Then took her trembling fingers off again. But when at length a timid glance she stole At AZIM, the sweet gravity of soul She saw through all his features calm’d her fear, And, like a half-tam’d antelope, more near, Though shrinking still, she came;—then sat her down Upon a musnud’s[81] edge, and, bolder grown, In the pathetic mode of ISFAHAN[82] Touch’d a preluding strain, and thus began:— -------------- There’s a bower of roses by BENDEMEER’S[83] stream, And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; In the time of my childhood ’twas like a sweet dream, To sit in the roses and hear the bird’s song. That bower and its music I never forget, But oft when alone in the bloom of the year, I think—is the nightingale singing there yet? Are the roses still bright by the calm BENDEMEER? No, the roses soon wither’d that hung o’er the wave, But some blossoms were gather’d, while freshly they shone, And a dew was distill’d from their flowers, that gave All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone. Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies, An essence that breathes of it many a year; Thus bright to my soul, as ’twas then to my eyes, Is that bower on the banks of the calm BENDEMEER. -------------- “Poor maiden!” thought the youth, “if thou wert sent, “With thy soft lute and beauty’s blandishment, “To wake unholy wishes in this heart, “Or tempt its truth, thou little know’st the art. “For though thy lip should sweetly counsel wrong, “Those vestal eyes would disavow its song. “But thou hast breath’d such purity, thy lay “Returns so fondly to youth’s virtuous day, “And leads thy soul—if e’er it wander’d thence— “So gently back to its first innocence, “That I would sooner stop the unchained dove, “When swift returning to its home of love, “And round its snowy wing new fetters twine, “Than turn from virtue one pure wish of thine!”