Thou bidd'st thy blooming sweetness blow
In thorny paths of pain and wo.
But, oh! what joy, when bless'd we rove
Through rosy bowers, and dream of love;
While bliss on every breeze is borne,
To pluck the rose without the thorn;
With gentlest touch its leaves to press,
And raise it to our soft caress!
Oh! thou art still the poet's theme,
And thee a welcome guest we deem,
To grace our feasts and deck our hair,
When Bacchus bids us banish care.
E'en Nature does thy beauties prize,
She steals thy teints to paint the skies;
For rosy-finger'd is the morn
With which the crimson veil is drawn.
The lovely nymphs we always deck
With rosy arms and rosy neck,
rose 'Sultana of the Nightingale,' so justly a favourite with later eastern poets?
"All the country is now full of nightingales, whose amours with roses is an Arabian fable, as well known here as any part of Ovid among us."—Lady Montague's Letters.
"For well may maids of Helle deem
That this can be no earthly flower,
Which mocks the tempest's withering hour,
And buds unshelter'd by a bower;
Nor droops, though Spring refuse her shower
Nor woos the summer beam:
To it the livelong night there sings
A bird unseen, but not remote:
Invisible his airy wings,
But soft as harp that Houri strings
His long, entrancing note!
It were the bulbul; but his throat,
Though mournful, pours not such a strain:
For they who listen cannot leave
The spot, but linger there and grieve
As if they loved in vain!"—Bride of Abydos.
The reader will, I trust, pardon the length of this extract, on account of its enchanting beauty.
