Next night, a head--a little lady head, Push’d through the waters a most glassy face, With weedy tresses, thrown apart and spread, Comb’d by ‘live ivory, to show the space Of a pale forehead, and two eyes that shed A soft blue mist, breathing a bloomy grace Over their sleepy lids--and so she rais’d Her _aqua_line nose above the stream, and gazed. She oped her lips--lips of a gentle blush, So pale it seem’d near drowned to a white,-- She oped her lips, and forth there sprang a gush Of music bubbling through the surface light; The leaves are motionless, the breezes hush To listen to the air--and through the night There come these words of a most plaintive ditty, Sobbing as they would break all hearts with pity: THE WATER PERI’S SONG. Farewell, farewell, to my mother’s own daughter, The child that she wet-nursed is lapp’d in the wave; The _Mussul_-man coming to fish in this water, Adds a tear to the flood that weeps over her grave. This sack is her coffin, this water’s her bier, This greyish _bath_ cloak is her funeral pall; And, stranger, O stranger! this song that you hear Is her epitaph, elegy, dirges, and all! Farewell, farewell, to the child of Al Hassan, My mother’s own daughter--the last of her race-- She’s a corpse, the poor body! and lies in this basin, And sleeps in the water that washes her face. FAITHLESS NELLY GRAY. A PATHETIC BALLAD. I. Ben Battle was a soldier bold, And used to war’s alarms: But a cannon-ball took off his legs, So he laid down his arms! II. Now as they bore him off the field, Said he, “Let others shoot, For here I leave my second leg, And the Forty-second Foot!” III. The army-surgeons made him limbs: Said he,--“They’re only pegs: But there’s as wooden members quite, As represent my legs!” IV. Now Ben he loved a pretty maid, Her name was Nelly Gray; So he went to pay her his devours, When he’d devoured his pay! V. But when he called on Nelly Gray, She made him quite a scoff; And when she saw his wooden legs, Began to take them off! VI. “O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray! Is this your love so warm? The love that loves a scarlet coat, Should be more uniform!” VII. Said she, “I loved a soldier once, For he was blythe and brave; But I will never have a man With both legs in the grave! VIII. “Before you had those timber toes, Your love I did allow, But then, you know, you stand upon Another footing now!” IX. “O, Nelly Gray! O, Nelly Gray! For all your jeering speeches, At duty’s call, I left my legs In Badajos’s _breaches_!” X.