Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1834.pdf/46

Rh

Rh

There is famine on earth—there is plague in the air, And all for a woman whose face is too fair." There was silence like that from the tomb, for no sound Was heard from the chieftains who darkened around, When the voice of a woman arose in reply, 'The daughters of Rajahstan know how to die.'

"Day breaks, and the earliest glory of morn Afar o’er the tops of the mountains is borne; Then the young Kishen Kower wandered through the green bowers, That sheltered the bloom of the island of flowers; Where a fair summer palace arose mid the shade, Which a thousand broad trees for the noon-hour had made. Far around spread the hills with their varying hue, From the deepest of purple to faintest of blue; On one side the courts of the Rana are spread, The white marble studded with granite’s deep red; While far sweeps the terrace, and rises the dome, Till lost in the pure clouds above like a home. Beside is a lake covered over with isles, As the face of a beauty is varied with smiles: Some small, just a nest for the heron that springs From the long grass, and flashes the light from its wings; Some bearing one palm-tree, the stately and fair, Alone like a column aloft in the air; While others have shrubs and sweet plants that extend Their boughs to the stream o’er whose mirror they bend. The lily that queen-like uprears to the sun, The loveliest face that his light is upon; While beside stands the cypress, which darkens the wave With a foliage meant only to shadow the grave.

But the isle in the midst was the fairest of all Where ran the carved trellis around the light hall; Where the green creeper’s starry wreaths, scented and bright, Wooed the small purple doves ’mid their shelter to light;