# The Golden Violet with its Tales of Romance and Chivalry and Other Poems/The Wreath

Scarlet robe broider'd with gold; A turban's snowy, but gem-set fold, And its heron plume fasten'd by diamond clasp; Rubies red on his dagger-hasp; Eyes dark as a midnight dream, Yet flashing wild with starry beam: Swarthy cheek untouch'd by red, Told far had Clemenza’s summons sped:
Since the Moorish bard had brought his claim, 'Mid these Northern halls, to the meed of fame.
THE WREATH:
TALE OF THE MOORISH BARD.
The earliest beauty of the rose, Waking from moonlight repose, In morning air and dew to steep The blush of her voluptuous sleep; This was her cheek: and for her eye, Gaze thou upon the midnight sky, And choose its fairest star, the one Thou deem'st most lovely and most lone: Her lip, oh! never flower of spring Had smile of such sweet blandishing.
Ay, beautiful she was as light Descending on the darken'd sight; But these were not the spells that gave Leila the heart of her charmed slave; But all those sweet gifts that win, Like sunshine, instant entrance in; Those gentle words and acts that bind In love our nature with our kind.
 She dwelt within a palace fair Such as in fairy gardens are; There grew her father's cypress tree, No other monument had he. He bade that never funeral stone Should tell of glory overthrown,— What could it say, but foreign sky Had seen the exile pine and die?
The maiden grew beside the tomb; Perhaps ‘t was that which touch'd her bloom With somewhat of more mournful shade Than seems for youth's first budding made. It was her favourite haunt, she felt As there her all of memory dwelt. Alone, a stranger in the land Which was her home, the only band Between her and her native tongue Was when her native songs she sung.
Leila, thou wert not of our name;  Thy Christian creed, thy Spanish race, To us were sorrow, guilt, and shame,  No earthly beauty might efface. Yet, lovely Infidel, thou art A treasure clinging to my heart:
A very boy, I yet recall The dark light of thine eye's charm'd thrall; Beneath thy worshipp'd cypress leant, And flowers with thy breathing blent, Less pure, less beautiful than thou, I see thee; and I hear thee now Singing sweet to the twilight dim— Could it be sin?—thy vesper hymn.
 Burnt a sweet light in that fair shrine, At once too earthly, too divine; The heart's vain struggle to create An Eden not for mortal state.
 Love, who shall say that thou art not The dearest blessing of our lot?
Yet, not the less, who may deny Life has no sorrow like thy sigh? A fairy gift, and none may know Or will it work to weal or woe.
 Spite of the differing race and creed, Their fathers had been friends in need; And, all unconsciously at first, Love in its infancy was nursed; Companions from their earliest years, Unknown the hopes, the doubts, the fears, That haunt young passion's early hour, Spared but to come with deadlier power, With deeper sorrow, worse unrest, When once love stood in both confest.
The ground she trod, the air she breathed, The blossoms in her dark hair wreathed, Her smile, her voice, to Mirza’s eyes More precious seem'd than Paradise.
 Yet was the silence sweet unbroken By vows in which young love is spoken. But when the heart has but one dream For midnight gloom or noontide beam, And one, at least, knows well what power Is ruling, words will find their hour; Though after growth of grief and pain, May wish those words unsaid again.
 ‘T was sunset, and the glorious heaven To Leila’s cheek and eye seem'd given;
The one like evening crimson bright, The other fill'd with such clear light, That, as she bent her o'er the strings, Catching music's wanderings, Look'd she well some Peri fair, Born and being of the air. Waked the guitar beneath her hand To ballad of her Spanish land; Sad, but yet suiting twilight pale, When surely tenderest thoughts prevail.
SONG.
Maiden, fling from thy braided hair The red rose-bud that is wreathed there; For he who planted the parent tree Is now what soon that blossom will be.
Maiden, fling from thy cheek of snow The chain where the Eastern rubies glow; For he who gave thee that jewell'd chain Lies in his wounds on the battle plain.
