Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/232

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Amid the braided tresses shone
    Pale flowers exhaling scented breath,
Like coronals we strew upon
    The friend we lose by early death.
She was not dead who corse-like prest
    That couch of care; but the moon's light
Ne'er could on one more heart-struck rest
    Than her who caught the beam that night.

And there was one of gentle mood
    Who watched that pale and prostrate form;
And as in musing grief she stood
    And marked the wreck of one wild storm,
She fancied that the moon looked down
    With pitying eye upon the bed,
Where like a lily overthrown
    The smitten mourner drooped her head.