she maketh no wail;<br>But all that lone chamber pass silently by;<br>She has flung her on earth, to despair and to die.<br>But a lamp is yet burning in one dismal room,<br>Young princess; where now is thy morning of bloom?<br>Ah, ages, long ages, have passed in a breath,<br>And life's bitter knowledge has heralded death.<br>At the edge of the musnud she bends on her knee, <br>While her eyes watch the face of the stern Chand Baee. <br>Proud, beautiful, fierce; while she gazes, the tone<br>Of those high murky features grows almost her own;<br>And the blood of her race rushes dark to her brow,<br>The spirit of heroes has entered her now.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">' 'Bring the death-cup, and never for my sake shall shame<br>Quell the pride of my house, or dishonour its name.<br>She drained the sherbet, while Chand Baee looked on,<br>Like a warrior that marks the career of his son.<br>But life is so strong in each pure azure vein,<br>That they take not the venom—she drains it again.<br>The haughty eye closes, the white teeth are set,<br>And the dew-damps of pain on the wrung brow are wet:<br>The slight frame is writhing—she sinks to the ground;<br>She yields to no struggle, she utters no sound—<br>The small hands are clenched—they relax—it is past,<br>And her aunt kneels beside her—kneels weeping at last.<br>Again morning breaks over palace and lake,<br>But where are the glad eyes it wont to awake.<br>Weep, weep, 'mid a bright world of beauty and bloom,<br>For the sweet human flower that lies low in the tomb.<br>And wild through the palace the death-song is breathing,<br>And white are the blossoms, the slaves weep while wreathing,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">To strew at the feet and to bind round the head,<br>Of her who was numbered last night with the dead:<br>They braid her long tresses, they drop the shroud o'er,<br>And gaze on her cold and pale beauty no more:<br>But the heart has her image, and long after-years<br>Will keep her sad memory with music and tears.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Days pass, yet still Zilara's song<br>Beguiled the regal beauty's hours<br>As the wind bears some bird along<br>Over the haunted orange bowers.<br>'Twas as till then she had not known<br>How much her heart had for its own;<br>And Murad's image seemed more dear,<br>These higher chords of feeling strung;<br>'And love shone brighter for the shade<br>'That others' sorrows round it flung.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was one sultry noon, yet sweet<br>The air which through the matted grass<br>Came cool—its breezes had to meet<br>A hundred plumes, ere it could pass;<br>The peacock's shining feathers wave<br>From many a young and graceful slave;<br>Who silent kneel amid the gloom<br>Of that dim and perfumed room.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beyond, the radiant sunbeams rest<br>On many a minaret's glittering crest,<br>And white the dazzling tombs below,<br>Like masses sculptured of pure snow;<br>While round stands many a giant tree,<br>Like pillars of a sanctuary,<br>Whose glossy foliage, dark and bright,<br>Reflects, and yet excludes the light.<br>Oh sun, how glad thy rays are shed;<br>How canst thou glory o'er the dead?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah, folly this of human pride,<br>What are the dead to one like thee,<br>Whose mirror is the mighty tide,<br>Where time flows to eternity?<br>A single race, a single age,<br>What are they in thy pilgrimage?<br>The tent, the palace, and the tomb<br>Repeat the universal doom.<br>Man passes, but upon the plain<br>Still the sweet seasons hold their reign,<br>As if earth were their sole domain,<br>And man a toy and mockery thrown<br>Upon the world he deems his own.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">All is so calm—the sunny air<br>Has not a current nor a shade;<br>The vivid green the rice-fields wear<br>Seems of one moveless emerald made;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The Ganges' quiet waves are rolled<br>In one broad sheet of molten gold;<br>And in the tufted brakes beside,<br>The water-fowls and herons hide.<br>And the still earth might also seem<br>The strange creation of a dream.