A Lament For Persia Poem by Edward Henry Bickersteth

Mourn, Persia, mourn! thy charms decay;
Proud Ispahan, the seat of power,
Is shorn by time's relentless sway
Of her rich zones and golden dower,
Which shone around her stately domes,—
That ancient gem of empire, and her sovereigns' homes.
Thy silver lakes, no longer clear,
Are wrapt in veils of stagnant slime,
And arbours to the traveller dear,
Where the soft shade in day's decline
Had rested—where the fountain bright
Before the King of Kings cast all its radiant light—
Now wastes its waters to the hooting owl;—
No stately matron hies her to the bower,
Haunted of yore by beauty, where the bowl
Was wreathed by Houris with the bulbul's flower;
There lurks the reptile and the beast of prey,
Alas! no love-lit eyes there wait the parting day!
Gay Sheeraz flushed with ruby-coloured wine—
A warmer concubine with roses crowned—
Won the rich favour of thy kingly line;
But from that time the troubled Fates have frowned,
Confusion dire spread o'er th' ensanguin'd land,
And war and purple blood slaked all thy crimson'd strand!
Then woke no more the jocund sounds of mirth,
The tyrant Fear the cheek of beauty paled,
And Mothers' tears bedewed the trampled earth,
While o'er the plains full many a child bewailed
And sought its sire, beneath a scorching sun,—
And wan Despair shrieked as she viewed the desolation done!
Yet these were the Sun's Children—this the land,
He loved to look on—where the laughing flowers
Gaz'd on the skies—a bright enamoured band—
And breathed their odours to the passing hours,
Blush'd o'er the havoc which o'ertook thy crimes,
And ling'ring, drooped and died around thy prostrate shrines!