AN ADDRESS TO MY MUSE.

(Written in her fourteenth year.)

WHY, gentle Muse, wilt thou disdain
To lend thy strains to me?
Why do I supplicate in vain

And bow my heart to thee?

Oh! teach me how to touch the lyre,
To tune the trembling chord;
Teach me to fill each heart with fire,
And melting strains afford.

Sweep but thy hand across the string,
The woodlands echo round,
And mortals wond'ring, as you sing,
Delighted catch each sound.

Enchanted when thy voice I hear,
I drop each earthly care;

I feel as wafted from the world
To Fancy's realms of air.

Then as I wander, plaintive sing,
And teach me every strain;

Teach me to touch the trembling string
Which now I strike in vain.

(79)

AMIR KHAN.

(Written in her sixteenth year.)

PART I.

BRIGHTLY o'er spire, and dome, and tower,
The pale moon shone at midnight hour,
While all beneath her smile of light
Was resting there in calm delight;
Evening with robe of stars appears,
Bright as repentant Peri's tears,
And o'er her turban's fleecy fold
Night's crescent stream'd with rays of gold,
While every crystal cloud of Heaven
Bowed as it passed the queen of even.

Beneath calm Cashmere's lovely vale1
Breathed perfumes to the sighing gale;
The amaranth and tuberose,
Convolvulus in deep repose,

Bent to each breeze which swept their bed,
Or scarcely kissed the dew, and fled
The bulbul, with his lay of love :2
Sang, 'mid the stillness of the grove;
The gulnare blushed a deeper hue,3
And trembling shed a shower of dew,
Which perfumed ere it kiss'd the ground,
Each zephyr's pinion hovering round.

The lofty plane-tree's haughty brow
Glitter'd beneath the moon's pale glow;
And wide the plantain's arms were spread,"
The guardian of its native bed.

Where was Amreta at this hour?
Say! was she slumb'ring in her bower?
Or gazing on this scene of rest,

Less calm, less peaceful than her breast?
Or was she resting in the dream
Of brighter days, on Fortune's stream?
Or was she weeping Friendship broken,
Or sighing o'er Love's wither'd token?

No! she was calmly resting there,
Her eye ne'er spoke of hope nor fear,
But 'mid the blaze of splendour round,
For ever bent upon the ground,

Their long, dark lashes hid from view,
The brilliant glances which they threw.
Her cheek was neither pale nor red;
The rose, upon its summer bed,
Could never boast so faint a hue;
So faint, and yet so brilliant too!

Though round her, Cashmere's incense streamed; Though Persia's gems around her beamed;

Though diamonds of Golconda shed

Their warmest lustre o'er her head

Though music lulled each fear to sleep,
Or like the night-wind o'er the deep;
Just waking love and calm delight,

Kindling Hope's watch-fire clear and bright;
For her, though Cashmere's roses twine
Together round the parent vine;