TOCHTER DES ORIENTS

This poem was dedicated to my great great grandmother by the renown French poet Alphonse Lemartine.

Thou ! the child of the East, dost thou ask me for song ?
Thou ! born where the desert wind sweepeth along ;
The flower of the gardens the bulbul might choose
For the opening blossom his love music woos.

We bring back no balm ‘scaped the odorous fold.
Nor fruit to the orange tree heavy with gold ;
Would we offer the orient day-break more light?
Or stars to the sky that is glorious with night ?

No, song comes not hither ; but would thy look prove.
All poesy treasures of lovely and love.
Look down on the water wherein thou art shown.
Ah! song hasn o beauty to equal thine own.

When thou leanest in thy kiosque, whose lattice at night.
Admits the cool breeze, the moon’s silver light,
A mat for thy seat, which Palmyra has wrought,
When the moka, just heated beside thee is brought.

When thy hands to thy rose lip, half closing, uphold
The pipe of the jasmine wood fretted with gold,
Thy sweet mouth in breathing the breath of the rose,
Makes the waves through the shell murmur soft as it flows.

When the winged cloud floats and caresses thee round,
And the odorous vapor thy senses has bound,
What visions of youth and of love seem to be,
And float in the air that is breathing from thee.

When thou speakest of the Arab steed sweeping the plain,
Though thy childish hand governs the foam-covered rein,
The ray of its eyes which in wild triumph shine,
Is neither so soft nor so brilliant as thine.

When thine arm like the polished urn’s handle of snow,
Supports on thy elbow thy exquisite brow ;
When thy lamp at the midnight flings sudden its rays.
On the hilt of thy poniard where diamonds blaze

There is naught in the sounds that all language hath brought.
Nor in the bard’s brow like mine heavy with thought,
Naught in the sweet sighs of a young and pure heart.
So poetry breathing, so pure as thou art.

I have past the glad period of life’s early bloom ;
Love expands, and the young heart is filled with perfume.
The delight is grown cold with which mine eyes meet
All beauty—it is but a ray without heat.

To my harp all the love of my worn heart belongs ;
At sixteen how I should have lavished my songs.
On every sweet vapor the scented winds bear.
Which thy soft lips while musing exhale on the air.

Or bidding that form, the enchanted endure.
Which a viewless hand traces in outline obscure.
When the stars of the night, whose gleams round thee fall.
Fling, tracing in flinging, thy shade on the wall.