Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79.

Persia: Bendemeer, the River

The River Bendemeer

By Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

(From Lalla Rookh)

THERE ’s a bower of roses by Bendemeer’s stream,

And the nightingale sings round it all the day long;

In the time of my childhood ’t was like a sweet dream,

To sit in the roses and hear the bird’s song.

That bower and its music I never forget,

But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year,

I think, is the nightingale singing there yet?

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?

No, the roses soon withered that hung o’er the wave,

But some blossoms were gathered, while freshly they shone,

And a dew was distilled from their flowers, that gave

All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it many a year;

Thus bright to my soul, as ’t was then to my eyes,

Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!