There’s a beauty, for ever unchangingly bright, Like the long sunny lapse of a summer day’s light, Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender, Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendor. This was not the beauty—oh, nothing like this, That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss! But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays Like the light upon Autumn’s soft shadowy days, Now here and now there—giving warmth as it flies, From the lip to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes. When pensive, it seemed as if that very grace, That charm, of all others, was born with her face! And when angry—for even in the tranquillest climes, Light breezes will ruffle the blossoms sometimes, The short, passing anger but seemed to awaken New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when shaken. If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye At once took a darker, a heavenlier dye, From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings From innermost shrines came the light of her feelings. Then her mirth—O, ’twas sportive as ever took wing From the heart with a burst like the wild-bird in spring, Illumed by a wit that would fascinate sages, Yet playful as Peris let loose from their cages; While her laugh, full of glee, without any control, But the sweet one of gracefulness, rung from her soul, And where it most sparkled no glance could discover, In lip, cheek or eyes, for she brightened all over; Like any fair lake which the breeze is upon When it breaks into dimples and laughs in the sun! No wonder “the magnificent son of Acbar” should be set excessively beside himself on account of such a miracle of womanhood. Moore shows himself very incapable of sustaining himself in any flights of imagination to compare at all with the soaring of Shelley or Byron. The sight of his mind is less keen and ardent than theirs, his thoughts feebler and his verse less vigorously constructed. But in his own genial sphere—on the lower sunny slopes of the mountain, he can snatch a thousand warbling graces beyond the art of these louder instruments. His is the lay that lightly floats, And his are the murmuring, dying notes That fall as soft as snow on the sea, And melt in the heart as instantly; And the passionate strain, that, lightly going Refines the bosom it trembles through As the musk-wind, over the waters blowing, Ruffles the wave but sweetens it too!