Page:Oriental Sketches Dramatic Sketches and Tales.pdf/172

So near to heaven, that we could see, amid
The brightness of the stars, soft angel-forms
Waving their snowy pinions, darting down
The milky way, and floating in the pure
Cerulean ether; yet beneath our feet
Sprang flowers of such rare odour, and the earth
Looked so inviting with its bubbling springs,
Its sweet variety of hill and dale,
Its peaceful villages and rural haunts,
And that unruffled ocean, that we deemed
Our world the fairest place: and then you threw
Your arms around me, and, as you are wont,
Taught me to name the wonders of the sky,
Whilst they were sailing onwards.—Suddenly
You stooped to pluck a rose; I gazed above,
And missed you from my side. On earth I looked,
But there you were not; then my eye sought heaven;
Alas! you were not there. Then all was changed—
The stars were globes of blood, the sea a gulf
Of pitchy blackness; tossed on the dark wave