Bedouin Song

This week's poem is from a poet I'd never come across until Friday, Bayard Taylor. I could pretend to have learnt all about him but that would be fraudulent, so instead here's his Wikipedia entry.

This post is dedicated to my Sister and her new Husband as during his speech at their wedding, he quoted from Taylor's poem "Bedouin Song". Here it is in full:

Bedouin Song by Bayard Taylor (1825-1878)

From the Desert I come to thee
On a stallion shod with fire;
And the winds are left behind
In the speed of my desire.
Under thy window I stand,
And the midnight hears my cry:
I love thee, I love but thee, 
With a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold,  
And the stars are old,  
And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

Look from thy window and see
My passion and my pain;
I line on the sands below,
And I faint in thy disdain.
Let the night-winds touch thy brow
With the heat of my burning sigh,
And melt thee to hear the vow
Of a love that shall not die 
Till the sun grows cold,  
And the stars are old,  
And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

My steps are nightly driven,  
By the fever in my breast,  
To hear from thy lattice breathed  
The word that shall give me rest.  
Open the door of thy heart,  
And open thy chamber door, 
And my kisses shall teach thy lips  
The love that shall fade no more

Till the sun grows cold,  

And the stars are old, 

And the leaves of the Judgment Book Unfold!

Andrew