The Bakchesarian Fountain and Other Poems | Page 4

left thus forlorn,?The love I feel cannot be told,?For passion, Princess, was I born.?Yield me Giray then; with these tresses?Oft have his wandering fingers played,?My lips still glow with his caresses,?Snatched as he sighed, and swore, and prayed,?Oaths broken now so often plighted!?Hearts mingled once now disunited!?His treason I cannot survive;?Thou seest I weep, I bend my knee,?Ah! if to pity thou'rt alive,?My former love restore to me.?Reply not! thee I do not blame,?Thy beauties have bewitched Giray,?Blinded his heart to love and fame,?Then yield him up to me, I pray,?Or by contempt, repulse, or grief,?Turn from thy love th'ungenerous chief!?Swear by thy faith, for what though mine?Conform now to the Koran's laws,?Acknowledged here within the harem,?Princess, my mother's faith was thine,?By that faith swear to give to Zarem?Giray unaltered, as he was!?But listen! the sad prey to scorn?If I must live, Princess, have care,?A dagger still doth Zarem wear,--?I near the Caucasus was born!"
She spake, then sudden disappeared,?And left the Princess in dismay,?Who scarce knew what or why she feared;?Such words of passion till that day?She ne'er had heard. Alas! was she?To be the ruthless chieftain's prey??Vain was all hope his grasp to flee.?Oh! God, that in some dungeon's gloom?Remote, forgotten, she had lain,?Or that it were her blessed doom?To 'scape dishonour, life, and pain!?How would Maria with delight?This world of wretchedness resign;?Vanished of youth her visions bright,?Abandoned she to fates malign!?Sinless she to the world was given,?And so remains, thus pure and fair,?Her soul is called again to heaven,?And angel joys await it there!

Days passed away; Maria slept?Peaceful, no cares disturbed her, now,--?From earth the orphan maid was swept.?But who knew when, or where, or how??If prey to grief or pain she fell,?If slain or heaven-struck, who can tell??She sleeps; her loss the chieftain grieves,?And his neglected harem leaves,?Flies from its tranquil precincts far,?And with his Tartars takes the field,?Fierce rushes mid the din of war,?And brave the foe that does not yield,?For mad despair hath nerved his arm,?Though in his heart is grief concealed,?With passion's hopeless transports warm.?His blade he swings aloft in air?And wildly brandishes, then low?It falls, whilst he with pallid stare?Gazes, and tears in torrents flow.
His harem by the chief deserted,?In foreign lands he warring roved,?Long nor in wish nor thought reverted?To scene once cherished and beloved.?His women to the eunuch's rage?Abandoned, pined and sank in age;?The fair Grusinian now no more?Yielded her soul to passion's power,?Her fate was with Maria's blended,?On the same night their sorrows ended;?Seized by mute guards the hapless fair?Into a deep abyss they threw,--?If vast her crime, through love's despair,?Her punishment was dreadful too!
At length th'exhausted Khan returned,?Enough of waste his sword had dealt,?The Russian cot no longer burned,?Nor Caucasus his fury felt.?In token of Maria's loss?A marble fountain he upreared?In spot recluse;--the Christian's cross?Upon the monument appeared,?(Surmounting it a crescent bright,?Emblem of ignorance and night!)?Th'inscription mid the silent waste?Not yet has time's rude hand effaced,?Still do the gurgling waters pour?Their streams dispensing sadness round,?As mothers weep for sons no more,?In never-ending sorrows drowned.?In morn fair maids, (and twilight late,)?Roam where this monument appears,?And pitying poor Maria's fate?Entitle it the FOUNT OF TEARS!

My native land abandoned long,?I sought this realm of love and song.?Through Bakchesaria's palace wandered,?Upon its vanished greatness pondered;?All silent now those spacious halls,?And courts deserted, once so gay?With feasters thronged within their walls,?Carousing after battle fray.?Even now each desolated room?And ruined garden luxury breathes,?The fountains play, the roses bloom,?The vine unnoticed twines its wreaths,?Gold glistens, shrubs exhale perfume.?The shattered casements still are there?Within which once, in days gone by,?Their beads of amber chose the fair,?And heaved the unregarded sigh;?The cemetery there I found,?Of conquering khans the last abode,?Columns with marble turbans crowned?Their resting-place the traveller showed,?And seemed to speak fate's stern decree,?"As they are now such all shall be!"?Where now those chiefs? the harem where??Alas! how sad scene once so fair!?Now breathless silence chains the air!?But not of this my mind was full,?The roses' breath, the fountains flowing,?The sun's last beam its radiance throwing?Around, all served my heart to lull?Into forgetfulness, when lo!?A maiden's shade, fairer than snow,?Across the court swift winged its flight;--?Whose shade, oh friends! then struck my sight??Whose beauteous image hovering near?Filled me with wonder and with fear??Maria's form beheld I then??Or was it the unhappy Zarem,?Who jealous thither came again?To roam through the deserted harem??That tender look I cannot flee,?Those charms still earthly still I see!

He who the muse and peace adores,?Forgetting glory, love, and gold,?Again thy ever flowery shores?Soon, Salgir! joyful shall behold;?The bard shall wind thy rocky ways?Filled with fond sympathies, shall view?Tauride's bright skies and waves of blue?With greedy and enraptured gaze.?Enchanting region! full of life?Thy hills, thy woods, thy leaping streams,?Ambered and rubied vines, all rife?With pleasure, spot of fairy dreams!?Valleys of verdure, fruits, and flowers,?Cool waterfalls and