Chapter XIV: Canto THE SECOND

Zuleika's beauty from her birth
Had been such as might well entice
The saints above to visit Earth
From Mahommed's gay Paradise;
Her raven tresses shamed the night,
Her step so proud and yet so light,
'Twould seem as though she trod the air,
Like Peri; nor was she less less fair.

An eye that mocked the wild gazelle,
A voice, although untrained by art,
Sweet as a strain of Israfel,
The strings of whose melodious heart
A lyre are, with tones so sweet
That angels listen at his feet,
And the stars sink to the ground
When those living chords resound.

That cheek that paled the rose in hue
Grows pallid, and her bosom heaves;
Those lips, like rosebuds in the dew
Enclosing pearls within their leaves,
Are trembling, and her fairy form,
Like lily bending to the storm,
Quivers as an aspen grove,
With sore misgivings of her love.

The Caliph was a man of might;
Zuleika was his only child,
He scarce could bear her from his sight,
Nor was he of a temper mild;
And woe to him, the caitiff Giaour
Who fell in dread El Amin's power.
Zuleika sighs, what fears appal
Her soul, lest this should him befall.

The maiden slumbered scarce that night,
Or she slumbered but to dream,
Such dreams as bravest souls affright;
Then waking with a start or scream,
She soon forsook her fitful sleep,
O'er Selim's likely fate to weep,
Till the morning star's dim ray
Now heralds the approach of day.

The morning shed a ghastly light,
Appearing to Zuleika's eye
Full ominous. The clouds in sight
Like streaks of blood across the sky,
While gazing on the distance drear,
Hark! what footsteps greet her ear?
She spies afar at fullest speed
Her lover on his Arab steed.