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| View from the Bosphorous, Istanbul |
| LANGUIDLY the night-wind bloweth From the gardens round, Where the clear Barrada floweth With a lulling sound. Not the lute-note's sweet shiver Can such music find, As is on a wandering river, On a wandering wind. There the Moslem leaneth, dreaming O'er the inward world, While around the fragrant steaming Of the smoke is curled. Rising from the coffee berry, Dark grape of the South; Or the pipe of polished cherry, With its amber mouth. Cooled by passing through the water, Gurgling as it flows— Scented by the Summer's daughter, June's impassioned rose. By that rose's spirit haunted Are the dreams that rise, Of far lands, and lives enchanted, And of deep black eyes. Thus with some sweet dream's assistance, Float they down life's stream; Would to heaven our whole existence Could be such a dream! • The cafes are perhaps the greatest luxury that a stranger finds in Damascus. Gardens, klosquel, fountains, and groves, are abundant around every Eastern capital; but cafes on the very bosom of a rapid river, and bathed by its waves, are peculiar to this ancient city : they are formed so as to exclude the rays of the sun while they admit the breeze. ---Letitia Elizabeth Landon |
Having never read any L.E.L. before, I chose this poem because the title reminds me of Byron's sumptuousness and the East-meets-West quality of hanging about in Istanbul. It was Ramadan when I was there. At the call to prayer, as the sun descended, Turkish families would begin eating elaborate picnics under the backlit-beauty of the Blue Mosque. That, or they would tear open bags of take-away McDonald's-- as the time to break the fast approached, there was a line-up around the block.
Reading this poem aloud to myself, I am reminded of Keats more than of Byron. Perhaps it's the meditative quality, or the way this sensual experience-- looking onto the river, seeing the mosque in the distance, smelling the spicy coffee-- quickly becomes inward-looking and dreamlike. Like Keats, she writes a rich imagined life. Also, there is the feeling I get that L.E.L. herself never visited Syria (google scholar reveals no evidence... though she did sail to the Cape Coast in 1838 where she died of an overdose of prussic acid.) The Barada is the main river running through Damascus, the capital of Syria.
In the Memoir prefacing her collected works, she is described as the kind of woman with whom I would have gotten along, but I can imagine her butting heads with Wordsworth:
"...a creature of town and social life. The bulk of her existence was spent in Hans-place, Sloane-street, Chelsea. Like Charles Lamb, she was so moulded to London habits and tastes, that that was the world'to her. The country was not to her what it is to those who have passed a happy youth there, and learned to sympathize with its spirit and enjoy its calm. In one respect she was right. Those who look for society alone in the country, are not likely to be much pleased with the change from London, where every species of Intelligence concentrates; where the rust of intellectual sloth is briskly rubbed off; and old prejudices, which often lie like fogs in low still Books in the country, are blown away by the lively winds of discussion. Dr. Sam. Johnson, said on one occasion: " Sir, the man that is tired of London, is tired of life;" and on another, in reply to a question asked him of his preferences, while in Scotland, "the finest sight I saw, was the road to London."
