Every thing young, every thing fair From East and West is blushing there, Except—except—oh, NOURMAHAL! Thou loveliest, dearest of them all, The one, whose smile shone out alone, Amidst a world the only one; Whose light, among so many lights, Was like that star on starry nights, The seaman singles from the sky, To steer his bark for ever by! Thou wert not there—so SELIM thought, And every thing seem’d drear without thee; But, ah! thou wert, thou wert,—and brought Thy charm of song all fresh about thee. Mingling unnoticed with a band Of lutanists from many a land, And veil’d by such a mask as shades The features of young Arab maids,[357]— A mask that leaves but one eye free, To do its best in witchery,— She rov’d, with beating heart, around, And waited, trembling, for the minute, When she might try if still the sound Of her lov’d lute had magic in it. The board was spread with fruits and wine; With grapes of gold, like those that shine On CASBIN’S hills;[358]—pomegranates full Of melting sweetness, and the pears, And sunniest apples[359] that CAUBUL In all its thousand gardens[360]bears;— Plantains, the golden and the green, MALAYA’S nectar’d mangusteen;[361] Prunes of BOKARA, and sweet nuts From the far groves of SAMARCAND, And BASRA dates, and apricots, Seed of the Sun,[362] from IRAN’S land;— With rich conserve of Visna cherries,[363] Of orange flowers, and of those berries That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles Feed on in ERAC’S rocky dells.[364] All these in richest vases smile, In baskets of pure santal-wood, And urns of porcelain from that isle[365] Sunk underneath the Indian flood, Whence oft the lucky diver brings Vases to grace the halls of kings. Wines, too, of every clime and hue, Around their liquid lustre threw; Amber Rosolli,[366]—the bright dew From vineyards of the Green-Sea gushing;[367] And SHIRAZ wine, that richly ran As if that jewel, large and rare, The ruby for which KUBLAI-KHAN Offer’d a city’s wealth,[368] was blushing Melted within the goblets there! And amply SELIM quaffs of each, And seems resolv’d the flood shall reach His inward heart,—shedding around A genial deluge, as they run, That soon shall leave no spot undrown’d, For Love to rest his wings upon. He little knew how well the boy Can float upon a goblet’s streams, Lighting them with his smile of joy;— As bards have seen him in their dreams, Down the blue GANGES laughing glide Upon a rosy lotus wreath,[369] Catching new lustre from the tide That with his image shone beneath.