An opium dream of too much youth and reading, But was in them their nature or their fate: No novels e'er had set their young hearts bleeding, For Haidée's knowledge was by no means great, And Juan was a boy of saintly breeding; 150 So that there was no reason for their loves More than for those of nightingales or doves. They gazed upon the sunset; 't is an hour Dear unto all, but dearest to their eyes, For it had made them what they were: the power 155 Of love had first o'erwhelmed them from such skies, When happiness had been their only dower, And twilight saw them linked in passion's ties; . Charmed with each other, all things charmed that brought The past still welcome as the present thought. 160 For both sides I could many reasons show, And then decide, without great wrong to either, It were much better to have both than neither. 200 Juan and Haidée gazed upon each other With swimming looks of speechless tender ness, Which mixed all feelings, friend, child, lover, brother; All that the best can mingle and express When two pure hearts are poured in one another, 205 Were hung with marble icicles; the work Of ages on its water-fretted halls, Where waves might wash, and seals might breed and lurk; 260 Her hair was dripping, and the very balls Of her black eyes seemed turned to tears, and mirk The sharp rocks looked below each drop they caught, Which froze to marble as it fell, - she thought. And wet, and cold, and lifeless at her feet, 265 Pale as the foam that frothed on his dead brow, Which she essayed in vain to clear, (how sweet Were once her cares, how idle seemed they now!) Lay Juan, nor could aught renew the beat Of his quenched heart; and the sea dirges low 270 245 'Tis Until she sobbed for breath, and soon they were Foaming o'er her lone head, so fierce and high Each broke to drown her, yet she could not die. Then shrieking, she arose, and shrieking fell, With joy and sorrow, hope and fear, to see Him whom she deemed a habitant where dwell He gave the word, 'Arrest or slay the Frank.' Then, with a sudden movement, he withdrew His daughter; while compressed within his clasp, "Twixt her and Juan interposed the crew; In vain she struggled in her father's grasp 380 His arms were like a serpent's coil: then flew Upon their prey, as darts an angry asp, The file of pirates: save the foremost, who Had fallen, with his right shoulder half cut through. The second had his cheek laid open; but 385 The third, a wary, cool old sworder, took The blows upon his cutlass, and then put His own well in; so well, ere you could look, His man was floored, and helpless at his foot, With the blood running like a little brook 390 She was not one to weep, and rave, and chafe, And then give way, subdued because surrounded; Her mother was a Moorish maid from Fez, Where all is Eden, or a wilderness. 430 There the large olive rains its amber store In marble fonts; there grain, and flour, and fruit, Gush from the earth until the land runs o'er; 435 But there, too, many a poison-tree has root, And midnight listens to the lion's roar, And long, long deserts scorch the camel's foot, Or heaving whelm the helpless caravan; |