FROM THE ARABIC .

Ibla, I love thee. On my heavy eye
Thine flashes, like the lightning on the cloud.
I cannot paint thy beauty; for it leaves
All picturing pale. Were I to say the moon
Looks in her midnight glory like thy brow,
Where is the wild, sweet sparkling of thine eye?
Or that the palm is like thy stately form,
Where is thy grace among its waving boughs?
Thy forehead's whiteness is my rising sun;
Thine ebon tresses wreathing it like night,
Like night bewilder me; thy teeth are pearls,
In moist lips rosier than the Indian shell.
But now my world is darkness, for thou 'rt gone!
Thy look was to my life what evening dews
Are to the tamarisk: thy single glance
Went swifter, deeper, to thy lover's heart,
Than spear or scimitar; and still I gaze
Hopeless on thee, as on the glorious moon,
For thou, like her, art bright, like her above me.