With its pillars and marble colonnade,
Its bright fountain beneath the palm-tree's shade;
Fair statues and pictured porticos,
Where the air came sweet from the gardens of rose;
Silver lamps; and vases filled
With perfumed waters, from odours distilled;
And the tapestry hung round each gorgeous room
Was the richest of Tyre's purple loom;
And all that his love, and all that his care,
Had had such pride in making fair:
And then he thought how life would glide,
In such a home, and with such a bride,
Like a glad tale told to the lute's soft tone,—
Never hath happiness dwelt alone.
And swifter he urged his courser's flight,
When he thought on who was waiting that night.
But once beneath a spreading shade,
He stopped his panting steed for breath;
And as a flickering moon-beam played,
He saw it was a place of death.
The lonely cypress-tree was keeping
The watch of its eternal weeping;
And at the head was a grey cross;
And scattered o'er the covering moss
Lay withered flower and faded wreath,
That told some maiden slept beneath.
The youth took one or two dried leaves—
Perhaps, thought he, some lover grieves
O'er her who rests, and now can know
No more of human joy or wo.
And answered to his thought a sound,
A murmur from the plaining ground—
He started! oh, it could but be
The wind that swept the cypress tree.
And almost midnight's hour was come,
Ere he had reached his maiden's home.
All, saving one old slave, were sleeping—
Who, like some stealthy phantom creeping,
Silently and slowly led
The wondering stranger to his bed:
Just pointed to his supper fare,
And the piled wood, and left him there.