<br>Actual, breathless—dead, yet bright—<br>Unblest with life—yet mocked with light,<br>It mocks our nature's fate and power,<br>When we look forth in such an hour,<br>And that repose in nature see,<br>The fond desire of every heart;<br>But, oh! thou inner world, to thee,<br>What outward world can e'er impart?</div><div style="margin:10px 0">But turn we to that darkened hall,<br>Where the cool fountain's pleasant fall</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Wakens the odours yet unshed<br>From the blue hyacinth's drooping head;<br>And on the crimson couch beside<br>Reclines the young and royal bride;<br>Not sleeping, though the water's chime,<br>The lulling flowers, the languid time,<br>Might soothe her to the gentlest sleep,<br>O'er which the genii watchings keep,<br>And shed from their enchanted wings,<br>All loveliest imaginings:<br>No, there is murmuring in her ear,<br>A voice than sleep's more soft and dear;<br>While that pale slave with drooping eye<br>Speaks mournfully of days gone by;<br>And every plaintive word is fraught<br>With music which the heart has taught,<br>A pleading and confiding tone,<br>To those mute lips so long unknown.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Ah! all in vain that she had said<br>To feeling, 'slumber like the dead;'<br>Had bade each pang that might convulse<br>With fiery throb the beating pulse,<br>Each faded hope, each early dream,<br>Sleep as beneath a frozen stream;<br>Such as her native mountains bear,<br>The cold white hills around Jerdair;<br>Heights clad with that eternal snow,<br>Which happier valleys never know.<br>Some star in that ungenial sky,<br>Might well shape such a destiny;<br>But till within the dark calm grave,<br>There yet will run an under-wave,<br>Which human sympathy can still<br>Excite and melt to tears at will;<br>No magic any spell affords,<br>Whose power is like a few kind words.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'Twas strange the contrast in the pair,<br>That leant by that cool fountain's side<br>Both very young, both very fair,<br>By nature, not by fate allied:<br>The one a darling and delight,<br>A creature like the morning bright:<br>Whose weeping is the sunny shower<br>Half light upon an April hour;<br>One who a long glad childhood past,<br>But left that happy home to 'bide<br>Where love a deeper shadow cast,<br>A hero's proud and treasured bride:<br>Who her light footstep more adored,<br>Than all the triumphs of his sword;<br>Whose kingdom at her feet the while,<br>Had seemed too little for a smile.<br>But that pale slave was as the tomb<br>Of her own youth, of her own bloom;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Enough remained to show how fair,<br>In other days those features were,<br>Still lingered delicate and fine,<br>The shadow of their pure outline;<br>The small curved lip, the glossy brow,<br>That melancholy beauty wore,<br>Whose spell is in the silent past,<br>Which saith to love and hope, 'No more:'<br>No more, for hope hath long forsaken<br>Love, though at first its gentle guide<br>First lulled to sleep, then left to 'waken,<br>'Mid tears and scorn, despair and pride,<br>And only those who know can tell,<br>What love is after hope's farewell.<br>And first she spoke of childhood's time,<br>Little, what childhood ought to be,<br>When tenderly the gentle child<br>Is cherished at its mother's knee,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Who deems that ne'er before, from heaven<br>So sweet a thing to earth was given.<br>But she an orphan had no share<br>In fond affection's early care;<br>She knew not love until it came<br>Far other, though it bore that name.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'I felt,' she said, 'all things grow bright!<br>Before the spirit's inward light.<br>Earth was more lovely, night and day,<br>Conscious of some enchanted sway,<br>That flung around an atmosphere<br>I had not deemed could brighten here.<br>And I have gazed on Moohreeb's face,<br>As exiles watch their native place;<br>I knew his step before it stirred<br>From its green nest the cautious bird.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I woke, till eye and cheek grew dim,<br>Then slept—it was to dream of him;<br>I lived for days upon a word<br>Less watchful ear had never heard:<br>And won from careless look or sign<br>A happiness too dearly mine.