Song of Nourmahal in “The Light of the Harem”
“FLY to the desert, fly with me,
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But oh! the choice what heart can doubt
Of tents with love or thrones without?
“Our rocks are rough, but smiling there
The acacia waves her yellow hair,
Lonely and sweet, nor loved the less
For flowering in the...
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side:
When the sorrows of life the soul o’ercast,
And, sick of the present, I cling to the past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the...
Je donne à mon desert les restes de ma vie,
Pour ne dépendre plus que du Ciel et de moy.
Le temps et la raison m'ont fait perdre l'envie
D'encenser la faveur, et de suivre le Roy.
Faret, je suis ravy des bois où je demeure.
J'y trouve la santé de l'esprit et du corps.
Approuve ma retraite ; et permets que je meure
Dans le mesme Vilage où mes peres...
Where pilgrims seek the Prophet's tomb
Across the Arabian waste,
Upon the ever-shifting sands,
A fearful path is traced.
Far up to the horizon's verge,
The traveller sees it rise, --
The line of ghastly bones that bleach...
Beneath the cloud-topp’d mountain,
Beside the craggy bluff,
Where every dint of nature
Is rude and wild enough;
Upon the verdant meadow,
Upon the sunburnt plain,
Upon the sandy hillock;
We waken music’s strain.
Beneath the pine’s thick branches,
...
Until the Desert knows
That Water grows
His Sands suffice
But let him once suspect
That Caspian Fact
Sahara dies
Utmost is relative —
Have not or Have
Adjacent sums
Enough — the first Abode
On the familiar Road
Galloped in Dreams —
With thee, in the Desert —
With thee in the thirst —
With thee in the Tamarind wood —
Leopard breathes — at last!