Maiden, fling thou aside thy lute, Be its chords, as thy own hopes, mute; For he who first taught thy lips that strain Never will listen its music again.
Give those roses to strew on his grave, That chain for a mass for the soul of the brave, And teach that lute, thou widow'd dove, A dirge for the fall of thy warrior love.
"Alas! that ever," Leila said, "The fond should mourn above the dead,
Thus all too early desolate, Without one hope or wish from fate; Save death, what can the maiden crave Who weeps above her lover's grave?" Darken'd her eyes with tearful dew, Wore her soft cheek yet softer hue; And Mirza who had lean'd the while, Feeding upon her voice and smile, Felt as if all that fate could bring Were written on that moment's wing. One moment he is at her knee, "So, Leila, wouldst thou weep for me?" Started she, as at lightning gleam,— "Oh, Mirza, this I did not dream. Moslem and Moor, may Spanish maid Hearken such words as thou hast said?
My father's blood, my father's creed, Now help me in my hour of need!"
 Still knelt he at the maiden's feet, Still sought he those dear eyes to meet. "Cruel, and is there nothing due To love so fervid and so true?" As with conflicting thought oppress'd, She droop'd her head upon his breast; Watch'd he the tears on her pale face, When started she from that embrace. "I know the weakness of my heart: Mirza, in vain, for we must part. Farewell, and henceforth I will be Vow'd to my God and prayers for thee."
He strove to speak, but she was gone, He stood within the grove alone, And from that hour they met no more: But what to either might restore Or peace or hope; the gulf between, They must forget what they had been. Forget—oh! never yet hath love Successfully with memory strove. I then was Mirza's page; and strange It was to me to watch the change That over him like magic wrought. Apart from all, in silent thought He would pass hours; and then his mood, As wearied of such solitude, Alter'd to gaiety; that mirth, Desperate as if it knew its birth,
Was like an earth flame's sudden breath, Sprung from the ruin'd soil beneath.
 They had not met, since to the maid His first rash vow of love was said; But heard we how, by penance, prayer,  She strove to wash away the sin, That ever Infidel had share  A Christian maiden's breast within: And there perchance were other tears Than those which flow'd from holy fears. I know not what vain dream had sprung  In Mirza. Is it that despair, Ere the last veil aside is flung,  Unable its own words to bear, Will borrow from hope's charmed tongue?
To her a wreath he bid me take, Such as in our fair garden wake Love's hopes and fears,—oh! suiting well Such gentle messages to tell. That wreath I to the lady brought,  I found her in her hall alone, So changed, your sculptors never wrought  A form in monumental stone So cold, so pale. The large dark eye  Shone strangely o'er the marble cheek; The lips were parted, yet no sigh  Seem’d there of breathing life to speak; The picture at whose feet she knelt,  The maiden Mother and her Child, The hues which on that canvass dwelt,  With more of human likeness smiled.
Awful the face, however fair, When death's dark call is written there. I gave the wreath, I named his name, One moment the heart's weakness came Written in crimson on her brow, The very blossoms caught the glow; Or grew they bright but from the fall Of tears that lit their coronal? The next, the dark eye's sudden rain, The cheek's red colour pass'd again, All earthly feelings with them died; Slowly she laid the gift aside. When will my soul forget the look With which one single stem she took From out the wreath?—a tulip flower; But, touch'd as by some withering power,
The painted leaves were drooping round The rich but burning heart they bound. She spoke,—oh! never music's tone Hath sadder, sweeter cadence known:— "With jarring creed, and hostile line,  And heart with fate at enmity, This wasting flower is emblem mine,  'Tis faded, it hath but to die."
 I took those leaves of faded bloom To Mirza; ‘t was of both the doom. He died the first of the battle line, When red blood dims the sabre's shine; He died the early death of the brave, And the place of the battle was that of his grave. She died as dies a breath of song Borne on the winds of evening along;
She fell as falls the rose in spring, The fairest are ever most perishing, Yet lingers that tale of sorrow and love, Of the Christian maid and her Moslem love; A tale to be told in the twilight hour, For the beauty's tears in her lonely bower.