Two Dreams

Two Dreams

DEEP on the bosom of Jeel-Begzad 

(Darling daughter of stern Bidar) 

Sleeps the rose of her lover lad. 

It brings this word : When the zenith-star 

Melts in the full moon's rising light, 

Then shall her Giaour come to-night. 

What is the odor that fills her room ? 

Ah ! 't is the dream of the sleeping rose : 

To feel his lips near its velvet bloom 

In the secret shadow no moonbeam knows, 

Till the maiden passion within her breast 

Kindles to flame where the kisses rest. 

By the stealthy fingers of old Bidar 

(Savage father of Jeel-Begzad) 

Never bloodless in peace or war 

Was a hand jar sheathed ; and each one had 

Graved on its handle a Koran prayer 

He can feel it now, in his ambush there ! 

The moon rides pale in the quiet night ; 

It puts out the stars, but never the gleam 

Of the waiting blade's foreboding light, 

Astir in its sheath in a horrid dream 

Of pain, of blood, and of gasping breath, 

Of the thirst of vengeance drenched in death. 

The dawn did the dream of the rose undo, 

But the dream of the sleeping blade came true. 

(Translated by Nikola Tesla and Robert Underwood Johnson)