Thomas Moore has put the romantic days of Jahangir and Nur Jahan in the vale of Kashmir in beautiful poetry in his Lalla Rookh:-
‘Oh! best of delights as it everywhere is
To be near the loved one, – what a rapture is his
Who in moonlight and music thus sweetly may glide
Over the lake of Kashmir with that one by his side !
If woman can make the worst wilderness dear,
Think, think what a Heaven she must make of Kashmir !
So felt the magnificent Son of Akbar,
When from power & pomp & the trophies of war
He flew to that valley, forgetting them all
With the light of the Haram, his young Nourmahal,
When free & uncrowned as the conqueror roved
By the banks of that lake, with his only beloved,
He saw, in the wreaths she would playfully snatch
From the hedges, a glory his crown could not match,
And preferred in his heart beat the least ringlet that curl’d
Down her exquisite neck, to the throne of the world !
There’s the beauty, for ever unchangingly bright,
Like a long sunny lapse of a summer day’s light,
Shining on, Shining on, by no shadow made tender,
Till Love falls asleep in the sameness of splendour:
This was not the beauty – Oh! nothing like this,
That to young Nourmahal gave such magic of bliss !
But that loveliness, ever in motion, which plays
Like the light upon autumn’s soft shadowy days,
Now here and now there, giving warmth as it flies
From the lips to the cheek, from the cheek to the eyes ;
Now melting in mist and now breaking in gleams,
Like the glimpses a saint has of heaven in his dreams !
When pensive, it seemed as if that very grace,
That Charm of all others, was born with her face !
And when angry, – for them in the transquillest climes
Light breezes will ruffle the flowers sometimes –
The Short, passing anger but seem’d to awaken
New beauty, like flowers that are sweetest when shaken.
—————————–
” There too the Haram’s inmates smile –
Maids from the west, with sun-bright hair,
And from the Garden of the Nile,
Delicate as the roses there ;
Daughters of Love from Cyprus’ rocks,
With Paphian diamonds in their locks ;
Light Peri forms, such as there are
On the gold meads of Candahar ;
And they, before whose sleepy eyes,
In their own bright Kathaian bowers,
Sparkle such rainbow butterflies,
That they might fancy the rich flowers
That round them in the sun lay sighing,
Had been by magic all set flying !
Everything Young, everything fair,
From East and West is blushing there,
Except – except – O Nourmahal !
Thou loveliest, dearest of them all,
The one, whose smile shone out alone,
Admist a world the only one !
——————
“The board was spread with fruits and wine;
With grapes of gold, like those that shine
On Casbin’s hills; – Pomegranates full
Of melting sweetness, and the pears,
And sunniest apples that Caubul
In all its thousand gardens bears ;-
Plantains, the golden and the green,
Malaya’s nectar’d magusteen ;
Prunes of Bokhara, and sweet nuts
From the far groves of Samarcand,
And Basra dates, and apricots,
Seed of the sun, from Iran’s land ; –
With rich conserve of Visna cherries,
Of orange flowers, and of those berries
That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles
Feed on in Erac’s rocky dells.
All these in richest vases smile,
In baskets of pure sandal-wood
And urns of porcelain from that isle
Sunk underneath the Indian flood,
Whence oft the lucky diver brings
Vases to grace the halls of Kings.
Wines, too, of every clime and hue,
Around their liquid lustre threw ;
Amber Rasolli, – the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green-Sea gushing ;
And Shiraz wine, that richly ran
As if that jewel, large and rare,
The ruby, for which Kublai-Khan
Offer’d a city’s wealth, was blushing,
Melted within the goblets there !
And amply Selim quaffs of each,
And seems resolved the flood shall reach
His inward heart, – shedding around
A genial deluge, as they run,
That soon shall leave no spot undrown’d,
For Love to rest its wings upon.
———————
“Come hither, come hither, – by night and by day,
We linger in pleasures that never are gone ;
Like the waves of the summer, as one dies away.
Another as sweet and as shining comes on.
And the love that is over, in expiring, gives birth
To a new one as warm, as unequall’d in bliss ;
And, oh ! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.
———————–
“The mask is off-the charm is wrought –
And Selim to his heart has caught,
In blushes, more than ever bright,
His Nourmahal, his Haram’s Light !
And well do vanish’d frowns enhance
The charm of every brighten’d glance;
And dearer seems each dawning smile
For having lost its light awhile ;
And, happier now for all her sighs
As on his arm her head reposes,
She whispers him, with laughing eyes,
‘Remember, love, the Feast of Roses’ “
___________________ _Thomas Moore.
Reference:
Sufi,G.M.D (1996). Kashmir Under The Mughals. Kashir: Being A History Of Kashmir(pp.253-255) Delhi:Capital Publishing House.
liked it it was a good poem