IF thou wert by my side, my love! How fast would evening fail In green Bengala's palmy grove, Listening the nightingale! If thou, my love, wert by my side, My babies at my knee, How gayly would our pinnace glide O'er Gunga's mimic sea! I miss thee at the dawning gray, When, on our deck reclined, In careless ease my limbs I lay And woo the cooler wind. I miss thee when by Gunga's stream My twilight steps I guide, But most beneath the lamp's pale beam I miss thee from my side. I spread my books, my pencil try, The lingering noon to cheer, But miss thy kind, approving eye, Thy meek, attentive ear. But when at morn and eve the star Beholds me on my knee, I feel, though thou art distant far, Thy prayers ascend for me. Then on! then on! where duty leads, My course be onward still, O'er broad Hindostan's sultry meads, O'er bleak Almorah's hill. That course nor Delhi's kingly gates, Nor mild Malwah detain; For sweet the bliss us both awaits By yonder western main. Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, Across the dark blue sea; But never were hearts so light and gay As then shall meet in thee! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE EXCHANGE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE TOM BOWLING ['S EPITAPH] by CHARLES DIBDIN TROILUS AND CRESSIDA: SONG by JOHN DRYDEN THE FISHER by JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE HENRY PURCELL by GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS SONNET OF HIS LADY IN HEAVEN by JACOPO DA LENTINO SONNET: 18. ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT by JOHN MILTON |