C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.

Author Unknown

(Nile Song—Fifteenth Century)

Translation in Dublin University Magazine

THOU art the palm-tree of my desert,

and thy glance, so soft and bright,

Is the moonlight of my spirit

in its long and dreary night;

Only flower in my heart’s deserted garden—

only well

In my life’s wide, lonely wilderness—

my gentle-eyed gazelle!

But the palm-tree waves in sunny

heights, unreached by sighs of mine,

And the moonlight has its mission first

on loftier brows to shine,

And a wealthier hand will cull that

flower—unseal that stainless spring:

May’st thou be happy!—even with him,

while lone I’m wandering.