C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Song: ‘The moon shines bright aloft’

From ‘Aladdin’: Translation of Sir Theodore Martin

THE MOON shines bright aloft

O’er wood and dingle,

The birds in cadence soft

Their warblings mingle;

The breezes from the hill

Come sighing, sighing,

And to their voice the rill

Sends sweet replying.

But one flower in the wold

Droops wan and sickly;

Death at its heart is cold—

’Twill perish quickly.

But yonder, chaplets twine

Forever vernal,

And in God’s presence shine

Through springs eternal.

O moonlight pale! thy rays

Soon, softly creeping,

Shall paint my paler face

In death-trance sleeping.

Smile then on Death, that he

May gently take me,

And where no sorrows be,

Ere morn awake me!

Droops on its stem the flower:

Come, sweetly stealing,

Angel of death, and shower

Soft dews of healing!

Oh, come! Beneath thy blight

My soul shall quail not!

Yonder is endless light,

And joys that fail not!