56
THE IMPROVISATRICE.
What they now might blush to confess,
Yet what made their spring-day's happiness!
Zaide watched her flower-built vessel glide,
Mirrored beneath on the deep-blue tide;
Lovely and lonely, scented and bright,
Like Hope's own bark, all bloom and light.
There's not one breath of wind on the air,
The heavens are cloudless, the waters are fair,
No dew is falling; yet woe to that shade!
The maiden is weeping—her lamp has decayed.
Hark to the ring of the cymetar!
It tells that the soldier returns from afar.
Down from the mountains the warriors come:
Hark to the thunder-roll of the drum!—
