ARABIA.
THE ARAB MAID.
While sad suspense and chill delay
Bereave my wounded soul of rest;
New hopes, new fears, from day to day,
By turns assail my lab'ring breast.
My heart, which ardent love consumes,
Throbs with each agonizing thought;
So flutters with entangled plumes,
The lark, in wily meshes caught.
Sir. W. Jones, from the Arabic.
From the dark and sunless caverns
Where earth's waters dwell;
By the palm-trees of the desert,
Springeth forth a well.
Still the shadow of its birth-place
Rests upon the wave,
Haunted with ancestral darkness,
From its central cave.
Never does it know the sunshine,
Dark it is and deep;
In its silent depths at noontide
Do the planets sleep.
Round it lies the sculptured marble
Of some ancient town,
Long since, with its towers and temples,
To the dust gone down.
Yet it shareth with the present;
For the winds that pass,
Catch its freshness, and around it
Grows the pleasant grass.
