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A million tapers flaring bright
From twisted silvers look'd to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the mooned domes aloof

In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd
Hundreds of crescents on the roof

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time
To celebrate the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays
Of darkness, and a brow of pearl
Tressed with redolent ebony,

In

many a dark delicious curl, Flowing beneath her rose-hued zone; The sweetest lady of the time, Well worthy of the golden prime Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Six columns, three on either side,
Pure silver, underpropt a rich

Throne of the massive ore, from which
Down-droop'd, in many a floating fold,
Engarlanded and diaper'd

With inwrought flowers, a cloth of gold.
Thereon, his deep eye laughter-stirr❜d
With merriment of kingly pride,

Sole star of all that place and time,

I saw him - in his golden prime,

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THE GOOD HAROUN ALRASCHID!

ODE TO MEMORY.

1.

THOU who stealest fire
From the fountains of the past,
To glorify the present; oh, haste,
Visit my low desire!

Strengthen me, enlighten me !
I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.

2.

Come not as thou camest of late,
Flinging the gloom of yesternight

On the white day; but robed in soften❜d light
Of orient state.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
Even as a maid, whose stately brow
The dew-impearled winds of dawn have kiss'd,
When she, as thou,

Stays on her floating locks the lovely freight
Of overflowing blooms, and earliest shoots
Of orient green, giving safe pledge of fruits,
Which in wintertide shall star

The black earth with brilliance rare.

3.

Whilome thou camest with the morning mist,
And with the evening cloud,

Showering thy gleaned wealth into my open breast, (Those peerless flowers which in the rudest wind Never grow sear,

When rooted in the garden of the mind,
Because they are the earliest of the year).
Nor was the night thy shroud.

In swret dreams softer than unbroken rest
Thou ddest by the hand thine infant Hope.

The eddying of her garments caught from thee The light of thy great presence; and the cope Of the half-attain'd futurity,

Tho' deep not fathomless.

Was cloven with the million stars which tremble
O'er the deep mind of dauntless infancy.
Small thought was there of life's distress;
For sure she deem'd no mist of earth could dull
Those spirit-thrilling eyes so keen and beautiful:
Sure she was nigher to heaven's spheres.
Listening the lordly music flowing from
The illimitable years.

O strengthen me, enlighten me !
I faint in this obscurity,

Thou dewy dawn of memory.

4.

Come forth I charge thee, arise,

Thou of the many tongues, the myriad eyes! Thou comest not with shows of flaunting vines Unto mine inner eye,

Divinest Memory!

Thou wert not nursed by the waterfall Which ever sounds and shines

A pillar of white light upon the wall

Of purple cliffs, aloof descried:

Come from the woods that belt the gray hill-side,

The seven elms, the poplars four

That stand beside my father's door,
And chiefly from the brook that loves

To purl o'er matted cress and ribbed sand,
Or dimple in the dark of rushy coves,
Drawing into his narrow earthen urn,
In every elbow and turn,

The filter'd tribute of the rough woodland.
O! hither lead thy feet!

Pour round mine ears the livelong bleat
Of the thick-fleeced sheep from wattled folds,
Upon the ridged wolds,

When the first matin-song bath waken'd loud
Over the dark dewy earth forlorn,

What time the amber morn

Forth gushes from beneath a low-hung cloud.

5.

Large dowries doth the raptured eye
To the young spirit present

When first she is wed;

And like a bride of old

In triumph lel,

With music and sweet showers
Of festal flowers,

Unto the dwelling she must sway.
Well hast thou done, great artist Memory,
In setting round thy first experiment

With royal frame-work of wrought gold;
Needs must thou dearly love thy first essay,
And foremost in thy various gallery

Place it, where sweetest sunlight falls
Upon the storied walls;

For the discovery

And newness of thine art so pleased thee,
That all which thou hast drawn of fairest
Or boldest since, but lightly weighs

With thee unto the love thou bearest
The first-born of thy genius. Artist-like,
Ever retiring thou dost gaze

On the prime labor of thine early days:
No matter what the sketch might be;

Whether the high field on the bushless Pike,

Or even a sand-built ridge

Of heaped hills that mound the sea,

Overblown with murmurs harsh,

Or even a lowly cottage whence we see

Stretch'd wide and wild the waste enormous marsh,

Where from the frequent bridge,

Like emblems of infinity,

The trenched waters run from sky to sky;

Or a garden bower'd close

With plaited alleys of the trailing rose,

Long alleys falling down to twilight grots,
Or opening upon level plots

Of crowned lilies, standing near

Purple-spiked lavender:

Whither in after-life retired

From brawling storms,

From weary wind,

With youthful fancy reinspired,

We may

hold converse with all forms

Of the many-sided mind,

And those whom passion hath not blinded,
Subtle-thoughted, myriad-minded.

My friend, with you to live alone,
Were how much better than to own
A crown, a sceptre, and a throne!
O strengthen me, enlighten me!
I faint in this obscurity,
Thou dewy dawn of memory.

SONG.

1.

A SPIRIT haunts the year's last hours
Dwelling amid these yellowing bowers:
To himself he talks;

For at eventide, listening earnestly,
At his work you may hear him sob and sigh
In the walks;

Earthward he boweth the heavy stalks

Of the mouldering flowers:

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i' the earth so chilly
Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

2.

The air is damp, and hush'd, and close,
As a sick man's room when he taketh repose
An hour before death;

My very heart faints and my whole soul grieves
At the moist rich smell of the rotting leaves,
And the breath

Of the fading edges of box beneath,

And the year's last rose.

Heavily hangs the broad sunflower

Over its grave i̇' the earth so chilly;

Heavily hangs the hollyhock,

Heavily hangs the tiger-lily.

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