Page:Tales and Historic Scenes.pdf/72

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Yet thence at intervals a voice of wail Is rising, wild and solemn, on the gale. Did thy heart thrill, O Hamet, at the tone? Came it not o'er thee as a spirit's moan: As some loved sound, that long from earth had fled, The unforgotten accents of the dead? E’en thus it rose—and springing from his trance His eager footsteps to the sound advance. He mounts the cliffs, he gains the cavern floor; Its dark green moss with blood is sprinkled o'er: He rushes on—and lo! where Zayda rends Her locks, as o'er her slaughter'd sire she bends, Lost in despair;—yet as a step draws nigh, Disturbing sorrow's lonely sanctity, She lifts her head, and all subdued by grief, Views, with a wild, sad smile, the once-loved chief; While rove her thoughts, unconscious of the past, And every woe forgetting—but the last.

"Com'st thou to weep with me?—for I am left Alone on earth, of every tie bereft. Low lies the warrior on his blood-stain'd bier; His child may call, but he no more shall hear!