VI.

And sweetly now those untaught melodies Broke the luxurious silence of the skies, The sweet siesta of a summer day, The tropic afternoon of Toobonai, When every flower was bloom, and air was balm, And the first breath began to stir the palm, The first yet voiceless wind to urge the wave All gently to refresh the thirsty cave, 110 Where sat the Songstress with the stranger boy, Who taught her Passion's desolating joy, Too powerful over every heart, but most O'er those who know not how it may be lost; O'er those who, burning in the new-born fire, Like martyrs revel in their funeral pyre, With such devotion to their ecstacy, That Life knows no such rapture as to die: And die they do; for earthly life has nought Matched with that burst of Nature, even in thought; 120 And all our dreams of better life above But close in one eternal gush of Love.