While some bring leaves of Henna, to imbue
The fingers' ends with a bright roseate hue;'
So bright, that in the mirror's depth they seem
Like tips of coral branches in the stream;
And others mix the Kobol's jetty dye,

To give that long, dark languish to the eye,3

And the mosaic floor beneath shines through The sprinkling of that fountain's silvery dew, Like the wet, glistening shells, of every dye, That on the margin of the Red Sea lie.

Here too he traces the kind visitings

All is in motion; rings and plumes and pearls Are shining every where:-some younger girls Are gone by moonlight to the garden beds, To gather fresh cool chaplets for their heads; Gay creatures! sweet, though mournful 'tis to see How each prefers a garland from that tree Which brings to mind her childhood's innocent day, And the dear fields and friendships far away. The maid of India, blest again to hold In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold, 3 Thinks of the time when, by the Ganges flood, Her little play-mates scatter'd many a bud Upon her long black hair, with glossy gleam Just dripping from the consecrated stream: While the young Arab, haunted by the smell Of her own mountain flowers, as by a spell,The sweet Elcaya, and that courteous tree Which bows to all who seek its canopy-5 Sees, call'd up round her by these magic scents, The well, the camels, and her father's tents; Sighs for the home she left with little pain, And wishes even its sorrows back again!

Meanwhile, through vast illuminated halls, Silent and bright, where nothing but the falls Of fragrant waters, gushing with cool sound From many a jasper fount, is heard around, Young Azim roams bewilder'd,-nor can guess What means this maze of light and loneliness. Here the way leads, o'er tessellated floors Or mats of Cairo, through long corridors, Where, ranged in cassolets and silver urns, Sweet wood of aloe or of sandal burns; And spicy rods, such as illume at night The bowers of Tibet,6 sent forth odorous light, Like Peris' wands, when pointing out the road For some pure spirit to its blest abode!-And here, at once, the glittering saloon Bursts on his sight, boundless and bright as noon; Where, in the midst, reflecting back the rays In broken rainbows, a fresh fountain plays High as the enamell'd cupola, which towers All rich with arabesques of gold and flowers:

They tinged the ends of her fingers scarlet with Henna, so that they resembled branches of coral.--Story of Prince Futtun in Buhardanush,

2. The women blacken the inside of their eye-lids with a powder oamed the black Kohol-RUSSEL.

4. The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-coloured Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit poets with many elegant allusions.-See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv.

4. A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen.-NIEBUNA.

Of the genus mimosa, which droops its branches whenever any person approaches it, seeming as if it saluted those who retre under its shade,NJEBURA.

Cloves are a principal ingredient in the composition of the perfumed rods, which men of rank keep constantly burning in their prespace. TURNTS'S Tibet.

Of land and wave, whose fate-in bondage thrown
For their weak loveliness-is like her own!
On one side, gleaming with a sudden grace
Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase
In which it undulates, small fishes shine,
Like golden ingots from a fairy mine;
While, on the other, latticed lightly in
With odoriferous woods of Comorin,
Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen :—
Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between
The crimson blossoms of the coral tree a
In the warm isles of India's sunny sea:
Mecca's blue sacred pigeon, 3 and the thrush
Of Hindostan, 4 whose holy warblings gush,
At evening, from the tall pagoda's top ;-
Those golden birds that, in the spice time, drop
About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food
Whose scent hath lured them o'er the summer flood;5
And those that under Araby's soft sun
Build their high nests of budding cinnamon ;-6
In short, all rare and beauteous things, that fly
Through the pure element, here calmly lie
Sleeping in light, like the green birds 7 that dwell
In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel!

4. The Pagoda thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India. It sits perched on the sacred pagodas, and from thence delivers its melodious song. PENNANT'S Hindostan,

Birds of Paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in Al ghts from the southern isles to India, and the strength of the nutmeg.. says TAVERNIER, so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth..

6. That bird which veth in Arabia, and buildeth its nest with cinnsmon.-Brows's Vulgar Errors.

The spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds-GIBBON, vol, ix. p. 42.

Shedad, who made the delicious gardens of Irim, in imitation of Paradise, and was destroyed by hightaing the first time he attemptes

to enter them.

