Poems, Consisting Chiefly of Translations from the Asiatick Languages/Solima
SOLIMA,
AN ARABIAN ECLOGUE,
Written in the Year 1768.
YE maids of Aden, hear a loftier tale
Than e'er was sung in meadow, bower, or dale.
The smiles of Abelah, and Maia's eyes,
Where beauty plays, and love in slumber lies;
The fragrant hyacinths of Azza's hair,
That wanton with the laughing summer-air;
Love-tinctur'd cheeks, whence roses seek their bloom,
And lips, from which the Zephyr steals perfume;
Invite no more the wild, unpolish'd lay,
But fly like dreams before the morning ray.
Then farewel, love! and farewel, youthful fires!
A nobler warmth my kindled bread inspires.
Far bolder notes the listening wood shall fill:
Flow smooth, ye rivulets; and, ye gales, be still.
See yon fair groves that o'er Amana rife,
And with their spicy breath embalm the skies;
Where every breeze sheds incense o'er the vales.
And every shrub the scent of musk exhales!
See through yon opening glade a glittering scene,
Lawns ever gay, and meadows ever green!
Then ask the groves, and ask the vocal bowers,
Who deck'd their spiry tops with blooming flowers.
Taught the blue stream o'er sandy vales to flow,
And the brown wild with liveliest hues to glow?
[*]Fair Solima! the hills and dales will sing;
Fair Solima! the distant echoes ring.
But not with idle shows of vain delight,
To charm the soul, or to beguile the fight;
At noon on banks of pleasure to repose,
Where bloom intwin'd the lily, pink, and rose;
Not in proud piles to heap the nightly feast,
Till morn with pearls has deck'd the glowing east;—
Ah! not for this she taught those bowers to rise,
And bade all Eden spring before our eyes:
Far other thoughts her heavenly mind employ,
(Hence, empty pride! and hence, delusive joy!)
To cheer with sweet repast the fainting guest;
To lull the weary on the couch of rest;
To warm the traveller numb'd with winter's cold;
The young to cherish, to support the old;
The sad to comfort, and the weak protect;
The poor to shelter, and the loft direct:—
These are her cares, and this her glorious task;
Can heaven a nobler give, or mortals ask?
Come to these groves, and these life-breathing glades,
Ye friendless orphans, and ye dowerless maids!
With eager haste your mournful mansions leave,
Ye weak, that tremble; and, ye sick, that grieve;
Here shall soft tents, o'er flowery lawns display'd,
At night defend you, and at noon o'ershade;
Here rosy health the sweets of life will shower,
And new delights beguile each varied hour.
Mourns there a widow, bath'd in streaming tears?
Stoops there a fire beneath the weight of years?
Weeps there a maid, in pining sadness left.
Of tender parents, and of hope, bereft?
To Solima their sorrows they bewail;
To Solima they pour their plaintive tale,
She hears; and, radiant as the star of day,
Through the thick forest gains her easy way:
She asks what cares the joyless train oppress,
What sickness wastes them, or what wants distress;
And, as they mourn, she steals a tender sigh,
Whilst all her soul sits melting in her eye:
Then with a smile the healing balm bestows,
And sheds a tear of pity o'er their woes,
Which, as it drops, some soft-eyed angel bears.
When, chill'd with fear, the trembling pilgrim roves
Through pathless deserts, and through tangled groves,
Where mantling darkness spreads her dragon wing,
And birds of death their fatal dirges sing,
While vapours pale a dreadful glimmering cast,
And thrilling horrour howls in every blast;
She cheers his gloom with streams of bursting light,
By day a fun, a beaming moon by night;
Darts through the quivering shades her heavenly ray,
And spreads with rising flowers his solitary way.
Ye heavens, for this in showers of sweetness shed
Your mildest influence o'er her favour'd head!
Long may her name, which distant climes shall praise,
Live in our notes, and blossom in our lays!
And,like an odorous plant, whose blushing flower
Paints every dale, and sweetens every bower,
Borne to the skies in clouds of soft perfume
For ever flourish, and for ever bloom!
These grateful songs, ye maids and youths,
renew, O'er Azib's banks while love-lorn damsels rove,
And gales of fragrance breathe from Hager's grove.
So sung the youth, whose sweetly-warbled strains
Fair Mena heard, and Saba's spicy plains,
Sooth'd with his lay, the ravish'd air was calm,
The winds scarce whisper'd o'er the waving palm;
The camels bounded o'er the flowery lawn,
Like the swift ostrich, or the sportful fawn;
Their silken
Their silken bands the listening rose-buds, rent,
And twin'd their blossoms round his vocal tent:
He sung, till on the bank the moonlight slept,
And closing flowers beneath the night-dew wept;
Then ceas'd, and slumber'd in the lap of rest
Till the shrill lark had left his low-built nest.
Now hastes the swain to tune his rapturous tales
In other meadows, and in other vales.
