The warrior’s heart, when touch’d by me, Can as downy soft and as yielding be As his own white plume, that high amid death Through the field has shone—yet moves with a breath! And oh, how the eyes of Beauty glisten, When Music has reach’d her inward soul, Like the silent stars, that wink and listen While Heaven’s eternal melodies roll. So, hither I come From my fairy home, And if there’s a magic in Music’s strain, I swear by the breath Of that moonlight wreath, Thy Lover shall sigh at thy feet again. -------------- ’Tis dawn—at least that earlier dawn, Whose glimpses are again withdrawn,[349] As if the morn had wak’d, and then Shut close her lids of light again. And NOURMAHAL is up, and trying The wonders of her lute, whose strings— Oh, bliss!—now murmur like the sighing From that ambrosial Spirit’s wings. And then, her voice—’tis more than human— Never, till now, had it been given To lips of any mortal woman To utter notes so fresh from heaven; Sweet as the breath of angel sighs, When angel sighs are most divine.— “Oh! let it last till night,” she cries, “And he is more than ever mine.” And hourly she renews the lay, So fearful lest its heavenly sweetness Should, ere the evening, fade away,— For things so heavenly have such fleetness! But, far from fading, it but grows Richer, diviner as it flows; Till rapt she dwells on every string, And pours again each sound along, Like echo, lost and languishing, In love with her own wondrous song. That evening, (trusting that his soul Might be from haunting love releas’d By mirth, by music, and the bowl,) The’ Imperial SELIM held a feast In his magnificent Shalimar:[350]— In whose Saloons, when the first star Of evening o’er the waters trembled, The Valley’s loveliest all assembled; All the bright creatures that, like dreams, Glide through its foliage, and drink beams Of beauty from its founts and streams;[351] And all those wandering minstrel-maids, Who leave—how _can_ they leave?—the shades Of that dear Valley, and are found Singing in gardens of the South[352] Those songs, that ne’er so sweetly sound As from a young Cashmerian’s mouth. There, too, the Haram’s inmates smile;— Maids from the West, with sun-bright hair, And from the Garden of the NILE, Delicate as the roses there;[353]— Daughters of Love from CYPRUS’ rocks, With Paphian diamonds in their locks;[354]— Light PERI forms, such as there are On the gold meads of CANDAHAR;[355] And they, before whose sleepy eyes, In their own bright Kathaian bowers, Sparkle such rainbow butterflies, That they might fancy the rich flowers, That round them in the sun lay sighing, Had been by magic all set flying.[356]