And by the sweet acacia porch
They drank the softness of the breeze,—
Oh more than lovely are love's dreams,
'Mid lights and blooms and airs like these!
And sometimes she would leave his side,
And like a spirit round him glide:
A light shawl wreathed now round her brow,
Now waving from her hand of snow,
Now zoned around her graceful waist,
And now like fetters round her placed;
And then, flung suddenly aside,
Her many curls, instead, unbound,
Waved in fantastic braids, till loosed,
Her long dark tresses swept the ground;
Then, changing from the soft slow step,
Her white feet bounded on the wind
Like gleaming silver, and her hair
Like a dark banner swept behind;
Or with her sweet voice, sweet like a bird's
When it pours forth its first song in spring,
The one like an echo to the other,
She answered the sigh of her soft lute-string,
And with eyes that darkened in gentlest tears,
Like the dewy light in the dark-eyed dove,
Would she sing those sorrowing songs that breathe
Some history of unhappy love.
Yes, thou art mine! Mandalla said[1],—
I have lighted up love in thy youthful heart;
I taught thee its tenderness, now I must teach
Its faith, its grief, and its gloomier part;
And then, from thy earth-stains purified,
In my star and my hall shalt thou reign my bride.
- ↑ again, here, and in the closing passages, speech marks were inserted in the Improvisatrice version
