THE TURKISH CAPTIVE

 ("Si je n'était captive.") 
 
 {IX., July, 1828.} 


 Oh! were I not a captive, 
 I should love this fair countree; 
 Those fields with maize abounding, 
 This ever-plaintive sea: 
 I'd love those stars unnumbered, 
 If, passing in the shade, 
 Beneath our walls I saw not 
 The spahi's sparkling blade. 
 
 I am no Tartar maiden 
 That a blackamoor of price 
 Should tune my lute and hold to me 
 My glass of sherbet-ice. 
 Far from these haunts of vices, 
 In my dear countree, we 
 With sweethearts in the even 
 May chat and wander free. 
 
 But still I love this climate, 
 Where never wintry breeze 
 Invades, with chilly murmur, 
 These open lattices; 
 Where rain is warm in summer, 
 And the insect glossy green, 
 Most like a living emerald, 
 Shines 'mid the leafy screen. 
 
 With her chapelles fair Smyrna— 
 A gay princess is she! 
 Still, at her summons, round her 
 Unfading spring ye see. 
 And, as in beauteous vases, 
 Bright groups of flowers repose, 
 So, in her gulfs are lying 
 Her archipelagoes. 
 
 I love these tall red turrets; 
 These standards brave unrolled; 
 And, like an infant's playthings, 
 These houses decked with gold. 
 I love forsooth these reveries, 
 Though sandstorms make me pant, 
 Voluptuously swaying 
 Upon an elephant. 
 
 Here in this fairy palace, 
 Full of such melodies, 
 Methinks I hear deep murmurs 
 That in the deserts rise; 
 Soft mingling with the music 
 The Genii's voices pour, 
 Amid the air, unceasing, 
 Around us evermore. 
 
 I love the burning odors 
 This glowing region gives; 
 And, round each gilded lattice, 
 The trembling, wreathing leaves; 
 And, 'neath the bending palm-tree, 
 The gayly gushing spring; 
 And on the snow-white minaret, 
 The stork with snowier wing. 
 
 I love on mossy couch to sing 
 A Spanish roundelay, 
 And see my sweet companions 
 Around commingling gay,— 
 A roving band, light-hearted, 
 In frolicsome array,— 
 Who 'neath the screening parasols 
 Dance down the merry day. 
 But more than all enchanting 
 At night, it is to me, 
 To sit, where winds are sighing, 
 Lone, musing by the sea; 
 And, on its surface gazing, 
 To mark the moon so fair, 
 Her silver fan outspreading, 
 In trembling radiance there. 
 
 W.D., Tait's Edin. Magazine 


 

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