"LALLA ROOKH," A POEM, BY T. MOORE, ESQ.
"NO sooner was the flowery crown
Placed on her head, than sleep came down,
Gently as nights of summer fall,
Upon the lids of Nourmahal;---
And suddenly, a tuneful breeze,
As full of small, rich harmonies,
As ever wind, that o'er the tents
Of Arab blew, was full of scents,
Steals on her ear, and floats and swells,
Like the first air of morning creeping,
Into those wreathy red sea shells,
Where Love himself, of old, lay sleeping:-
And now a spirit form'd 'twould seem,
Of music and of light, so fair,
So briliantly his features beam,
And such a sound is in the air.
Of sweetness, when he waves his wings,
Hovers around her, and thus sings:-
THE day is gone to rest-encroaching Night
Breathes from his gloomy caverns, drear and chill,
His noisome vapours-and the stars are bright,
And Cynthia's crescent tips the giant hill;
Who, at such hour, when Nature all is still,
Would curb the license of his active thought,
Or on the downy couch his limbs compose,
Or barter his excursive mind for aught
That in Golconda's mines resplendent glows,
Or down the eddying tide of fashion's vortex flows.
There is a majesty in Night, that awes
The soul, and checks the wildness of desire;
That round the heart a curtained stillness draws,
And floods the bosom with poetic fire:
Bids the excursive mind expand, aspire
To things disdaining earth, allied to Heaven,
Bursting the precincts of coercive fate,
By Fancy's soaring powers resistless driven,
Raising aloft man's low, degrading state,
From passion, slander, pride, revenge, and deadly hate.
Even such a scene does now my soul possess,
As upward turned to heaven my youthful eye:
There, worlds on worlds the Power Supreme confess,
Clustering with lights the unpillared canopy:
Whilst gazing thus on Night's instructive sky, :
I search my bosom, commune, muse alone,
Contrast with it my life's contracted span,
What lingers yet. And how the past has flown!
Revere the Almighty's irreversive plan,
And think how abject, poor, forlorn, and impotent is man!
Yet, as the spring, which now to life restores
Myriads of beings, and dull Torpor warms,
Through nature's veins a fuller current pours,
And winter's icy fangs of power disarms,
Whilst buds renascent put forth all their charms-
Man's soul, pure essence! shall its coil disdain
When o'er the clay Death shall his mantle fling,
And uncontrolled its fields of azure gain,
Where higher cares superior pleasures bring,
And joys supernal bloom in heaven's unfading spring.
Even in these thoughts, a place can Phylé find,
Who in my breast usurps dominion sole,
From highest views divides my youthful mind
With roseate, sweet, beloved, and mild control.
Oh! as the faithful magnet seeks the pole,.
She turns to me---and could her swain bestow
The bliss his love-charmed fancy would impart,
For her the cup of life should sparkling flow,
From care removed---secure from sorrow's dart,
Love, with Elysian sweets, should sway unchanged
her heart.
April 10th, 1819.
M. Yks.
Supposed to be Written by a Person, on returning (after a long absence) to his Native Place.
DELIGHTFUL village! Scene of all the joys,
Which the glad moments of my childhood told ;
Where, far from care and busy cities' noise,
My youthful days in calm contentment roll'd;
Once more I view thy daisy-broidered plain,
Crowned by the woody tuft, and thorny brake;
The verdant meadow path, and shady lane,
Where we our evening's walk were wont to take.
'Twas here, beneath a parent's fostering eye,
The tear of pity learnt, unchecked, to flow,
My infant breast, to heaye compassion's sigh,
At the sad story of another's woe.
At foot of yonder gently-swelling hill,
O'er whose delightful side the lambkins bound,
There flows a melancholy bubbling rill,
That spreads a rich fertility around.
There 'twas in infancy I loved to play,
As, shaded from the mid-day's sultry beam,
In joyous sport I chased the hours away.
And launched my little shallop in the stream.
There too, when infant sports had ceased to please,
And childhood gave the palm to riper days,
On the warm, mossy bank, reclined at ease,
I tuned to sylvan lyre my plaiutive lays.
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