Lalla Rookh (1817)"The Light of the Haram" by Thomas Moore

There’s a beauty, forever unchangingly bright,

Like the long, sunny lapse of a summer day’s light,

Shining on, shining on, by no shadow made tender,

Till Love falls asleep in its sameness of splendour.

This was not the beauty—oh! nothing like this,

That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss;

But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays

Like the light upon autumn’s soft shadowy days,

Now here & now there, giving warmth as it flies

From the lips to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes,

Now melting in mist, & now breaking in gleams,

Like the glimpses a saint has of Heaven in his dreams;

If tenderness touched her, the dark of her eye

At once took a deeper, a heavenly dye,

From the depth of whose shadow, like holy revealings

From innermost shrines came the light of her feelings!

Such, such were the peerless enchantments that gave

Nourmahal the proud Lord of the East for her slave;

And though bright was his Harem—a living parterre

Of the flowers of this planet—though treasures were there

For which Soliman’s self might have given all the store

That the navy from Ophir e’er winged to his shore,

Yet dim before her were the smiles of them all,

And the Light of his Harem was young Nourmahal!