Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | Persia: Bendemeer, the River | | The River Bendemeer | | Thomas Moore (1779–1852) |
| | (From Lalla Rookh)
THERE ’s a bower of roses by Bendemeer’s stream, | |
| And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; | |
| In the time of my childhood ’t was like a sweet dream, | |
| To sit in the roses and hear the bird’s song. | |
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| That bower and its music I never forget, | 5 |
| But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, | |
| I think, is the nightingale singing there yet? | |
| Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer? | |
| |
| No, the roses soon withered that hung o’er the wave, | |
| But some blossoms were gathered, while freshly they shone, | 10 |
| And a dew was distilled from their flowers, that gave | |
| All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone. | |
| |
| Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies, | |
| An essence that breathes of it many a year; | |
| Thus bright to my soul, as ’t was then to my eyes, | 15 |
| Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer! | | | | |
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