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Literary Gazette, 29th May, 1830, Page 354
ORIGINAL POETRY.
THE FESTIVAL.[1]
The young and the lovely are gathered:
Who shall talk of our wearisome life,
And dwell upon weeds and on weeping—
The struggle, the sorrow, the strife?
The hours of our being are coloured,
And many are coloured with rose;
Though on some be a sign and a shadow,
I list not to speak now of those.
Through the crimson blind steals forth the splendour
Of lamps, like large pearls which some fay
Has swelled with her breath till their lustre,
If more soft, is as bright as of day.
Beneath the verandah are flowers—
Camellias like ivory wrought
With the grace of a young Grecian sculptor,
Who traced what some Oread brought;
And roses—the prodigal summer
Has lavished upon them its bloom,—
O never the East with its spices
Made altar so rich of perfume!
The bright crowd is mingling together—
How gay is the music they bring!
The delicate laugh and the whisper—
The steps that re-echo the string.
The harp to the flute is replying—
'Tis the song of a far-distant land;
But never, in vineyard or valley,
Assembled a lovelier band.
Come thou, with thy glad golden ringlets,
Like rain which is lit by the sun—
With eyes, the bright spirit's bright mirrors—
Whose cheek and the rose-bud are one.
- ↑ This poem appears in The Vow of the Peacock, and Other Poems (1835) with some verses omitted and other alterations.
