How calm, how beautiful comes on The stilly hour, when storms are gone; When warring winds have died away, And clouds, beneath the glancing ray, Melt off, and leave the land and sea Sleeping in bright tranquillity,— Fresh as if Day again were born, Again upon the lap of Morn!— When the light blossoms, rudely torn And scatter’d at the whirlwind’s will, Hang floating in the pure air still, Filling it all with precious balm, In gratitude for this sweet calm;— And every drop the thunder-showers Have left upon the grass and flowers Sparkles, as ’twere that lightning-gem[279] Whose liquid flame is born of them! When, ’stead of one unchanging breeze, There blow a thousand gentle airs, And each a different perfume bears,— As if the loveliest plants and trees Had vassal breezes of their own To watch and wait on them alone, And waft no other breath than theirs: When the blue waters rise and fall, In sleepy sunshine mantling all; And e’en that swell the tempest leaves Is like the full and silent heaves Of lovers’ hearts, when newly blest, Too newly to be quite at rest. Such was the golden hour that broke Upon the world, when HINDA woke From her long trance, and heard around No motion but the water’s sound Rippling against the vessel’s side, As slow it mounted o’er the tide.— But where is she?—her eyes are dark, Are wilder’d still—is this the bark, The same, that from HARMOZIA’S bay Bore her at morn—whose bloody way The sea-dog track’d?—no—strange and new Is all that meets her wondering view. Upon a galliot’s deck she lies, Beneath no rich pavilion’s shade,— No plumes to fan her sleeping eyes, Nor jasmine on her pillow laid. But the rude litter, roughly spread With war-cloaks, is her homely bed, And shawl and sash, on javelins hung, For awning o’er her head are flung. Shuddering she look’d around—there lay A group of warriors in the sun, Resting their limbs, as for that day Their ministry of death were done. Some gazing on the drowsy sea, Lost in unconscious reverie; And some, who seem’d but ill to brook That sluggish calm, with many a look To the slack sail impatient cast, As loose it flagg’d around the mast.