And o'er the plains appointed for the feast
Hurried with ardent step: the swains admired
What so transversely could have swept the dew;
For never long one path had Gebir trod,
Nor long, unheeding man, one pace preserved.
Not thus Charoba: she despaired the day:
The day was present; true; yet she despaired.
In the too tender and once tortured heart
Doubts gather strength from habit, like disease;
Fears, like the needle verging to the pole,
Tremble and tremble into certainty.
How often, when her maids with merry voice
Called her, and told the sleepless queen 'twas morn,
How often would she feign some fresh delay,
And tell them (though they saw) that she arose.
Next to her chamber, closed by cedar doors
A bath of purest marble, purest wave,
On its fair surface bore its pavement high:
Arabian gold enchased the crystal roof,
With fluttering boys adorned and girls unrobed:
These, when you touch the quiet water, start
From their aerial sunny arch, and pant
Entangled mid each other's flowery wreaths,
And each pursuing is in turn pursued.
Here came at last, as ever wont at morn,
Charoba: long she lingered at the brink,
Often she sighed, and, naked as she was,
Sat down, and leaning on the couch's edge,
On the soft inward pillow of her arm
Rested her burning cheek: she moved her eyes;