Lips in whose rosy labyrinth, when she smil'd, Across th' uncalm, but beauteous firmament. And then her look!-oh! where's the heart so wise, Like those of angels, just before their fall; now crost Now shadow'd with the shames of earth And such was now young ZELICA-so chang'd From her who, some years since, delighted rang'd The almond groves, that shade BOKHARA's tide, All life and bliss, with Azim by her side! So alter'd was she now, this festal day, When, 'mid the proud Divan's dazzling array, The vision of that Youth, whom she had lov❜d, And wept as dead, before her breath'd and mov'd;— When bright, she thought, as if from Eden's track But half-way trodden, he had wander'd back Again to earth, glistening with Eden's lightHer beauteous AZIM shone before her sight. Oh Reason! who shall say what spells renew, When least we look for it, thy broken clew! Through what small vistas o'er the darken'd brain Thy intellectual day-beam bursts again; And how, like forts, to which beleaguerers win Unhop'd-for entrance through some friend within, One clear idea, wakened in the breast By memory's magic, lets in all the rest! Would it were thus, unhappy girl, with thee! But, though light came, it came but partially; Enough to show the maze, in which thy sense Wander'd about, but not to guide it thence; Enough to glimmer o'er the yawning wave, But not to point the harbour which might save. Hours of delight and peace, long left behind, With that dear form came rushing o'er her mind; But oh! to think how deep her soul had gone In shame and falsehood since those moments shone; And, then, her oath-there madness lay again, From light, whose every glimpse was agony! Yet, one relief this glance of former years Brought, mingled with its pain, tears, floods of tears, Let loose in spring-time from the snowy hills, Through valleys where their flow had long been lost! Sad and subdued, for the first time her frame By the stream's side, where still at close of day Of late none found such favour in his sight As the young Priestess; and though, since that night When the death-caverns echoed every tone Of the dire oath that made her all his own, Th' Impostor, sure of his infatuate prize, Had, more than once, thrown off his soul's disguise, Of a weak intellect, whose lamp was out, Threw startling shadows of dismay and doubt;- The thought, still haunting her, of that bright brow Through flame and smoke, most welcome to the skies — And that when Azım's fond, divine embrace Should circle her in heav'n, no darkening trace But all be bright, be pure, be his again! These were the wildering dreams, whose curst deceit Wan and dejected, through the evening dusk, |