"Ah if this breath of mine might purchase his! Then death were fair and lovely as he said In that enchanted even hour when he Of love, and death, and moans, and constancy Told till dark things grew lovely, and o'erhead Sweet stars seemed ghosts, and shadow all that is. But I have lost my life and yet not death Have won, and now to me shall joy be strange, And all my days the kindly winds that breathe From mirthful groves of Paradise shall change In my poor songless soul to wail, and sigh, And moan, and hollow silence--let me die! Poor me! who fearless snatched at bliss so high, Witless! and yet to be of slight esteem And little worth is sometimes well, no dream Of high unrest, no awful afterglow Affrights us simple ones when that we die. Vain flickering lamps soon quenched--we but go From this brief day, this short transition, This interlude of farcial joy and woe, Back to our native, kind oblivion. Can this be Moti, she who prates of being, And life, and death, and fallacy, and moan? Ah, how should I be fixed and steadfast? seeing All things about me shift, I need must change; Things which I thought were plain are waxen strange, Things are unfathomable which I deemed Shallow and bare; nay, maid, I do not rave, Sunbeams are mysteries, and Love that seemed All winged joy, and transport light as air, Ah me, but Love is deeper than the grave, Is deeper than the grave; I seek it there. Dear Death, bind Love for me, till that I die! And he is doomed to die who loved me! O bitter, bitter end of tenderness! O doleful issue of my happiness! Weep, little maid, for one that loved me! O might I with my last of mortal breath Bid him the cruel treachery to flee, And hear his voice and sink to happy death, So still might live the one that loved me! Cease, kindly maid, arise, and whisper low, As moon to weeping clouds, until there rise Like pallid rainbow, wan with spectral glow, A thing of fearful joy athwart my skies, A hope, a joy e'en yet that this might be, That I should die for him who loved me. I waste no life, no blame shall me dismay, For these brief days of mine are but a morn, A handful of poor violets, wind-worn, Or nurseling lily-buds which to mislay Were not the ill that to the perfect flower Might be if cruel hand should disarray Its starry splendour when in ripened hour It floats in tranquil state on Gunga's stream. Make ready, little maid; sweet is the gleam That lightens this ill night, soft clouds will weep, The fervid bulbul still his song, beneath Our tallices the blinking jasmines sleep, The kindly myrtles shadow all our parth.