Oriental Scenes, Dramatic Sketches and Tales/Night on the Ganges
NIGHT ON THE GANGES.
How calm, how lovely is the soft repose
Of nature sleeping in the summer night;
How sweet, how lullingly the current flows
Beneath the stream of melted chrysolite,
Where Ganges spreads its floods,—reflecting o'er
Its silvery surface, with those countless stars
The ingot gems of Heaven's cerulean floor,
Mosques, groves, and cliffs, and pinnacled minars.
The air is fresh, and yet the evening breeze
Has died away; so hushed, 'tis scarcely heard
To breathe amid the clustering lemon trees,
Whose snowy blossoms, by its faint sighs stirred,
Give out their perfume; and the bulbul's notes
Awake the echoes of the balmy clime;
While from yon marble-domed pagoda floats
The music of its bell's soft, silvery chime.
Mildly, yet with resplendent beauty, shines
The scene around, although the stars alone,
From the bright treasures of their gleaming mines
A tender radiance o'er the earth have thrown.
Oh! far more lovely are those gentle rays
With their undazzling lustre, than the beam
The sun pours down in his meridian blaze,
Lighting with diamond pomp the sparkling stream.
Each tint its vivid colouring receives:
There is the glossy peepul—the bamboo
Flings down its rich redundancy of leaves,
And trailing plants their wandering course pursue,
In hues as bright as if the sun revealed
The mantling foliage of the woody glade;
Nor is yon lone sequestered hut concealed
Sleeping within the green hill's deepest shade.
With snowy vases crowned, the lily springs
In queen-like beauty by the river's brink;
And o'er the wave the broad-leaved lotus flings
Its roseate flowers in many a knotted link.
Oh! when the sultry sun has sunk to rest,
When evening's soft and tender shadows rise,
How sweet the scene upon the river's breast,
Beneath the starlight of these tropic skies!