TOIL on! toil on! ye ephemeral train,
Who build in the tossing and treacherous main;
Toil on-for the wisdom of man ye mock,
With your sand-based structures and domes of rock;
Your columns the fathomless fountains lave,
And your arches spring up to the crested wave;
Ye're a puny race, thus to boldly rear
A fabric so vast, in a realm so drear.
Ye bind the deep with your secret zone,
The ocean is sealed, and the surge a stone;
Fresh wreaths from the coral pavement spring,
Like the terraced pride of Assyria's king;
The turf looks green where the breakers rolled;
O'er the whirlpool ripens the rind of gold;
The sea-snatched isle is the home of men,
And mountains exult where the wave hath been.
But why do ye plant 'neath the billows dark
The wrecking reef for the gallant bark?
There are snares enough on the tented field,
'Mid the blossomed sweets that the valleys yield;
There are serpents to coil, ere the flowers are up;
There's a poison drop in man's purest cup;
There are foes that watch for his cradle breath,
And why need ye sow the floods with death?
With mouldering bones the deeps are white,
From the ice-clad pole to the tropics bright;-
The mermaid hath twisted her fingers cold
With the mesh of the sea-boy's curls of gold,
And the gods of ocean have frowned to see
The mariner's bed in their halls of glee ;-
Hath earth no graves, that ye thus must spread
The boundless sea for the thronging dead?
Ye build-ye build--but ye enter not in,
Like the tribes whom the desert devoured in their sin;
From the land of promise ye fade and die,
Ere its verdure gleams forth on your weary eye;-
As the kings of the cloud-crowned pyramid,
Their noteless bones in oblivion hid,
Ye slumber unmarked 'mid the desolate main,
While the wonder and pride of your works remain.
STANZAS FOR AN ARABIAN AIR.
BRIGHT, bright is the eye of the wild gazelle,
And her footstep fleet and free;
And white is the pearl when its native well
Mirrors the blush of the coral bell
On the pomegranate tree;-
But I know, I know of a brighter eye,
Of a step more graceful too-
Of a brow like the pearl in its purity-
Of a lip of a deeper coral dye
Than the rich pomegranate's hue!
Her locks are the purple clouds of morn,
When their folds, like banners, float;
And her soft celestial voice is born,
As it were, of the bulbul's note !
Her sleep is the calm of a breathing rose-
The rest of a lonely dove,
When the leaves are lulled in the light that flows
From the mellow skies above!
STANZAS FOR AN ARABIAN AIR.
We sat by the fount at even' close,
The star was softly bright-
And a whispered dream from the wave's repose,
Stole on the ear of night!
Sweet, sweet, said I, is that fountain's dream,
And sweet is yon blue star's tender shine-
Oh! love me, maid! and my soul shall rest,
More gently lulled, and more deeply blessed,
In the beam of those eyes of thine!
Wild is the bound of the antelope,
When he seeks his sunny cliff;
When his far-home dawns on the plunging skiff,
Wild, wild, is the sea-boy's hope:
But wilder, maiden! oh, wilder yet,
Shall the joy of my spirit be-
When the day that hath made thee mine has set,
And the sound of the dance and the castanet
Is under the citron tree!
AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.
OUR task is done!--On Gunga's breast
The sun is sinking down to rest:
And, moored beneath the tamarind bough,
Our bark has found its harbour now.
With furled sail, and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride,
Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslem's savoury supper steams;
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.
Come, walk with me the jungle through;
If yonder hunter told us true,
AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.
Far off, in desert dank and rude,
The tiger holds his solitude;
Nor (taught by recent harm to shun
The thunders of the English gun)
A dreadful guest, but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on! no venomed snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake;
Child of the sun! he loves to lie
'Mid Nature's embers, parched and dry,
Where o'er some tower in ruin laid,
The peepul spreads its haunted shade,
Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe,
Fit warder in the gate of death!
Come on! Yet pause !-behold us now
Beneath the bamboo's archéd bough,
Where gemming oft that sacred gloom,
Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom,
And winds our path through many a bower,
Of fragrant tree and crimson flower;
The ceiba's crimson pomp displayed
O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade,
And dusk anana's prickly blade;
While o'er the brake, so wild and fair,
The betel waves his crest in air.
With pendent train and rushing wings,
Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs;
And he, the bird of hundred dyes,
Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize,
So rich a shade, so green a sod,
Our English fairies never trod;
Yet who in Indian bower has stood,
But thought on England's good green-wood
And blessed, beneath the palmy shade,
Her hazel and her hawthorn glade,
And breathed a prayer (how oft in vain!)
To gaze upon her oaks again.
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 confessed
The broad Dhatura bares her breast
Of fragrant scent, and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night!
Still as we pass, in softened 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.
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