How {201}beauteous is the star of night
Within the eastern skies,
Like the twinkling glance of the Toorkman's lance,
Or the antelope's azure eyes!
A lamp of love in the heaven above,
That star is fondly streaming;
And the gay kiosk and the shadowy mosque
In the Golden Horn are gleaming.
Young {202}Leila sits in her jasmine bower,
And she hears the bulbul sing,'
As it thrills its throat to the first full note,
That anthems the flowery spring.
She gazes still, as a maiden will,
On that beauteous eastern star:
You might see the throb of her bosom's sob
Beneath the white cymar!
She thinks of him who is far away,--
Her own brave Galiongee,--
Where the billows foam and the breezes roam,
On the wild Carpathian sea.
She thinks of the oath that bound them both
Beside the stormy water;
And the words of love, that in Athens' grove
He spake to the Cadi's daughter.
"My Selim!" thus the maiden said,
"Though severed thus we be,
By the raging deep and the mountain steep,
My soul still yearns to thee.
Thy form so dear is mirrored here
In my heart's pellucid well,
As the rose looks up to Phingari's orb,
Or the moth to the gay gazelle.
"I think {203}of the time when the Kaftan's crime
Our love's young joys o'ertook,
And thy name still floats in the plaintive notes
Of my silver-toned chibouque.
Thy hand is red with the blood it has shed,
Thy soul it is heavy laden;
Yet come, my Giaour, to thy Leila's bower;
Oh, come to thy Turkish maiden!"
A light step trod on the dewy sod,
And a voice was in her ear,
And an arm embraced young Leila's waist--
"Beloved! I am here!"
Like the phantom form that rules the storm,
Appeared the pirate lover,
And his fiery eye was like Zatanai,
As he fondly bent above her.
"Speak, Leila, speak; for my light caïque
Rides proudly in yonder bay;
I have come from my rest to her I love best,
To carry thee, love, away.
The breast of thy lover shall shield thee, and cover
My own jemscheed from harm;
Think'st thou I fear the dark vizier,
Or the mufti's vengeful arm?
"Then droop not, love, nor turn away
From this rude hand of mine!
And Leila looked in her lover's eyes,
And murmured--"I am thine!"
But a gloomy man with a yataghan
Stole through the acacia-blossoms,
And the thrust he made with his gleaming blade
Hath pierced through both their bosoms.
"There! there! thou cursed caitiff Giaour!
There, there, thou false one, lie!"
Remorseless Hassan stands above,
And he smiles to see them die.
They sleep beneath the fresh green turf.
The lover and the lady--
And the maidens wail to hear the tale
Of the daughter of the Cadi!
[Illustration: 216]