While Youth's quick pulses play
They are so sweet, they still are sweet,
Though passion burns away."

Low in the boat the lovers lay, and from his sable curls
The Jasmin flowers slipped away to rest among the girl's.

Oh, silver lake and silver night and tender silver sky!
Where as the hours passed, the moon rose white and cold on high.

"The Moghra flowers, the Moghra flowers,
So dear to Youth at play;
The small and subtle Moghra flowers
That only last a day."

Suddenly, frightened, she awoke, and waking vaguely saw
The boat had stranded in the sedge that fringed the further shore.

The breeze grown chilly, swayed the palms; she heard, still half awake,
A prowling jackal's hungry cry blown faintly o'er the lake.

She shivered, but she turned to kiss his soft, remembered face,
Lit by the pallid light he lay, in Youth's abandoned grace.

But as her lips met his she paused, in terror and dismay,
The white moon showed her by her side asleep a Leper lay.

"Ah, Moghra flowers, white Moghra flowers,
All love is blind, they say;
The Moghra flowers, so sweet, so sweet,