OVER the brow of Lebanon, In a blaze of splendor sank the sun, Its gold on the valley glowing; After a day now dark, now fair, With a wild sirocco sweeping bare The mountain paths, as we journeyed there, To stately Baalbec going. All in the dusk our tents gleamed white Where lone Barada lulled the night, Cool from the snows of Hermon; Around us, rose and hawthorn blooms Hung, sad, above Abila's tombs; And her ruined temples, through the glooms, Looked with a voiceless sermon. The wild wind fell; and, past compare, Up in the wonderful depths of air Floated the starry islands; — Floated so calm, so bright, so near, From the curtained door I leaned to hear, Perchance, some song of the blessed, clear, In the great o'erarching silence. By the tethered horses, from man to man Speech and laughter alternate ran, Where the muleteers were lying; But story and merriment fainter grew, Till the only sound the tent-court knew Was the dragoman's footfall echoing through, Or the wind in the walnut sighing. Listen! what steals on the air? Has the breeze Wafted down from the shining seas A song of the seraphs seven? — Soft and low as the soothing fall Of the fountains of Eden; sweet as the call Of angels over the jasper wall That welcomes a soul to heaven. It swells! it mounts! it fills the vale! The hawthorns tremble; the roses pale At its passionate, glorious mazes! — 'Tis a Peri hymning of Paradise! 'Tis the plaint of a spirit that yearns and sighs, Though lapped in the nameless bliss of the skies, For a lost love's embraces! A moment's hush with the falling strain; — And the wild wind, rising, roared amain O'er the stream and the covert shady! Breathless I stood in the curtained door, But the ravishing melody came no more; And the dragoman, crossing the tent before, Cried, 'The Nightingale, my lady.' Yet still, when April suns are low, I hear the wild sirocco blow, And see, in memory's vision, Abila's ruins strew the hill; The stars the Syrian azure fill; While, listening, all my pulses thrill As soars that song Elysian. | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TO DEAN-BOURN, A RUDE RIVER IN DEVON, BY WHICH ... HE LIVED by ROBERT HERRICK LONE DOG by IRENE RUTHERFORD MCLEOD THE TWO VOICES by ALFRED TENNYSON ON THE RHINE by MATTHEW ARNOLD EPISTLE FROM ONE ABSENT EDITOR TO ANOTHER by JOHN GARDINER CALKINS BRAINARD ON A REQUEST OF CHLORIS by ROBERT BURNS |