ALI.
155
While softly steals the liquid note,Shaking the nightingale's pure throat,Then mounts to some ecstatic heightAs a wing beats when lost in light?What joyance should I take in love?Why should my blood the swifter moveWhen over me the white slave bends,The gold haired woman Venice sendsFrom the far isles beyond the sea?What blessedness in these can be,When to no end I draw my breathBut loathsome and disgusting death,That holds me beggared in his thrall,Till nothing is the close of all?The stars shall keep their awful place,But I and all my mighty raceAre but a song when sound has fled,Cease like a story that is said.Accurst the day when I was born,The purple night, the melting morn!Accurst the breast whereon I lay!Accurst this handful of red clay!Haroun is but some meanest thing,—O dust and ashes, you are king!"
