Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1836/The Hindoo Girl's Song

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

19

THE HINDOO GIRL’S SONG.

This song alludes to a well-known superstition among the young Hindoo girls. They make a little boat out of a cocoa-nut shell, place a small lamp and flowers within this tiny ark of the heart, and launch it upon the Ganges. If it float out of sight with its lamp still burning, the omen is prosperous; if it sinks, the love of which it questions, is ill-fated.

Float on—float on—my haunted bark,
    Above the midnight tide;
Bear softly o’er the waters dark
    The hopes that with thee glide.

Float on—float on—thy freight is flowers,
    And every flower reveals
The dreaming of my lonely hours,
    The hope my spirit feels.

Float on—float on—thy shining lamp,
    The light of love, is there;
If lost beneath the waters damp,
    That love must then despair.

Float on—beneath the moonlight float
    The sacred billows o’er:
Ah, some kind spirit guards my boat,
    For it has gained the shore.

---