And what a wilderness of flowers! It seem’d as though from all the bowers And fairest fields of all the year, The mingled spoil were scatter’d here. The Lake, too, like a garden breathes, With the rich buds that o’er it lie,— As if a shower of fairy wreaths Had fall’n upon it from the sky! And then the sounds of joy,—the beat Of tabors and of dancing feet;— The minaret-crier’s chaunt of glee Sung from his lighted gallery,[319] And answered by a ziraleet From neighbouring Haram, wild and sweet;— The merry laughter, echoing From gardens, where the silken swing[320] Wafts some delighted girl above The top leaves of the orange grove; Or, from those infant groups at play Among the tents[321] that line the way, Flinging, unaw’d by slave or mother, Handfuls of roses at each other.— Then, the sounds from the Lake, the low whispering in boats, As they shoot through the moonlight;—the dipping of oars. And the wild, airy warbling that every where floats, Through the groves, round the islands, as if all the shores, Like those of KATHAY, utter’d music, and gave An answer in song to the kiss of each wave.[322] But the gentlest of all are those sounds, full of feeling, That soft from the lute of some lover are stealing,— Some lover, who knows all the heart-touching power Of a lute and a sigh in this magical hour. Oh! best of delights as it every where is To be near the lov’d _One_,—what a rapture is his Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide O’er the Lake of CASHMERE, with that _One_ by his side! If woman can make the worst wilderness dear, Think, think what a Heaven she must make of CASHMERE! So felt the magnificent Son of ACBAR,[323] When from power and pomp and the trophies of war He flew to that Valley, forgetting them all With the Light of the HARAM, his young NOURMAHAL. When free and uncrown’d as the Conqueror rov’d By the banks of that Lake, with his only belov’d, He saw, in the wreaths she would playfully snatch From the hedges, a glory his crown could not match, And preferr’d in his heart the least ringlet that curl’d Down her exquisite neck to the throne of the world.