With this poem should be compared the description of Harun al Rashid’s Garden of Gladness in the story of Nur-al-din Ali and the damsel Anis al Talis in the Thirty-Sixth Night. The style appears to have been modelled on Coleridge’s _Kubla Khan_ and _Lewti_, and the influence of Coleridge is very perceptible throughout the poem. When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free In the silken sail of infancy, The tide of time flow’d back with me, The forward-flowing tide of time; And many a sheeny summer-morn, Adown the Tigris I was borne, By Bagdat’s shrines of fretted gold, High-walled gardens green and old; True Mussulman was I and sworn, For it was in the golden prime[1] Of good Haroun Alraschid. Anight my shallop, rustling thro’[2] The low and bloomed foliage, drove The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove The citron-shadows in the blue: By garden porches on the brim, The costly doors flung open wide, Gold glittering thro’[3] lamplight dim, And broider’d sofas[4] on each side: In sooth it was a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Often, where clear-stemm’d platans guard The outlet, did I turn away The boat-head down a broad canal From the main river sluiced, where all The sloping of the moon-lit sward Was damask-work, and deep inlay Of braided blooms[5] unmown, which crept Adown to where the waters slept. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. A motion from the river won Ridged the smooth level, bearing on My shallop thro’ the star-strown calm, Until another night in night I enter’d, from the clearer light, Imbower’d vaults of pillar’d palm, Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb Heavenward, were stay’d beneath the dome Of hollow boughs.—A goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Still onward; and the clear canal Is rounded to as clear a lake. From the green rivage many a fall Of diamond rillets musical, Thro’ little crystal[6] arches low Down from the central fountain’s flow Fall’n silver-chiming, seem’d to shake The sparkling flints beneath the prow. A goodly place, a goodly time, For it was in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Above thro’[7] many a bowery turn A walk with vary-colour’d shells Wander’d engrain’d. On either side All round about the fragrant marge From fluted vase, and brazen urn In order, eastern flowers large, Some dropping low their crimson bells Half-closed, and others studded wide With disks and tiars, fed the time With odour in the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid. Far off, and where the lemon-grove In closest coverture upsprung, The living airs of middle night Died round the bulbul[8] as he sung; Not he: but something which possess’d The darkness of the world, delight, Life, anguish, death, immortal love, Ceasing not, mingled, unrepress’d. Apart from place, withholding[9] time, But flattering the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.