The improvisatrice; and other poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Softly through the pomegranate groves
Came the gentle song of the doves;
Shone the fruit in the evening light,
Like Indian rubies, blood-red and bright;

Shook the date-trees each tufted head,
As the passing wind their green nuts shed;
And, like dark columns, amid the sky
The giant palms ascended on high:
And the mosque's gilded minaret
Glistened and glanced as the daylight set.
Over the town a crimson haze
Gathered and hung of the evening's rays;
And far beyond, like molten gold,
The burning sands of the desert rolled.
Far to the left, the sky and sea
Mingled their gray immensity;
And with flapping sail and idle prow
The vessels threw their shades below
Far down the beach, where a cypress grove
Casts its shade round a little cove,

Darkling and green, with just a space
For the stars to shine on the water's face,
A small bark lay, waiting for night
And its breeze to waft and hide its flight.
Sweet is the burthen, and lovely the freight,
For which those furled-up sails await,
To a garden, fair as those
Where the glory of the rose
Blushes, charmed from the decay
That wastes other blooms away;
Gardens of the fairy tale
Told, till the wood-fire grows pale,
By the Arab tribes, when night,
With its dim and lovely light,
And its silence, suiteth well
With the magic tales they tell.

Through that cypress avenue,
Such a garden meets the view,
Filled with flowers—flowers that seem
Lighted up by the sunbeam;
Fruits of gold and gems, and leaves
Green as hope before it grieves
O'er the false and broken-hearted,
All with which its youth has parted,
Never to return again,
Save in memories of pain!