Here I must leave him, for I grow pathetic,
Moved by the Chinese nymph of tears, green tea!
Than whom Cassandra was not more prophetic;
For if my pure libations exceed three,
I feel my heart become so sympathetic,
That I must have recourse to black Bohea : 'Tis pity wine should be so deleterious,
For tea and coffee leave us much more serious.
Unless when qualified with thee, Cogniac!
Sweet Naïad of the Phlegethontic rill!
Ah! why the liver wilt thou thus attack,
And make, like other nymphs, thy lovers ill?
I would take refuge in weak punch, but rack
(In each sense of the word) whene'er 1 fill
My mild and midnight beakers to the brim,
Wakes me next morning with its synoym.
I leave Don Juan for the present, safe
Not sound, poor fellow, but severely wounded; Yet could his corporeal pangs amount to half
Of those with which his Haidee's bosom bounded? She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe, And then give way, subdued because surrounded; Her mother was a Moorish maid, from Fez, Where all is Eden, or a wilderness.
There the large olive rains in amber store
In marble fonts; there grain, and flower, and fruit, Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er ; But there too many a poison-tree has root,
And midnight listens to the lion's roar,
And long, long desarts scorch the camel's foot,
Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan,
And as the soil is, so the heart of man.
Afric is all the sun's, and as her earth
Her human clay is kindled; full of power For good or evil, burning from its birth,
The Moorish blood partakes the planet's hour, And like the soil beneath it will bring forth:
Beauty and love were Haidee's mother's dower; But her large dark eye shew'd deep Passion's force, Though sleeping like a lion near a source.
Her daughter, temper'd with a milder ray,
Like summer clouds all silvery, smooth, and fair,
Till slowly charged with thunder they display
Terror to earth, and tempest to the air,
Had held till now her soft and milky way;
But overwrought with passion and despair,
The fire burst forth from her Numidian veins,
Even as the Simoom sweeps the blasted plains.
The last sight which she saw was Juan's gore,
And he himself o'ermasted and cut down;
His blood was running on the very floor
Where late he trod, her beautiful, her own;
Thus much she view'd an instant and no more,―
Her struggles ceased with one convulsive groan;
On her sire's arm, which until now scarce held
Her writhing, fell she like a cedar fell'd.
A vein had burst, and her sweet lips' pure dyes [2]
Were dabbled with the deep blood which ran o'er;
And her head droop'd as when the lily lies
O'ercharged with rain: her summon'd handmaids bore Their lady to her couch with gushing eyes;
Of herbs and cordials they produced their store,
Bnt she defied all means they could employ,
Like one life could not hold, nor death destroy,
Days lay sbe in that state unchanged, though chill,
With nothing livid, still her lips were red;
She had no pulse, but death seem'd absent still;
No hideous sign proclaim'd her surely dead;
Corruption came not in each mind to kill
All hope; to look upon her sweet face bred
New thoughts of life, for it seem'd full of soul,
She had so much, earth could not claim the whole.
The ruling passion, such as marble shows
When exquisitely chisell'd, still lay there,
But fix'd as marble's unchanged aspect throws
O'er the fair Venus, but for ever fair;
O'er the Laocoon's all-eternal throes,
And ever-dying gladiator's air,
Their energy like life forms all their fame,
Yet looks not life, for they are still the same.
She woke at length, but not as sleepers wake,
Rather the dead, for life seem'd something new,
A strange sensation which she must partake
Perforce, since whatsoever met her view
Struck not on memory, though a heavy ache
Lay at her heart, whose earliest beat still true
Brought back the sense of pain without the cause,
For, for a while, the furies made a pause.
She look'd on many a face with vacant eye,
On many a token without knowing what;
She saw them watch her without asking why,
And reck'd not who around her pillow sat,
Not speechless, though she spoke not; not a sigh
Relieved her thoughts; dull silence and quick chat
Were tried in vain by those who served; she gave
No sign, save breath, of having left the grave.
Her handmaids tended, but she heeded not;
Her father watch'd, she turn'd her eyes away;
She recognised no being, and no spot
However dear or cherish'd in their day;
They changed from room to room, but all forgot,
Gentle, but without memory she lay :
And yet those eyes, which they would fain be weaning,
Back to old thoughts, seem'd full of fearful meaning.
At last a slave bethought her of a harp;
The harper came, and tuned his instrument;
At the first notes, irregular and sharp,
On him her flashing eyes a moment bent;
Then to the wall she turn'd as if to warp
Her thoughts from sorrow through her heart re-sent, And he begun a long low island song
Of ancient days, ere tyranny grew strong.
Anon her thin wan fingers beat the wall
In time to his old tune; he changed the theme,
And sung of love; the fierce name struck through all
Her recollection; on her flash'd the dream
Of what she was, and is, if ye could call
To be so being; in a gushing stream
The tears rush'd forth from her o'erclouded brain,
Like mountain mists at length dissolved to rain.
Short solace, vain relief! thought came too quick,
And whirl'd her brain to madness; she arose
As one who ne'er had dwelt among the sick,
And flew at all she met, as on her foes;
But no one ever heard her speak or shriek,
Although her paroxysm drew towards its close:
Hers was a frenzy which disdain'd to rave,
Even when they smote her, in the hope to save.
Yet she betray'd at times a gleam of sense;
Nothing could make her meet her father's face,
Though on all other things with looks intense
She gazed, but none she ever could retrace;
Food she refused, and raiment; no pretence
Avail'd for either; neither change of place,
Nor time, nor skill, nor remedy, could give her
Senses to sleep-the power seem'd gone for ever.
Twelve days and nights she wither'd thus; at last,
Without a groan, or sigh, or glance, to shew
A parting pang, the spirit from her past:
And they who watch'd her nearest could not know The very instant, till the change that cast
Her sweet face into shadow, dull and slow, Glazed o'er her eyes-the beautiful, the black— Oh! to possess such lustre-and then lack!
She died, but not alone; she held within
A second principle of life, which might
Have dawn'd a fair and sinless child of sin;
But closed its little being without light,
And went down to the grave unborn, wherein
Blossom and bough lay wither'd with one blight;
In vain the dews of Heaven descend above
The bleeding flower and blasted fruit of love.
Thus lived thus died she; never more on her
Shall sorrow light, or shame. She was not made
Through years or moons the inner weight to bear,
Which colder hearts endure till they are laid
By age in earth; her days and pleasures were
Brief, but delightful such as had not staid
Long with her destiny; but she sleeps well
By the sea-shore, whereon she loved to dwell
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