The Song - Extract from the Zenana - Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Lyrics

"My lonely lute, how can I ask For music from thy silent strings? It is too sorrowful a task When only swept by memory's wings: Yet waken from thy charmed sleep Although I wake thee but to weep " Yet once I had a thousand songs As now I have but only one Ah, love, whate'er to thee belongs With all life's other links, has done; And I can breathe no other words Than thou hast left upon the chords " They say Camdeo's place of rest When floating down the Ganges' tide Is in the languid lotus breast Amid whose sweets he loves to hide Oh, false and cruel, though divinе What dost thou in so fair a shrine? " And such the hearts that thou dost choosе As pure, as fair, to shelter thee; Alas! they know not what they lose Who chance thy dwelling-place to be For, never more in happy dream Will they float down life's sunny stream " My gentle lute, repeat one name The very soul of love, and thine: No; sleep in silence, let me frame Some other love to image mine; Steal sadness from another's tone I dare not trust me with my own " Thy chords will win their mournful way All treasured thoughts to them belong; For things it were so hard to say Are murmured easily in song — It is for music to impart The secrets of the burthened heart " Go, taught by misery and love And thou hast spells for every ear: But the sweet skill each pulse to move Alas! hath bought its knowledge dear — Bought by the wretchedness of years A whole life dedicate to tears The voice has ceased, the chords are mute The singer droops upon her lute; But, oh, the fulness of each tone Straight to Nadira's heart hath gone — As if that mournful song revealed Depths in that heart till then concealed A world of melancholy thought Then only into being brought; Those tender mysteries of the soul Like words on an enchanted scroll Whose mystic meaning but appears When washed and understood by tears She gazed upon the singer's face; Deeply that young brow wore the trace Of years that leave their stamp behind: The wearied hope — the fever'd mind — The heart which on itself hath turned Worn out with feelings — slighted — spurned — Till scarce one throb remained to show What warm emotions slept below Never to be renewed again And known but by remembered pain Her cheek was pale — impassioned pale — Like ashes white with former fire Passion which might no more prevail The rose had been its own sweet pyre You gazed upon the large black eyes And felt what unshed tears were there; Deep, gloomy, wild, like midnight skies When storms are heavy on the air — And on the small red lip sat scorn Writhing from what the past had borne But far too proud to sigh — the will Though crushed, subdued, was haughty still; Last refuge of the spirit's pain Which finds endurance in disdain Others wore blossoms in their hair And golden bangles round the arm She took no pride in being fair The gay delight of youth to charm; The softer wish of love to please What had she now to do with these? She knew herself a bartered slave Whose only refuge was the grave Unsoftened now by those sweet notes Which half subdued the grief they told Her long black hair neglected floats O'er that wan face, like marble cold; And carelessly her listless hand Wandered above her lute's command But silently — or just a tone Woke into music, and was gone