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Translated by J. B. Chorley
ALL o’er the harbor gay with flags my restless eyes a-wandering go; | |
| But thine, with laughing glances, seek the plume that droops across my brow! | |
| “Fain of thy deserts I would hear, while waves are gurgling round the boat; | |
| Come, paint me something of the land from whence that ostrich tuft was brought!” | |
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| Thou wilt? I shade my brow awhile beneath the hollow of my hand: | 5 |
| Let fall the curtain of thine eyes; lo! there the deserts’ glowing sand! | |
| The camping places of the tribe that gave me birth, thine eye discerns; | |
| Bare in her sun-scorched widow’s weed around thee now Zahara burns. | |
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| Who travelled through the Lion-land? Of hoofs and claws ye see the prints; | |
| Timbuctoo’s caravan! the spear far on the horizon, yonder, glints; | 10 |
| Wave banners; purple through the dust streams out the Emir’s princely dress, | |
| And grave, with sober stateliness, the camel’s head o’erlooks the press. | |
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| In serried troop, where sand and sky together melt, they hurry on; | |
| Already in the sulphurous mist the lurid distance gulps them down. | |
| Yet by the riders’ track too well ye trace the flying onward host; | 15 |
| Full thickly marked, the sand is strewn with many a thing their speed has lost. | |
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| The first—a dromedary, dead—a ghastly milestone, marks their course; | |
| Perched on the bulk, with naked throats, two vultures revel, shrieking hoarse, | |
| And eager for the meal delayed, yon costly turban little heed, | |
| Lost by an Arab youth, and left in the wild journey’s desperate speed. | 20 |
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| Now bits of rich caparisons the thorny tamarind bushes strew; | |
| And nearer, drained, and white with dust, a water-skin, rent through and through; | |
| Who ’s he that kicks the gaping thing, and furious stares with quivering lid? | |
| It is the black-haired Sheik, who rules the land of Biledulgerid. | |
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| He closed the rear; the courser fell, and cast him off, and fled away; | 25 |
| All panting to his girdle hangs his favorite wife, in wild deray; | |
| How flashed her eye, as, raised to selle, at dawn she smiled upon her lord! | |
| Now through the waste he drags her on, as from a baldric trails a sword. | |
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| The sultry sand that but at night the lion’s shaggy tail beats down, | |
| The hair of yonder helpless thing now sweeps, in tangled tresses strown; | 30 |
| It gathers in her flow of locks, burns up her sweet lips’ spicy dew; | |
| Its cruel flints, with sanguine streaks, her tender dragging limbs imbrue. | |
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| And now the stronger Emir fails! with boiling blood his pulses strain; | |
| His eye is gorged, and on his brow, blue glistening, beats the throbbing vein; | |
| With one devouring kiss, his last, he wakes the drooping Moorish child; | 35 |
| Then flings himself, with furious curse, down on the red unsheltered Wild. | |
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| But she, amazed, looks round her:—“Ha! what sight? My lord, awake, behold! | |
| The Heaven, that seemed all brazen, how like steel it glitters, clear and cold! | |
| The desert’s yellow glare is lost! All round the dazzling light appears,— | |
| It is a glitter like the sea’s, that with its breakers rocks Algiers! | 40 |
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| “It surges, sparkles, like a stream! I scent its moisture cool from hence; | |
| A wide-spread mirror yonder gleams! Awake! It is the Nile perchance. | |
| Yet no! We travelled south, indeed;—then surely ’t is the Senegal! | |
| Or, can it be the ocean free, whose billows yonder rise and fall? | |
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| “What matter? still ’t is water! Wake! My cloak ’s already flung away,— | 45 |
| Awake, my lord! and let us on—this deadly scorching to allay! | |
| A cooling draught, a freshening bath, with life anew will nerve our limbs, | |
| To reach yon fortress towering high, that distance now with rack bedims. | |
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| “I see around its portals gray the crimson banners, waving, set; | |
| Its battled ramparts rough with spears; its hold with mosque and minaret; | 50 |
| All in its roads, with lofty masts, slow rocking, many a galley lies; | |
| Our travellers crowd its rich bazaars, and fill its caravansaries. | |
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| “Beloved! I am faint with thirst! wake up! the twilight nears!”—Alas! | |
| He raised his eye once more, and groaned—“It is the desert’s mocking glass! | |
| A cheat, the play of spiteful fiends, more cruel than the Smoom!”—All hoarse | 55 |
| He stopped:—the vision fades!—she sank, the dying girl, upon his corse! | |
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| —Thus of his native land the Moor in Venice Haven oft would tell: | |
| On Desdemona’s eager ear, the Captain’s story thrilling fell. | |
| She started, as the gondola jarred on the quay with trembling prow; | |
| He, silent, to the palace led the heiress of Brabantio. | 60 |
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