Bright face! how Arab-wild would glow,
Through shifting mood of storm or calm,
Its beauty, born of sun and snow,

Between the cedar and the palm.
Nor, as I watched its changing thought,
Could alien speech be long disguise;
For ere one English phrase she caught
I learned the Arabic of her eyes
The love-lore of their dusks and lights,
My Maiden of the Maronites !

We parted soon, and upward fared,
Snow-fettered, till the pass was ours,
And all beneath us, golden-aired,

Lay Syria, in a dream of flowers.
Then spurred we, for before us burned
White Baalbec's signal in the noon,
And, ere to wayside camp we turned,
'Twixt us and you and far Bhâmdun,
All Lebanon raised his icy heights,
My Maiden of the Maronites!