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Are gone by moonlight to the garden-beds,
To gather fresh, cool chaplets for their heads;--
Gay creatures! sweet, tho' mournful, 'tis to see
How each prefers a garland from that tree
Which brings to mind her childhood's innocent day
And the dear fields and friendships far away.
The maid of INDIA, blest again to hold
In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold,[1]
Thinks of the time when, by the GANGES' flood,
Her little playmates scattered many a bud
Upon her long black hair with glossy gleam
Just dripping from the consecrated stream;
While the young Arab haunted by the smell
Of her own mountain flowers as by a spell,--
The sweet Alcaya[2] and that courteous tree
Which bows to all who seek its canopy,[3]
- ↑ "The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-colored Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit Poets with many elegant allusions."--See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv.
- ↑ A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen.--Niebuhr.
- ↑ Of the genus mimosa "which droops its branches whenever any person approaches it, seeming as if it saluted those who retire under its shade."--Niebuhr.
