The air was filled with the sweet breath of flowers,
And music that awoke the silent hours,
It was the BEARA FESTIVAL and feast
When proud and lowly, loftiest and least,
Matron and Moslem maiden pay their vows,
With impetratory and votive gift,
And to the Moslem Jonas bent their brows.
_Each brought her floating lamp of flowers_, and swift
A thousand lights along the current drift,
Till the vast bosom of the swollen stream,
Glittering and gliding onward like a dream,
Seems a wide mirror of the starry sphere
Or more as if the stars had dropt from air,
And in an earthly heaven were shining here,
And far above were, but reflected there
Still group on group, advancing to the brink,
As group on group retired link by link;
For one pale lamp that floated out of view
Five brighter ones they quickly placed anew;
At length the slackening multitudes grew less,
And the lamps floated scattered and apart.
As stars grow few when morning's footsteps press
When a slight girl, shy as the timid halt,
Not far from where we stood, her offering brought.
Singing a low sweet strain, with lips untaught.
Her song proclaimed, that 'twas not many hours
Since she had left her childhood's innocent home;
And now with Beara lamp, and wreathed flowers,
To propitiate heaven, for wedded bliss had come"
To these lines Mrs.
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