It was not so, land of the generous thought And daring deed! thy god-like sages taught; It was not thus, in bowers of wanton ease, Thy Freedom nursed her sacred energies;

Oh! not beneath the enfeebling, withering glow Of such dull luxury did those myrtles grow,

Immortal deeds; but in the bracing air

Of toil,-of temperance,—of that high, rare,
Etherial virtue, which alone can breathe
Life, health, and lustre into Freedom's wreath!
Who that surveys this span of earth we press,
This speck of life in time's great wilderness,
This narrow isthmus 'twixt two boundless seas,
The past, the future, two eternities!--
Would sully the bright spot or leave it bare,
When he might build him a proud temple there,
A name that long shall hallow all its space,
And be each purer soul's high resting-place'
But no-it cannot be, that one, whom God
Has sent to break the wizard Falsehood's rod,---
A Prophet of the Truth, whose mission draws

Its rights from Heaven, should thus profane his cause
With the world's vulgar pomps;-no, no-l see-
He thinks me weak-this glare of luxury
Is but to tempt, to try the eaglet gaze

Of my young soul;-shine on, 't will stand the blaze!»

So thought the youth -but, even while he defied This witching scene, he felt its witchery glide Through every sense. The perfume breathing round Like a pervading spirit;-the still sound Of falling waters, lulling as the song Of Indian bees at sunset, when they throng Around the fragrant Nilica, and deep In its blue blossoms hum themselves to sleep! And music too-dear music! that can touch Beyond all else the soul that loves it much— Now heard far off, so far as but to seem Like the faint exquisite music of a dream:All was too much for him, too full of bliss: The heart could nothing feel, that felt not this. Soften'd, he sunk upon a couch and gave His soul up to sweet thoughts, like wave on wave Succeeding in smooth seas, when storms are laid,— He thought of Zelica, his own dear maid, And of the time when, full of blissful sighs, They sat and look'd into each other's eyes, Silent and happy—as if God had given Nought else worth looking at on this side heaven!

«Oh my loved mistress! whose enchantments still
Are with me, round me, wander where I will-
It is for thee, for thee alone I seek
The paths of glory-to light up thy cheek
With warm approval-in that gentle look,
To read my praise, as in an angel's book,
And think all toils rewarded, when from thee
I gain a smile, worth immortality!

How shall bear the moment, when restored
To that young heart where I alone am lord,

My Pundits assure me that the plant before us (the Nibea) is their ephalica, thus named because the bees are supposed to sleep on its blossoms. Six W. Jones.

A moment, keep me from those arms away?»

While thus he thinks, still nearer on the breeze
Come those delicious dream-like harmonies,
Each note of which but adds new downy links
To the soft chain in which his spirit sinks.
He turns him toward the sound, and, far away
Through a long vista, sparkling with the play
Of countless lamps,-like the rich track which Day
Leaves on the waters, when he sinks from us;
So long the path, its light so tremulous;---
He sees a group of female forms advance,
Some chain'd together in the mazy dance
By fetters, forged in the green sunny bowers,
As they were captives to the King of Flowers;—
And some disporting round, unlink'd and free,
Who seem'd to mock their sisters' slavery,
And round and round them still, in wheeling flight,
Went, like gay moths about a lamp at night;
While others waked, as gracefully along
Their feet kept time, the very soul of song
From psaltery, pipe, and lutes of heavenly thrill,
Or their own youthful voices, heavenlier still!
And now they come, now pass before his eye,
Forms such as Nature moulds, when she would vie
With Fancy's peneil, and gave birth to things
Lovely beyond its fairest picturings!
Awhile they dance before him, then divide,
Breaking, like rosy clouds at even-tide
Around the rich pavilion of the sun,-
Till silently dispersing, one by one,
Through many a path that from the chamber leads
To gardens, terraces, and moonlight meads,
Their distant laughter comes upon the wind,
And but one trembling nymph remains behind,---
Beckoning them back in vain, for they are gone,
And she is left in all that light alone;

No veil to curtain o'er her beauteous brow,
In its young bashfulness more beauteous now;
But a light golden chain-work round her hair,
Such as the maids of Yezd and Shiraz wear,
From which, on either side, gracefully hung
A golden amulet, in the Arab tongue,
Engraven o'er with some immortal line
From holy writ, or bard scarce less divine;
While her left hand, as shriakingly she stood,
Held a small lute of gold and sandal-wood,

Which once or twice she touch'd with hurried strain,

Then took her trembling fingers off again.

But when at length a timid glance she stole

At Azim, the sweet gravity of soul

She saw through all his features calm'd her fear,

And, like a half-tamed antelope, more near,

Though shrinking still, she came;-then sat her down Upon a musnud's 1 edge, and, bolder grown,

↑ Musnuds are cushioned seats, usually reserved for persons of dis oction.

