The Poems of Emma Lazarus Volume I Part 18

Light silken curtain, colorless and soft, Dreamlike before me floating! what abides Behind thy pearly veil's Opaque, mysterious woof?

Where sleek red kine, and dappled, crunch day-long Thick, luscious blades and purple clover-heads, Nigh me I still can mark Cool fields of beaded gra.s.s.

No more; for on the rim of the globed world I seem to stand and stare at nothingness.

But songs of unseen birds And tranquil roll of waves

Bring sweet a.s.surance of continuous life Beyond this silvery cloud. Fantastic dreams, Of tissue subtler still Than the wreathed fog, arise,

And cheat my brain with airy vanishings And mystic glories of the world beyond.

A whole enchanted town Thy baffling folds conceal--

An Orient town, with slender-steepled mosques, Turret from turret springing, dome from dome, Fretted with burning stones, And trellised with red gold.

Through s.p.a.cious streets, where running waters flow, Sun-screened by fruit-trees and the broad-leaved palm, Past the gay-decked bazaars, Walk turbaned, dark-eyed men.

Hark! you can hear the many murmuring tongues, While loud the merchants vaunt their gorgeous wares.

The sultry air is spiced With fragrance of rich gums,

And through the lattice high in yon dead wall, See where, unveiled, an arch, young, dimpled face, Flushed like a musky peach, Peers down upon the mart!

From her dark, ringleted and bird-poised head She hath cast back the milk-white silken veil: 'Midst the blank blackness there She blossoms like a rose.

Beckons she not with those bright, full-orbed eyes, And open arms that like twin moonbeams gleam?

Behold her smile on me With honeyed, scarlet lips!

Divine Scheherazade! I am thine.

I come! I come!--Hark! from some far-off mosque The shrill muezzin calls The hour of silent prayer,

And from the lattice he hath scared my love.

The lattice vanisheth itself--the street, The mart, the Orient town; Only through still, soft air

That cry is yet prolonged. I wake to hear The distant fog-horn peal: before mine eyes Stands the white wall of mist, Blending with vaporous skies.

Elusive gossamer, impervious Even to the mighty sun-G.o.d's keen red shafts!

With what a jealous art Thy secret thou dost guard!

Well do I know deep in thine inmost folds, Within an opal hollow, there abides The lady of the mist, The Undine of the air--

A slender, winged, ethereal, lily form, Dove-eyed, with fair, free-floating, pearl-wreathed hair, In waving raiment swathed Of changing, irised hues.

Where her feet, rosy as a sh.e.l.l, have grazed The freshened gra.s.s, a richer emerald glows: Into each flower-cup Her cool dews she distills.

She knows the tops of jagged mountain-peaks, She knows the green soft hollows of their sides, And unafraid she floats O'er the vast-circled seas.

She loves to bask within the moon's wan beams, Lying, night-long upon the moist, dark earth, And leave her seeded pearls With morning on the gra.s.s.

Ah! that athwart these dim, gray outer courts Of her fantastic palace I might pa.s.s, And reach the inmost shrine Of her chaste solitude,

And feel her cool and dewy fingers press My mortal-fevered brow, while in my heart She poured with tender love Her healing Lethe-balm!

See! the close curtain moves, the spell dissolves!

Slowly it lifts: the dazzling sunshine streams Upon a newborn world And laughing summer seas.

Swift, snowy-breasted sandbirds twittering glance Through crystal air. On the horizon's marge, Like a huge purple wraith, The dusky fog retreats.

THE ELIXIR.

"Oh brew me a potion strong and good!

One golden drop in his wine Shall charm his sense and fire his blood, And bend his will to mine."

Poor child of pa.s.sion! ask of me Elixir of death or sleep, Or Lethe's stream; but love is free, And woman must wait and weep.

SONG.

Venus.

Frosty lies the winter-landscape, In the twilight golden-green.