Page:Landon in Literary Gazette 1823.pdf/148



And when night came the isle was lighted up With myriads of glowing natural lamps, A beautiful green brilliance, which the moon Veined with pure crystal, and the many stars Like glories scattered o'er the midnight sky. Just in the middle of the sunny Isle, Lonely and fragrant, stood one graceful tree, A rose accacia, whose pink boughs were linked By silver fetters of the jessamine: Together they had formed a perfumed bower, A green turf, dropped with violets, the floor. And there a radiant creature dwelt, a Girl Lovely as love's first likeness, innocent As the white antelope, whose large dark eyes, Or the dove's softer blue ones, gave alone Her own deep looks of tenderness again. She dwelt a fairy in a fairy Isle: Her only knowledge, that she knew the Spring Brought blossoms, and the Summer fruit; that night Was beautiful with stars and with the moon; That the sun rose over the hill of palms, And sank in the red billows of the sea; No other language than some soft sweet sounds She had caught from the voices of the birds When singing to the morning, and the notes Sent from the waterfall, when, like a harp, It held discourse in music with the wind. - - - But a tall ship came over the far sea, And bore the Maiden of the sunny Isle Away from her sweet home, to other lands. And there she dwell, 'mid pleasure and surprise, The loveliest amid the many lovely. To what may youth's first joyance be compared? To daylight, and the glad song of the lark Bursting together,—to a sudden gush Of perfume, till the giddy senses link With overmuch delight,—a dream,—a tale, Of Paradise, told in fair poesy.