OCCASIONAL POEMS,

OCCASIONAL POEMS.

LINES

IN PRAISE OF COFFEE.

O MUSE of Yemen ! whose fantastic lore

Delights the natives of thy happy shore ;
Could my faint song thy distant beauties seize;
Or, blessed by thee, inhale one spicy breeze!
Then would I string thy pearls in richer verse,
And all the glories of thy plant rehearse ;
While the fresh steam my panting bosom fills,
And all its essence through my senses thrills.

With thee I'd leave (do thou inspire my lay!

The Delian palm and the Parnassian bay;
With aromatic wreaths my temples bind,

Waving their purple berries to the wind:
With thee I'd wander through the perfumed grove,
And from Arabian damsels learn to love;
Weep for Zuleekha's soul-consuming pain;
Or o'er the desert, track the frantic swain,
Pursued by Leila's image; or expand
The bowers of Irem o'er the thirsty land;
At Mecca's fane triumphant strains prolong,
Or hymn Medina's tomb in plaintive song :
Thence steal unseen beneath the palmy shade,
Where balm-fed gales restore the languid maid,
Where precious shrubs around, with odour fill
The air, that pants above the bubbling rill:
Or when the moon shall o'er thy cloudless sky
Smile, silvering the starry canopy,

With careless step imprint the cooler sand,

And hear thy glowing sea kiss modestly thy strand.

But not the star of eve, the lamp of night,

The acacia waving in the tranquil light,

The coral shore, the fountain of the vale,
The love-lorn nightingale's melodious tale,
The balm-distilling grove, the cloudless sky,
The courser's fire, the damsel's melting eye,
Havila's pearls, or Saba's rich perfume,
Or all the virtues of Medina's tomb,

O Muse of Yemen! can impart to thee
Such dreams of bliss, as Mocha's fragrant tree!

O happy Yemen ! where each gale at eve
Can the light essence of thy plant receive,
And through the verdant grove, each ray of morn
With crown of gold thy opening buds adorn!
Blessed be the pious dervise, blessed the night
When first he quaffed thy nectar with delight!
Felt the rich clouds' reanimating power

Entrance him far above his earthly bower,
His paradise expand to view her charms,
And wrap the enthusiast in his prophet's arms!
From him derived, the precious secret flows,
And Aden first her magic medicine knows:
So sleepless zeal, by superstition led,

Repaid the world the blood Mohammed shed.