The Zenana - 3



_    Again, again Murad must wield
His scimetar in battle-field:
And must he leave his lonely flower
To pine in solitary bower?
Has power no aid has wealth no charm,
The weight of absence to disarm?
_    Alas! she will not touch her lute—
What! —sing? —and not for Murad's ear?
_   The echo of the heart is mute,
And that alone makes music dear.
In vain, in vain that royal hall
Is decked as for a festival.
The sunny birds, whose shining wings
Seem as if bathed in golden springs,
Though worth the gems they cost—and fair
As those which knew her earlier care.
The flowers—though there the rose expand
The sweetest depths wind ever fanned.
Ah! earth and sky have loveliest hues—
_    But none to match that dearest red,
Born of the heart, which still renews
_    The life that on itself is fed.
The maiden whom we love bestows
Her magic on the haunted rose.
Such was the colour—when her cheek
Spoke what the lip might never speak.
The crimson flush which could confess
All that we hoped—but dared not guess.
That blush which through the world is known
To love, and to the rose alone—
A sweet companionship, which never
The poet’s dreaming eye may sever.
And there were tulips, whose rich leaves
The rainbow’s dying light receives;
For only summer sun and skies
Could lend to earth such radiant dyes;
But still the earth will have its share,
The stem is green—the foliage fair—
Those coronals of gems but glow
Over the withered heart below—
That one dark spot, like passion’s fire,
Consuming with its own desire.
And pale, as one who dares not turn
Upon her inmost thoughts, and learn,
If it be love their depths conceal,
Love she alone is doomed to feel—
The jasmine droopeth mournfully
Over the bright anemone,
The summer’s proud and sun-burnt child:
In vain the queen is not beguiled,
They waste their bloom. Nadira's eye
Neglects them—let them pine and die.
Ah! birds and flowers may not suffice
The heart that throbs with stronger ties.
Again, again Murad is gone,
Again his young bride weeps alone:
Seeks her old nurse, to win her ear
With magic stories once so dear,
And calls the Almas to her aid.
_    With graceful dance, and gentle singing,
And bells like those some desert home
_    Hears from the camel’s neck far ringing.
Alas! she will not raise her brow;
Yet stay—some spell hath caught her now:
That melody has touched her heart.
Oh, triumph of Zilara’s art;
She listens to the mournful strain,
And bids her sing that song again.

Song.

“My lonely lute, how can I ask
_    For music from thy silent strings?
It is too sorrowful a task,
_    When only swept by memory's wings:
Yet waken from thy charmed sleep,
Although I wake thee but to weep.

“Yet once I had a thousand songs,
_    As now I have but only one.
Ah, love, whate’er to thee belongs.
_   With all life’s other links, has done;
And I can breathe no other words
Than thou hast left upon the chords.

“They say Camdeo’s * place of rest,      *The Indian Cupid
_    When floating down the Ganges’ tide,
Is in the languid lotus breast,
_    Amid whose sweets he loves to hide.
Oh, false and cruel, though divine,
What dost thou in so fair a shrine?

“And such the hearts that thou dost choose,
_    As pure, as fair, to shelter thee;
Alas! they know not what they lose
_    Who chance thy dwelling-place to be.
For, never more in happy dream
Will they float down life's sunny stream.

“My gentle lute, repeat one name,
_    The very soul of love, and thine:
No; sleep in silence, let me frame
_    Some other love to image mine;
Steal sadness from another's tone,
I dare not trust me with my own.

“Thy chords will win their mournful way,
_    All treasured thoughts to them belong;
For things it were so hard to say
_    Are murmured easily in song—
It is for music to impart
The secrets of the burthened heart.

“Go, taught by misery and love,
_    And thou hast spells for every ear:
But the sweet skill each pulse to move,
_    Alas! hath bought its knowledge dear—
Bought by the wretchedness of years,
A whole life dedicate to tears."
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Submitted by Madeleine Quinn on May 16, 2016

Modified on March 05, 2023

3:35 min read
123

Quick analysis:

Scheme Text too long
Closest metre Iambic tetrameter
Characters 4,043
Words 715
Stanzas 8
Stanza Lengths 68, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, 6

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet. Born 14th August 1802 at 25 Hans Place, Chelsea, she lived through the most productive period of her life nearby, at No.22. A precocious child with a natural gift for poetry, she was driven by the financial needs of her family to become a professional writer and thus a target for malicious gossip (although her three children by William Jerdan were successfully hidden from the public). In 1838, she married George Maclean, governor of Cape Coast Castle on the Gold Coast, whence she travelled, only to die a few months later (15th October) of a fatal heart condition. Behind her post-Romantic style of sentimentality lie preoccupations with art, decay and loss that give her poetry its characteristic intensity and in this vein she attempted to reinterpret some of the great male texts from a woman’s perspective. Her originality rapidly led to her being one of the most read authors of her day and her influence, commencing with Tennyson in England and Poe in America, was long-lasting. However, Victorian attitudes led to her poetry being misrepresented and she became excluded from the canon of English literature, where she belongs. more…

All Letitia Elizabeth Landon poems | Letitia Elizabeth Landon Books

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