Unknown fair faces

     Though I am faithful to my loves lived through,
     And place them among Memory’s great stars,
     Where burns a face like Hesper:  one like Mars: 
     Of visages I get a moment’s view,
     Sweet eyes that in the heaven of me, too,
     Ascend, tho’ virgin to my life they passed. 
     Lo, these within my destiny seem glassed
     At times so bright, I wish that Hope were new. 
     A gracious freckled lady, tall and grave,
     Went, in a shawl voluminous and white,
     Last sunset by; and going sow’d a glance. 
     Earth is too poor to hold a second chance;
     I will not ask for more than Fortune gave: 
     My heart she goes from—­never from my sight!

     Shemselnihar

     O my lover! the night like a broad smooth wave
     Bears us onward, and morn, a black rock, shines wet. 
     How I shuddered—­I knew not that I was a slave,
     Till I looked on thy face:- then I writhed in the net. 
     Then I felt like a thing caught by fire, that her star
     Glowed dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.

     And he came, whose I am:  O my lover! he came: 
     And his slave, still so envied of women, was I: 
     And I turned as a hissing leaf spits from the flame,
     Yes, I shrivelled to dust from him, haggard and dry. 
     O forgive her:- she was but as dead lilies are: 
     The life of her heart fled from Shemselnihar.

     Yet with thee like a full throbbing rose how I bloom! 
     Like a rose by the fountain whose showering we hear,
     As we lie, O my lover! in this rich gloom,
     Smelling faint the cool breath of the lemon-groves near. 
     As we lie gazing out on that glowing great star —
     Ah! dark on the bosom of Shemselnihar.

     Yet with thee am I not as an arm of the vine,
     Firm to bind thee, to cherish thee, feed thee sweet? 
     Swear an oath on my lip to let none disentwine
     The life that here fawns to give warmth to thy feet. 
     I on thine, thus! no more shall that jewelled Head jar
     The music thou breathest on Shemselnihar.

     Far away, far away, where the wandering scents
     Of all flowers are sweetest, white mountains among,
     There my kindred abide in their green and blue tents: 
     Bear me to them, my lover! they lost me so young. 
     Let us slip down the stream and leap steed till afar
     None question thy claim upon Shemselnihar.

     O that long note the bulbul gave out—­meaning love! 
     O my lover, hark to him and think it my voice! 
     The blue night like a great bell-flower from above
     Drooping low and gold-eyed:  O, but hear him rejoice! 
     Can it be? ’twas a flash! that accurst scimiter
     In thought even cuts thee from Shemselnihar.