Bliss Carman, et al., eds. The World’s Best Poetry. 1904.
V. Death and BereavementFarewell to thee, Arabys daughter
Thomas Moore (17791852)F
(Thus warbled a Peri beneath the dark sea;)
No pearl ever lay under Oman’s green water
More pure in its shell than thy spirit in thee.
How light was thy heart till love’s witchery came,
Like the wind of the south o’er a summer lute blowing,
And hushed all its music and withered its frame!
Shall maids and their lovers remember the doom
Of her who lies sleeping among the Pearl Islands,
With naught but the sea-star to light up her tomb.
And calls to the palm-grove the young and the old,
The happiest there, from their pastime returning
At sunset, will weep when thy story is told.
Her dark flowing-hair for some festival day,
Will think of thy fate till, neglecting her tresses,
She mournfully turns from the mirror away.
Though tyrants watch over her tears as they start,
Close, close by the side of that hero she ’ll set thee,
Embalmed in the innermost shrine of her heart.
With everything beauteous that grows in the deep;
Each flower of the rock and each gem of the billow
Shall sweeten thy bed and illumine thy sleep.
That ever the sorrowing sea-bird has wept;
With many a shell, in whose hollow-wreathed chamber,
We, Peris of ocean, by moonlight have slept.
And plant all the rosiest stems at thy head;
We ’ll seek where the sands of the Caspian are sparkling,
And gather their gold to strew over thy bed.
Is lost in the hearts of the fair and the brave,
They ’ll weep for the Chieftain who died on that mountain,
They ’ll weep for the Maiden who sleeps in the wave.