A Reminiscence.
I remember it all, how the spicy breeze1
Blew up from the forests of date and palm,2
And the bird that sang in the lotus-trees3
Had folded its scarlet wings. What a calm4
Hung over the sea, and the dusky waves5
Beat low on the pearly, milk-white shore,6
As we fancy far down in ocean caves,7
Bright footsteps beat on the emerald floor.8
A cloud as light as a snowy dove9
Sailed into the sunset’s brilliancy,10
And we listened rapt to the song of love11
The bulbul sang on a banyan tree.12
And he said, “ Dear love, at last my own,13
There is not another on earth so fair ;”14
And he took the pomegranate flowers that shone15
Like drops of flame in my jetty hair.16
Then he called me his darling, his wayward child,17
And kissed my fingers one by one,18
And I worshipped him then with a passion wild,19
As the Persian worships the glorious sun.20
And I cannot tell how the anger came21
That raged like a demon in my breast—22
But I think of it now with a flush of shame,23
How I filled my life with this mad unrest.24
Then bitter words from my passionate lips,25
Fell fast in a shower of withering scorn,26
That followed him as a pirate ship27
Might follow the rosy light of morn :28
Then I turned and fled, and we never met29
Since I left him there ’neath the cocoa’s shade,30
But the ghost of a pitiful sad regret31
Has followed, where’er my feet have strayed.32
Oh ! beautiful yet as a poet’s dream,33
Is that tropical isle far over the sea,34
Where I sat with my love and watched the gleam35
Of a scarlet wing in the lotus-tree ;36
But I see no longer the groves of palm,37
Or the cloud as light as a snowy dove,38
And feel no more the air of balm,39
Or list to the bulbul’s song of love.40
And I am alone. Ah ! I shattered my heart41
When I left him—and sadder than all is this,42
That my own hand tore love’s chain apart,43
And dashed from my lips the cup of bliss.44