AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.
A truce to thought! the jackal's cry
Resounds like silvan revelry;
And through the trees yon falling ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet mark! as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes;
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring;
While to this cooler air confess'd
The broad Dhatura bares her breast
Of fragrant scent and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night !
Still as we pass, in soften'd hum,
Along the breezy alleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum.
Still as we pass, from bush and briar,
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And what is she, whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?
I know that soul-entrancing swell!
It is it must be-Philomel.
Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,-
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;
And we must early sleep, to find
Betimes the morning's healthy wind.
But oh! with thankful hearts confess
E'en here there may be happiness;
And He, the bounteous Sire, has given
His peace on earth-his hope of heaven.
Oh, alas, and alas!
Green grows the grass!
Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass.
YE tell me 'tis the opening hour;-then ere the day be flown
The casement ope, that I may see my last of suns go
With beams as beautiful he'll rise to gladden earth
And wake the world with life and light,—but shine for me in vain.
Yes-of the azure sky above, and the green earth below, I yet would take a last farewell to cheer me as I go; And I will deem the light that glows along the verge of even,
And plays upon my faded cheek, the smile of opening heaven.
And let my fainting heart inhale sweet Nature's fragrant breath,
That wafts a message from the bowers to soothe the bed of death;
That bears a whisper from the woods, a farewell from the spring,
A tale of open leaf and bud—while I am withering.
And let me hear the small birds sing among the garden
Their evening hymn, that wont to bless my solitary hours:
That coral anthem, warbled wild upon the leafy spray, Will glad this ear, that to the strain must soon be deaf for aye.
And blame me not, that, call'd away unto a land of
I fondly linger on the shore of such a world as this; And better love, than aught I know of bright immortal spheres,
This earth, so lovely in her woe, so beautiful in tears.
WE break the glass, whose sacred wine
To some beloved health we drain,
Lest future pledges, less divine,
Should e'er the hallow'd cup profane;
And thus I broke a heart that pour'd
Its tide of feeling out for thee,
In draughts, by after-times deplored,
Yet dear to memory.
But still the old impassion'd ways
And habits of my mind remain,
And still unhappy light displays
Thine image chamber'd in my brain.
And still it looks as when the hours
Went by like flights of singing birds,
On that soft chain of spoken flowers,
And airy gems, thy words.
DEEP in the wave is a coral grove,
Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the sea-flower spreads its leaves of blue,
That never are wet with falling dew,
But in bright and changeful beauty shine
Far down in the green and grassy brine.
The floor is of sand like the mountain drift,
And the pearl shells spangle the flinty snow:
From coral rocks the sea-plants lift
Their boughs where the tides and billows flow;
The water is calm and still below,
For the winds and waves are absent there,
And the sands are bright as the stars that glow
In the motionless fields of upper air;
There with its waving blade of green,
The sea-flag streams through the silent water,
And the crimson leaf of the dulse is seen
To blush like a banner bathed in slaughter;
There with a light and easy motion,
The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea;
And the yellow and scarlet tufts of ocean
Are bending like corn on the upland lea;
And life, in rare and beautiful forms,
Is sporting amid those bowers of stone,
And is safe, when the wrathful spirit of storms,
Has made the top of the wave his own:
And when the ship from his fury flies,
Where the myriad voices of ocean roar,
When the wind-god frowns in the murky skies,
And demons are waiting the wreck on shore:
Then far below, in the peaceful sea,
The purple mullet and gold-fish rove,
Where the waters murmur tranquilly
Through the bending twigs of the Coral Grove.
My mother's grave, my mother's grave! Oh! dreamless is her slumber there, And drowsily the banners wave
O'er her that was so chaste and fair;
Yea! love is dead, and memory faded!
But when the dew is on the brake,
And silence sleeps on earth and sea,
And mourners weep, and ghosts awake,
Oh! then she cometh back to me,
In her cold beauty darkly shaded !
I cannot guess her face or form;
But what to me is form or face?
I do not ask the weary worm
To give me back each buried grace
Of glistening eyes or trailing tresses!
I only feel that she is here,
And that we meet, and that we part; And that I drink within mine ear, And that I clasp around my heart, Her sweet still voice, and soft caresses!
Not in the waking thought by day,
Not in the sightless dream by night,
Do the mild tones and glances play
Of her who was my cradle's light!
But in some twilight of calm weather,
She glides, by fancy dimly wrought,
A glittering cloud, a darkling beam,
With all the quiet of a thought,
And all the passion of a dream,
Link'd in a golden spell together!
|