Page:The Works of Lord Byron (ed. Coleridge, Prothero) - Volume 5.djvu/644

604 And all our dreams of better life above

But close in one eternal gush of Love.

VII.

There sat the gentle savage of the wild,

In growth a woman, though in years a child,

As childhood dates within our colder clime,

Where nought is ripened rapidly save crime;

The infant of an infant world, as pure

From Nature—lovely, warm, and premature;

Dusky like night, but night with all her stars;

Or cavern sparkling with its native spars;

With eyes that were a language and a spell,

A form like Aphrodite's in her shell,

With all her loves around her on the deep,

Voluptuous as the first approach of sleep;

Yet full of life—for through her tropic cheek

The blush would make its way, and all but speak;

The sun-born blood suffused her neck, and threw

O'er her dear nut-brown skin a lucid hue,

Like coral reddening through the darkened wave,

Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.

Such was this daughter of the southern seas,

Herself a billow in her energies,

To bear the bark of others' happiness,

Nor feel a sorrow till their joy grew less:

Her wild and warm yet faithful bosom knew

No joy like what it gave; her hopes ne'er drew

Aught from Experience, that chill touchstone, whose

Sad proof reduces all things from their hues:

She feared no ill, because she knew it not,

Or what she knew was soon—too soon—forgot:

Her smiles and tears had passed, as light winds pass

O'er lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,

Whose depths unsearched, and fountains from the hill,

Restore their surface, in itself so still,

Until the Earthquake tear the Naiad's cave,

Root up the spring, and trample on the wave,