Fair garden, once which wore perpetual green,
Where all sweet flowers through all the year were found,
And all fair fruits were through all seasons seen;
A place of Paradise, where each device
Of emulous art with nature strove to vie;
And nature, on her part,
Call'd forth new powers wherewith to vanquish art.
The Swerga-God himself, with envious eye,
Survey'd those peerless gardens in their prime;
Nor ever did the Lord of Light,
Who circles Earth and Heaven upon his way,
Behold from eldest time a goodlier sight
Than were the groves which Baly, in his might,
Made for his chosen place of solace and delight.
It was a Garden still beyond all price,
Even yet it was a place of Paradise :-
For where the mighty Ocean could not spare,
There had he, with his own creation,
Sought to repair his work of devastation.
And here were coral bowers,
And grots of madrepores,
And banks of spunge, as soft and fair to eye
As e'er was mossy bed
Whereon the Wood-nymphs lay
Their languid limbs in summer's sultry hours.
Here, too, were living flowers
Which, like a bud compacted,
Their purple cups contracted,
And now in open blossom spread,
Stretch'd like green anthers many a seeking head.
And aborets of jointed stone was there,
And plants of fibres fine, as silkworm's thread;
Yea, beautiful as Mermaid's golden hair
Upon the waves dispread:
Others that, like the broad bannana growing,
Rais'd their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue,
Like streamers wide out-flowing.
And whatsoe'r the depths of Ocean hide
From human eyes, Ladurlad there espied,
Trees of the deep, and shrubs and fruits and flowers,
Wherewith the Sea-nymphs love their locks to braid,
When to their father's hall, at festival
Repairing, they, in emulous array,
Their charms display,
To grace the banquet, and the solemn day.
O READER! hast thou ever stood to see
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Order'd by an intelligence so wise,
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear..
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And in this wisdom of the Holly Tree
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperites I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly Tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly Tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the Holly Tree.
THALABA'S HOME IN THE DESERT.
It was the wisdom and the will of Heaven,
That, in a lonely tent, had cast
The lot of Thalaba.
There might his soul develope best
Its strengthening energies;
There might he from the world
Keep his heart pure and uncontaminate,
Till at the written hour he should be found
Fit servant of the Lord, without a spot.
Years of his youth, how rapidly ye fled
In that beloved solitude!
Is the morn fair, and doth the freshening breeze
Flow with cool current o'er his cheek?
Lo! underneath the broad-leav'd sycamore
With lids half-clos'd he lies,
Dreaming of days to come.
His dog beside him, in mute blandishment,
Now licks his listless hand;
Now lifts an anxious and expectant eye,
Courting the wonted caress.
Or comes the father of the rains
From his caves in the uttermost west,
Comes he in darkness and storms?
When the blast is loud,
When the waters fill
The traveller's tread in the sands,
When the pouring shower
Streams adown the roof,
When the door-curtain hangs in heavier folds,
When the outstrain'd tent flags loosely,
Within there is the embers' cheerful glow,
heerful glow,
The sound of the familiar voice,
The song that lightens toil,-
Domestic peace and comfort are within.
Under the common shelter, on dry sand,
The quiet camels ruminate their food;
From Moath falls the lengthening cord,
As patiently the old man
Entwines the strong palm-fibres; by the hearth
The damsel shakes the coffee-grains,
That with warm fragrance fill the tent;
And while, with dexterous fingers, Thalaba
Shapes the green basket, haply at his feet
Her favourite kidling gnaws the twig,
Forgiven plunderer, for Oneiza's sake! 27*
Or when the winter torrent rolls
Down the deep-channell'd rain-course, foamingly,
Dark with its mountain spoils,
With bare feet pressing the wet sand,
There wanders Thalaba,
The rushing flow, the flowing roar,
Filling his yielded faculties;
A vague, a dizzy, a tumultuous joy.
Or lingers it a vernal brook
Gleaming o'er yellow sands?
Beneath the lofty bank reclin'd,
With idle eye he views its little waves,
Quietly listening to the quiet flow;
While, in the breathings of the stirring gale,
The tall canes bend above.
Floating like streamers on the wind
Their lank uplifted leaves.
Nor rich, nor poor, was Moath; God had given
Enough, and blest him with a mind content.
No hoarded gold disquieted his dreams;
But ever round his station he beheld
Camels that knew his voice,
And home-birds, grouping at Oneiza's call,
And goats that, morn and eve,
Came with full udders to the damsel's hand.
Dear child! the tent beneath whose shade they dwelt
It was her work; and she had twin'd
His girdle's many hues;
And he had seen his robe
Grow in Oneiza's loom.
How often, with a memory-mingled joy
Which made her mother live before his sight,
He watch'd her nimble fingers thread the woof!
Or at the hand-mill, when she knelt and toil'd,
Tost the thin cake on spreading palm,
Or fix'd it on the glowing oven's side
With bare wet arm, and safe dexterity.
'T is the cool evening hour:
The tamarind from the dew
Sheathes its young fruit, yet green.
Before their tent the mat is spread,
The old man's awful voice
Intones the holy book.
What if beneath no lamp-illumin'd dome,
Its marble walls bedeck'd with flourish'd truth,
Azure and gold adornment? sinks the word
With deeper influence from the Imam's voice,
Where in the day of congregation, crowds
Perform the duty-task?
Their father is their priest,
The stars of heaven their point of prayer,
And the blue firmament
The glorious temple, where they feel
The present deity!
Yet through the purple glow of eve
Shines dimly the white moon.
The slacken'd bow, the quiver, the long lance,
Rest on the pillar of the tent.
Knitting light palm-leaves for her brother's brow,
The dark-eyed damsel sits;
The old man tranquilly
Up his curl'd pipe inhales
The tranquillizing herb.
So listen they the reed of Thalaba,
While his skill'd fingers modulate
The low, sweet, soothing, melancholy tones.
Scott's poetry possesses nearly the same qualities for which his novels are remarkable. It abounds in romantic narrative, picturesque description, and characters admirably delineated; and sometimes has scenes of deep feeling. His versification is easy and rapid in its flow, and his pages are full of bustling, various, vivid intererst, which his power in the display of true human nature enables him to excite and continue, almost without artifice or effort, in the mind of his reader.
His poetry is pure in its moral spirit, just in its sentiments, affectionate, noble, and friendly in its thoughts and feelings.
Ir thou would'st view fair Melrose aright,
Go visit it by the pale moon-light;
For the gay beams of lightsome day
Gild, but to flout, the ruins gray.
When the broken arches are black in night,
And each shafted oriel glimmers white;
When the cold light's uncertain shower
Streams on the ruined central tower;
When buttress and buttress alternately,
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