Poetry Explorer- Classic Contemporary Poetry, THE SONG BY THE BARADA, by EDNA DEAN PROCTOR


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Classic and Contemporary Poetry

THE SONG BY THE BARADA, by                     Poet's Biography
First Line: Over the brow of lebanon
Last Line: As soars that song elysian.
Alternate Author Name(s): Dean
Subject(s): Nature


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.





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