(BY PRINCE MOHAMMED BEN ABAD)
With jocund heart and cheerful brow
I used to hail the festal morn—
How must Mohammed greet it now?—
A prisoner helpless and forlorn.
While these dear maids in beauty's bloom,
With want opprest, with rags o'erspread,
By sordid labors at the loom
Must earn a poor, precarious bread.
Those feet that never touched the ground,
Till musk or camphor strewed the way,
Now bare and swoll'n with many a wound,
Must struggle through the miry clay.
Those radiant cheeks are veiled in woe,
A shower descends from every eye,
And not a starting tear can flow,
That wakes not an attending sigh.
Fortune, that whilom owned my sway,
And bowed obsequious to my nod,
Now sees me destined to obey,
And bend beneath oppression's rod.
Ye mortals with success elate,
Who bask in hope's delusive beam,
Attentive view Mohammed's fate,
And own that bliss is but a dream.