William Hayley

“ Fair Azima suffers from sorrow and rage,
But what can her rage or her sorrow achieve;
Hermossan is absent: her father's weak age
Only leaves her in fruitless affliction to grieve.
Her bird in sweet sympathy seems to lament,
And to cheer her, in vain, his kind frolics he tries,
When she says, "O my ring!" on her wishes intent,
To seek it far off, from her window he flies.
In each flight, with new hope, she perceives her heart burn
'Till that hope she so often has cherished in vain,
That she welcomes with tears his unjoyous return,
And her health wastes away with vexation and pain. ”

“ On Azima's fancy had studied to work.
The crescent, to give her young bosom alarm,
On the child she had fix'd with a soft silken cord;
To persuade the gay nymph, by this magical charm,
That none but a Mussulman must be her lord.
Hermossan a Persian, more noble and true.
As to woman she rose, put those fancies to flight;
But Ayesha, who watch'd with a mischievous view,
Soon the ruby surveyed, and survey'd it with spite. ”

“ But a charm that her lover refus'd to replace;
"Thy hand my dear girl, with a gem let me deck,
Of more magical force, of more luminous grace!"
"My bird and my ring, both of wonderous power!
Dear Azima! now as thy treasures receive;
For they both shall be thine, they are virtue's just dower
And thro' life may they never my Azima leave."
"For O! if they leave thee, or lost, or destroy'd,
That bliss, which our union I trust will ensure,
Must vanish, and leave in each heart such a void,
That our permanent anguish no magic can cure." ”