Atma - A Romance

Sweet then the blushing maid replied,

"Among the roses I abide,

I wake the bird, I watch the bee,

No greater toil is set for me;

But tell me, pray thee, with what charge indued

You wander in this quiet solitude."

And Atma spoke with joyful fervency,

"I hither came on embassy unguessed,

Most blissful vision of my raptured view,

The dusk delights of quietness and rest

Desired I, nor thought to bid adieu

To all content my fond heart ever knew.

Descending angels of my wisest dreams,

Ye kindly genii, bending from above,

Say, in th'allotment of my life's high themes,

Were hours left for love?

A great design and just my soul employs,

Can high resolve and tranced rest agree?

Or is there aught than loss in changeful joys

Of mortal love, most mortal in its wane

Which I shall see

And call aloud, 'O Love,' in vain, in vain."

"Bloomy roses die,

Sunbeams have no morrow,

Sweetest songs give place to sigh,

Ah, the speechless sorrow,

Pain of by-and-bye.

I too well have known

Gladness lives a-dying,

Joys are often prized when flown,

Loved when past replying,

Sought when left alone.

Sad when roses pine,

Ah, but love is dearer,

Who would dare to quaff this wine

Knowing Fate the bearer,

Guileful fate of mine?

Moti, peerless flower,

Queen of love and gladness,

Tell me in this happy hour,

Will Joy turn to sadness,

And Love's death-night lower?"

Moti, wise as lovely, pondered,

"'Mong the sunbeams I have wandered,

With the flowers friendship made;

Sweetest blossoms wither, But alike they fade,

Roses die together,

Beauteous death is made.

Comrades e'en in death are flowers,

Always sweet are friendship's bowers.

Lightly sorrow touches twain,

Only solitude is pain."

* * * * * Mild were the utterings of the cooing dove,

Who did approve

In myrtle ambuscade this tender lore;

The constant plashing of the fountain spray

Melted in easy numbers, dying away

A quiet cadence, while for evermore

Faded the eve in richest livery wove

Of Tyrian dyes and amber woof t'allure

The soft salaam of slowly sinking day.

Stars shone, and Atma said, "'Tis well to be,

The things of earth are painted pleasantly."

But pleasantness is light and versatile,

And moods must change and tranquil breezes veer,

And o'er this blissful hour there came a chill

And sullen shadows slowly creeping near

In lengthening lines, and murkier dusk took form

Of all things ominous, disastrous, ill,

And as a mid-day gloom portending storm,

A lowering fate made prophecy of fear,

And Atma knew the menace in the air,

As ghostly shudderings of our fearful life

Foretell the advent of th' assassin's knife.

Low sank his heart before the augury

(For life was dearer on this eventide

Than e'er before), and all dismayed, he cried,

"These are the heralds of calamity

That bid me hence, for all too well I know

The pensive pageantry of mortal woe;

O Love, my Love, this sweetest love may flee

But ever grief has cruel constancy,

Late I bode me with dull-shrouded sorrow,

And well I know her doleful voice again.

Hark! the breezes from the nightshade borrow

A heavy burden of lament and pain,

And where Delight held lately sweet hey-day,

Now like spectres pallid moonbeams play,

Very still the little rosebud sleeps,

Heavily the drooping myrrh tree weeps

Sluggish tears upon the darksome mould."