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Khan Zada's Song on the Hillside
by Laurence Hope (Adela Florence Cory Nicolson)The fires that burn on all the hills
Light up the landscape grey,
The arid desert land distills
The fervours of the day.
The clear white moon sails through the skies
And silvers all the night,
I see the brilliance of your eyes
And need no other light.
The death sighs of a thousand flowers
The fervent day has slain
Are wafted through the twilight hours,
And perfume all the plain.
My senses strain, and try to clasp
Their sweetness in the air,
In vain, in vain; they only grasp
The fragrance of your hair.
The plain is endless space expressed;
Vast is the sky above,
I only feel, against your breast,
Infinities of love.