Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1823.pdf/103

And such a brow and such an eye
As fit a young divinity;
A brow like twilight's darkening line,
An eye like morning's first sunshine,
Now glancing thro' the veil of dreams
As sudden light at day-break streams,
And richer than the mingled shade
By gem, and gold, and purple made;
His orient wings closed o'er his head,
    Like that bird's, bright with every dye,
Whose home, as Persian bards have said,
    Is fix'd in scented Araby.
Some dreams is passing o'er him now—
A sudden flush is on his brow;
And from his lip came murmur'd words,
Low, but sweet as the light lute chords
When o'er its strings the night winds glide
To woo the roses by its side.
He, the fair boy god, whose nest
Is in the water-lily's breast;
He of the many-arrowed bow,
Of the joys that come and go
Like the leaves, and of the sighs
Like the winds of summer skies,
Blushes like the birds of spring,
Soon seen and soon vanishing;
He of hopes, and he of fears,
He of smiles, and he of tears—
Young Camdeo, he has brought
A sweet dream of coloured thought,
One of love and woman's power,
To Mandalla's sleeping hour.
    Joyless and dark was his jewelled throne
When Mandalla awakened and found him alone.
He drank the perfume that around him swept,
'Twas not sweet as the sigh he drank as he slept;
There was music, but where was the voice, at whose thrill
Every pulse in his veins was throbbing still?
Dim was the home at his native star
While the light of woman and love was afar;
And lips of the rosebud, and violet eyes
Are the sunniest flowers in Paradise.
He veiled the light of his glorious race
In a mortal's form and a mortal's face,
And 'mid earth's loveliest sought for one
Who might dwell in his hall and share in his throne.

⁠End of the First Part.⁠L. E. L.