Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Asia: Vols. XXI–XXIII. 1876–79. | | | | India: Bengal | | If Thou Wert by My Side | | Reginald Heber (1783–1826) |
| | Lines Written to His Wife
While on a Visit to Upper India
IF thou wert by my side, my love, | |
| How fast would evening fail | |
| In green Bengala’s palmy grove, | |
| Listening the nightingale! | |
| |
| If thou, my love, wert by my side, | 5 |
| My babies at my knee, | |
| How gayly would our pinnace glide | |
| O’er Gunga’s mimic sea! | |
| |
| I miss thee at the dawning gray, | |
| When, on our deck reclined, | 10 |
| In careless ease my limbs I lay, | |
| And woo the cooler wind. | |
| |
| I miss thee when by Gunga’s stream | |
| My twilight steps I guide, | |
| But most beneath the lamp’s pale beam | 15 |
| I miss thee from my side. | |
| |
| I spread my books, my pencil try, | |
| The lingering noon to cheer, | |
| But miss thy kind, approving eye, | |
| Thy meek, attentive ear. | 20 |
| |
| But when of morn or eve the star | |
| Beholds me on my knee, | |
| I feel, though thou art distant far, | |
| Thy prayers ascend for me. | |
| |
| Then on! then on! where duty leads, | 25 |
| My course be onward still; | |
| O’er broad Hindostan’s sultry meads, | |
| O’er bleak Almorah’s hill. | |
| |
| That course nor Delhi’s kingly gates | |
| Nor wild Malwah detain; | 30 |
| For sweet the bliss us both awaits | |
| By yonder western main. | |
| |
| Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, | |
| Across the dark-blue sea; | |
| But ne’er were hearts so light and gay | 35 |
| As then shall meet in thee! | | | | |
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