Calm is the wave—heaven’s brilliant lights Reflected dance beneath the prow;— Time was when, on such lovely nights, She who is there, so desolate now, Could sit all cheerful, though alone, And ask no happier joy than seeing That starlight o’er the waters thrown— No joy but that, to make her blest, And the fresh, buoyant sense of Being, Which bounds in youth’s yet careless breast,— Itself a star, not borrowing light, But in its own glad essence bright. How different now!—but, hark, again The yell of havoc rings—brave men! In vain, with beating hearts, ye stand On the bark’s edge—in vain each hand Half draws the falchion from its sheath; All’s o’er—in rust your blades may lie:— He, at whose word they’ve scatter’d death, E’en now, this night, himself must die! Well may ye look to yon dim tower, And ask, and wondering guess what means The battle-cry at this dead hour— Ah! she could tell you—she, who leans Unheeded there, pale, sunk, aghast, With brow against the dew-cold mast;— Too well she knows—her more than life, Her soul’s first idol and its last, Lies bleeding in that murderous strife. But see—what moves upon the height? Some signal!—’tis a torch’s light. What bodes its solitary glare? In gasping silence tow’rd the Shrine All eyes are turn’d—thine, HINDA, thine Fix their last fading life-beams there. ’Twas but a moment—fierce and high The death-pile blaz’d into the sky, And far away, o’er rock and flood Its melancholy radiance sent; While HAFED, like a vision, stood Reveal’d before the burning pyre, Tall, shadowy, like a Spirit of Fire Shrin’d in its own grand element! “’Tis he!”—the shuddering maid exclaims,— But, while she speaks, he’s seen no more; High burst in air the funeral flames, And IRAN’S hopes and hers are o’er! One wild, heart-broken shriek she gave; Then sprung, as if to reach that blaze, Where still she fix’d her dying gaze,— And, gazing, sunk into the wave, Deep, deep,—where never care or pain Shall reach her innocent heart again! -------------- Farewell—farewell to thee, ARABY’S daughter! (Thus warbled a PERI beneath the dark sea,) No pearl ever lay, under OMAN’S green water, More pure in its shell than thy Spirit in thee. Oh! fair as the sea-flower close to thee growing, How light was thy heart till Love’s witchery came, Like the wind of the south[296] o’er a summer lute blowing, And hush’d all its music, and withered its frame! But long, upon ARABY’S green sunny highlands, Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom Of her, who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands, With nought but the sea-star[297] to light up her tomb.