LAMARTINE TO MADAME JORELLE.
Reading edition
FROM THE FRENCH.
BY VIRGINIA.
What! offer thee the tribute of my numbers? Thou daughter of the East! whose infancy The warring desert winds rocked to its slumbers— Dost thou demand incense of Poesy? Flower of Aleppo! whom the Bulbul choosing Would wander from his worshiped rose of May, O'er thy fair chalice her remembrance losing, To languish 'mid thy leaves his moonlight lay! Bear odors to the balm pure sweets exhaling? Hang on the orange bough a riper load? Lend fires to Syria's East at dawn unveiling? Pave with new stars [1] the Night's all-glittering road? No verses here!—Verse would despair of raising Aught save an image dark and faint of thee; But gently in yon basin's mirror gazing Behold thyself! Embodied Poesy! When through the kiosque's grated ogive straying, The sea-breeze mingles with the Moka's fume, Where softly o'er thy form the moonbeams playing Glance on thy couch, rich from Palmyra's loom— When on the jasmine tube thy lip half closes, Veiled with its golden threads in bright array, While ruffling at thy breath, fragrant with roses, Murmur the drops within the Narquité— When as winged perfumes rise into thy brain, In light caressing clouds around thee wreathing All love's and youth's lost visions throng again, An atmosphere of dreams thy listeners breathing— When in thy tale the Arab steed forth starting Yields foaming to thy curb of infancy, And that triumphant glance obliquely darting Equals the summer-lightning of his eye— When thy fair arm, of loveliest symmetry, Supports the fairer brow in thought reclining, While gleams with diamond fires thy poniard nigh In quick reflection of the torch's shining— Naught is there in the murmured words of feeling, Naught in the Poet's ever dreaming brow, Naught in pure sighs from purest bosoms stealing, Naught redolent of Poesy as thou! With me the age has flown when Love, life's flower, Perfumes the heart—my warmest accents falter, And beauty o'er my soul has lost her power— Cold is the light I kindle on her altar! The harp is this chilled bosom's only queen, But how would homage from its depths have burst In gushing minstrelsy at bright sixteen, If then these eyes had rested on thee first! How many stanzas had thy lover given To one sweet vaporous wreath that lately graced Thy meditative lip, or how had striven To stay that form by unseen artist traced! That shadow's vague enchanting outline cast On yonder wall, to arrest with poet's finger Thy beauty's mystic image fading fast, As round thy form fond moonbeams cease to linger!