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| THOSE days we spent on Lebanon, | |
| Held captive by the sieging snow— | |
| What bright things are forgot and gone, | |
| While these have kept their after-glow! | |
| It seemed but monotone, in truth, | 5 |
| That morning gaze o’er mountain mass, | |
| Our council with the hamlet ’s youth, | |
| The daily sortie up the pass,— | |
| And, last, your father’s fire o’ nights, | |
| Sweet Maiden of the Maronites! | 10 |
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| Sometimes the battling clouds would break, | |
| And from the rifted azure, fair, | |
| We saw an eagle slant, and take, | |
| Broad-winged, the stormy slopes of air. | |
| And once, when winter’s stubborn heart | 15 |
| Half broke in sunshine o’er the place, | |
| We held our bridles to depart, | |
| Eager and gleeful; but your face— | |
| It did not mirror our delights, | |
| O Maiden of the Maronites! | 20 |
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| Bright face! how Arab-wild would glow, | |
| Through shifting mood of storm or calm, | |
| Its beauty, born of sun and snow, | |
| Between the cedar and the palm. | |
| Nor, as I watched its changing thought, | 25 |
| Could alien speech be long disguise; | |
| For ere one English phrase she caught | |
| I learned the Arabic of her eyes— | |
| The love-lore of their dusks and lights, | |
| My Maiden of the Maronites! | 30 |
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| We parted soon, and upward fared, | |
| Snow-fettered, till the pass was ours, | |
| And all beneath us, golden-aired, | |
| Lay Syria, in a dream of flowers. | |
| Then spurred we, for before us burned | 35 |
| White Baalbec’s signal in the noon, | |
| And, ere to wayside camp we turned, | |
| ’Twixt us and you and far Bhâmdun, | |
| All Lebanon raised his icy heights, | |
| My Maiden of the Maronites! | 40 |
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| Yet, still, those days on Lebanon | |
| As steadfast keep their after-glow | |
| As if they owned a summer sun, | |
| And roses blossomed in the snow; | |
| And when, with fire of heart and brain, | 45 |
| And the quick pulse’s speed increased, | |
| And wordless longings, come again | |
| Vision and passion of the East, | |
| I dream—ah! wild are Fancy’s flights, | |
| O Maiden of the Maronites! | 50 |
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