<br>He was my world—I wished to make<br>My heart a temple for his sake.<br>It matters not—such passionate love<br>Has only life and hope above;<br>A wanderer from its home on high,<br>Here it is sent to droop and die.<br>He loved me not—or but a day,<br>I was a flower upon his way:<br>A moment near his heart enshrined,<br>Then flung to perish on the wind.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">She hid her face within her hands—<br>Methinks the maiden well might weep;<br>The heart it has a weary task<br>Which unrequited love must keep;<br>At once a treasure and a curse,<br>The shadow on its universe.<br>Alas, for young and wasted years,<br>For long nights only spent in tears;<br>For hopes, like lamps in some dim urn,<br>That but for the departed burn.<br>Alas for her whose drooping brow<br>Scarce struggles with its sorrow now.<br>At first Nadira wept to see<br>That hopelessness of misery.<br>But, oh, she was too glad, too young,<br>To dream of an eternal grief;<br>A thousand thoughts within her sprung,<br>Of solace, promise, and relief.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Slowly Zilara raised her head,<br>Then, moved by some strong feeling, said,<br>'A boon, kind Princess, there is one<br>Which won by me, were heaven won;<br>Not wealth, not freedom—wealth to me<br>Is worthless, as all wealth must be;<br>When there are none its gifts to share:<br>For whom have I on earth to care?<br>None from whose head its golden shrine<br>May ward the ills that fell on mine.<br>And freedom—'tis a worthless boon<br>To one who will be free so soon;<br>And yet I have one prayer, so dear,<br>I dare not hope—I only fear.'<br>'Speak, trembler, be your wish confest,<br>And trust Nadira with the rest.'<br>'Lady, look forth on yonder tower,<br>There spend I morn and midnight's hour,</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Beneath that lonely peepul tree—<br>Well may its branches wave o'er me,<br>For their dark wreaths are ever shed,<br>The mournful tribute to the dead—<br>There sit I, in fond wish to cheer<br>A captive's sad and lonely ear,<br>And strive his drooping hopes to raise,<br>With songs that breathe of happier days.<br>Lady, methinks I scarce need tell<br>The name that I have loved so well;<br>'Tis Moohreeb, captured by the sword<br>Of him, thy own unconquered lord.<br>Lady, one word—one look from thee,<br>And Murad sets that captive free.'</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'And you will follow at his side?'<br>'Ah, no, he hath another bride;<br>And if I pity, can'st thou bear<br>To think upon her lone despair?<br>No, break the mountain-chieftain's chain,<br>Give him to hope, home, love again.'<br>Her cheek with former beauty blushed,<br>The crimson to her forehead rushed,<br>Her eyes rekindled, till their light<br>Flashed from the lash's summer night.<br>So eager was her prayer, so strong<br>The love that bore her soul along.<br>Ah! many loves for many hearts;<br>But if mortality has known<br>One which its native heaven imparts<br>To that fine soil where it has grown;<br>'Tis in that first and early feeling,<br>Passion's most spiritual revealing;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Half dream, all poetry—whose hope<br>Colours life's charmed horoscope<br>With hues so beautiful, so pure—<br>Whose nature is not to endure.<br>As well expect the tints to last,<br>The rainbow on the storm hath cast.<br>Of all young feelings, love first dies,<br>Soon the world piles its obsequies;<br>Yet there have been who still would keep<br>That early vision dear and deep,<br>The wretched they, but love requires<br>Tears, tears to keep alive his fires:<br>The happy will forget, but those<br>To whom despair denies repose,<br>From whom all future light is gone,<br>The sad, the slighted, still love on.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The ghurrees are chiming the morning hour, <br>The voice of the priest is heard from the tower,<br>The turrets of Delhi are white in the sun,<br>Alas! that another bright day has begun.<br>Children of earth, ah! how can ye bear<br>This constant awakening to toil and to care?<br>Out upon morning, its hours recall,<br>Earth to its trouble, man to his thrall;<br>Out upon morning, it chases the night,<br>With all the sweet dreams that on slumber alight;<br>Out upon morning, which wakes us to life,<br>With its toil, its repining, its sorrow and strife.