I looked upon thee yesternight

Beneath the drops of yellow light

That fell from out a poppy moon

Like notes of some far opiate tune.

I looked and sighed, I knew not why,

As when a condor flutters by,

And thought the moonbeams on thy face

Timid to seek thy resting-place.

O sacred spot! Memorial bower!

Unsuited to the mocking hour

When winds of myrrh from Tempe’s lake

Stir soft, yet stir thee not awake!

Thy clear brow, Zara, rests so fair

I cannot think death lingers there;

Thy lip as from thy blood is red,

Nor hints of ichors of the dead:

Canst thou, whom love so late consumed,

Lie prey to worms – dissolved, entombed?

And he, whose name suffused thy cheek

With ecstasies thou couldst not speak;

Will he in fancy hold thee ever

Fair as thou art, decaying never,

And dreaming, on thine eyelids press

A tribute to thy loveliness?

Or will his fancy rove beneath

The carven urn and chiselled wreath,

Where still – so still – the shroud shall drape

Grotesque, liquescent turns of shape?

No, Zara, no! Such beauty reigns

Immortal in immortal fanes;

Radiant for ever, ever laden

With beams of uncorrupted Aidenn,

And naught that slumbers here tonight

Can perish from a lover’s sight.

Where’er thy soul, where’er thy clay

May rise to hail another day,

Thy second soul, thy beauty’s flame,

The songs of passionate lutes shall claim;

Pale, lovely ghost – so young, so fair,

To flutter in sepulchral air —

To flutter where the taper dies

Amidst a mourner’s choking sighs!