Page:Thalaba the Destroyer 1809 Vol 1 - Southey.djvu/22

I. 4

Who at this untimely hour
Wanders o’er the desert sands?
No station is in view,
Nor palm-grove islanded amid the waste.
The mother and her child,
The widowed mother and the fatherless boy,
They at this untimely hour
Wander o’er the desert sands.

Alas! the setting sun
Saw Zeinab in her bliss,
Hodeirah’s wife belov’d.
Alas! the wife belov’d,
The fruitful mother late,
Whom when the daughters of Arabia nam’d,
They wished their lot like her’s;
She wanders o’er the desert sands
A wretched widow now,
The fruitful mother of so fair a race,
With only one preserv’d,
She wanders o’er the wilderness.

No tear reliev’d the burthen of her heart;