<br>And yet there were many in Delhi that day,<br>Who watched the first light, and rejoiced in the ray;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">They wait their young monarch, who comes from the field<br>With a wreath on his spear, and a dent on his shield.<br>There's a throng in the east, 'tis the king and his train:<br>And first prance the horsemen, who scarce can restrain<br>Their steeds that are wild as the wind, and as bold <br>As the riders who curb them with bridles of gold:<br>The elephants follow, and o'er each proud head<br>The chattah that glitters with gems is outspread,<br>Whence the silver bells fall with their musical sound,<br>While the howdah's red trappings float bright on the ground: <br>Behind stalk the camels, which, weary and worn,<br>Seem to stretch their long necks, and repine at the morn:<br>And wild on the air the fierce war-echoes come,<br>The voice of the atabal, trumpet, and drum:</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Half lost in the shout that ascends from the crowd,<br>Who delight in the young, and the brave, and the proud.<br>Tis folly to talk of the right and the wrong,<br>The triumph will carry the many along.<br>A dearer welcome far remains,<br>Than that of Delhi's crowded plains?<br>Soon Murad seeks the shadowy hall,<br>Cool with the fountain's languid fall;<br>His own, his best beloved to meet.<br>Why kneels Nadira at his feet?<br>With flushing cheek, and eager air,<br>One word hath won her easy prayer;<br>It is such happiness to grant,<br>The slightest fancy that can haunt<br>The loved one's wish, earth hath no gem,<br>And heaven no hope, too dear for them.<br>That night beheld a vessel glide,<br>Over the Jumna's onward tide;</div><div style="margin:10px 0">One watched that vessel from the shore,<br>Too conscious of the freight it bore,<br>And wretched in her granted vow,<br>Sees Moohreeb leaning by the prow,<br>And knows that soon the winding river<br>Will hide him from her view for ever.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Next morn they found that youthful slave<br>Still kneeling by the sacred wave;<br>Her head was leaning on the stone<br>Of an old ruined tomb beside,<br>A fitting pillow cold and lone,<br>The dead had to the dead supplied:<br>The heart's last string hath snapt in twain,<br>Oh, earth, receive thine own again:<br>The weary one at length has rest<br>Within thy chill but quiet breast.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Long did the young Nadira keep<br>The memory of that maiden's lute;<br>And call to mind her songs, and weep,<br>Long after those charmed chords were mute.<br>A small white tomb was raised, to show<br>That human sorrow slept below;<br>And solemn verse and sacred line<br>Were graved on that funereal shrine.<br>And by its side the cypress tree<br>Stood, like unchanging memory.<br>And even to this hour are thrown<br>Green wreaths on that remembered stone;<br>And songs remain, whose tunes are fraught<br>With music which herself first taught.<br>And, it is said, one lonely star<br>Still brings a murmur sweet and far<br>Upon the silent midnight air,<br>As if Zilara wandered there.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Oh! if her poet soul be blent<br>With its aerial element,<br>May its lone course be where the rill<br>Goes singing at its own glad will;<br>Where early flowers unclose and die;<br>Where shells beside the ocean lie,<br>Fill'd with strange tones; or where the breeze<br>Sheds odours o'er the moonlit seas:<br>There let her gentle spirit rove,<br>Embalmed by poetry and love.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Letitia+Elizabeth+Landon">Letitia Elizabeth Landon</a><div class=q> <img src="https://www.citatepedia.ro/g/32share.png" style="float:left" alt="Share"> <script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=447622" data-title="The Zenana de Letitia Elizabeth Landon" data-description="WHAT is there that the world hath not Gathered in yon enchanted spot? Where, pale, and with a languid eye, The fair Sultana listlessly Leans on her silken couch, and dreams Of mountain airs, and mountain streams. Sweet though the music float arou..."></div> </div> </div>

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