In the pathetic mode of Isfahan'
Touch'd a preluding strain, and thus began:-

There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream, To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song.

That bower and its music I never forget,

But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, I think is the nightingale singing there yet?

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?

No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave, But some blossoms were gather'd, while freshly they shone,

And a dew was distill'd from their flowers, that gave All the fragrance of summer, when summer was gone.

Thus memory draws from delight, ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it many a year; Thus bright to my soul, as 't was then to my eyes, Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!

Around the white necks of the nymphs who danced Hung carcanets of orient gems, that glanced More brilliant than the sea-glass glittering o'er The hills of crystal on the Caspian shore; ' While from their long dark tresses, in a fall Of curls descending, bells as musical As those that, on the golden-shafted trees Of Eden, shake in the Eternal Breeze, 2 Rung round their steps, at every bound more sweet, As 't were the ecstatic language of their feet! At length the chase was o'er, and they stood wreathed Within each others' arms; while soft there breathed Through the cool casement, mingled with the sighs Of moonlight flowers, music that seem'd to rise From some still lake, so liquidly it rose; And, as it swell'd again at each faint close, The ear could track, through all that maze of chords And young sweet voices, these impassion'd words :

A Spirit there is, whose fragrant sigh

Is burning now through earth and air; Where cheeks are blushing, the Spirit is nigh, Where lips are meeting, the Spirit is there!

With thy soft lute and beauty's blandishment,

To wake unholy wishes in this heart,

Or tempt its truth, thou little know'st the art.
For though thy lip should sweetly counsel wrong,
Those vestal eyes would disavow its song.
But thou hast breathed such purity, thy lay
Returns so fondly to youth's virtuous day,
And leads thy soul-if e'er it wander'd thence-
So gently back to its first innocence,
That I would sooner stop the unchain'd dove,
When swift returning to its home of love,
And round its snowy wing new fetters twine,
Than turn from virtue one pure wish of thine!»

Scarce had this feeling pass 'd, when, sparkling through The gently-open'd curtains of light blue

That veil'd the breezy casement, countless eyes,
Peeping like stars through the blue evening skies,
Look'd laughing in, as if to mock the pair
That sat so still and melancholy there—
And now the curtains fly apart, and in
From the cool air, 'mid showers of jessamine
Which those without thing after them in play,
Two lightsome maidens spring, lightsome as they
Who live in the air on odours, and around
The bright saloon, scarce conscious of the ground,
Chase one another, in a varying dance
Of mirth and languor, coyness and advance,
Too eloquently, like love's warm pursuit:
While she, who sung so gently to the lute
Her dream of home, steals timidly away,
Shrinking as violets do in summer's ray,—
But takes with her from Azim's heart that sigh
We sometimes give to forms that pass us by
In the world's crowd, too lovely to remain,
Creatures of light we never see again!

1 The Persians, like the ancient Greeks, call their musical modes or Perdas by the names of different countries or cities, as the mode of Isfahan, the mode of Irak etc.

A river which flows near the ruins of Chilminar.

And his floating eyes-oh! they resemble Blue water-lilies, 3 when the breeze

Is making the stream around them tremble!

Hail to thee, hail to thee, kindling power!
Spirit of Love, Spirit of Bliss!.

Thy holiest time is the moonlight hour,
And there never was moonlight so sweet at this.

By the fair and brave,

Who blushing unite, Like the sun and wave,

When they meet at night!

By the tear that shows
When passion is nigh,
As the rain-drop flows
From the heat of the sky!

By the first love-beat
Of the youthful heart,
By the bliss to meet,
And the pain to part!

By all that thou hast
To mortals given,
Which-oh! could it last,
This earth were heaven!

We call thee hither, entrancing Power!
Spirit of Love! Spirit of Bliss!
Thy holiest time is the moonlight hour,
And there never was moonlight so sweet at this.

To the north of us (on the coast of the Caspian, near Badku) was a mountain which sparkled like diamonds, arising from the seaglass and crystals with which it abounds.-Journey of the Russian Ambassador to Perna, 1746.

2. To which will be added the sound of the bells, banging on the trees, which will be put in motion by the wind proceeding from the throne of God, as often as the blessed wish for music. -SALB.

The blue lotos, which grows in Cashmere and in Persia

Impatient of a scene, whose luxuries stole, Spite of himself, too deep into his soul,

And where, midst all that the young heart loves most,
Flowers, music, smiles, to yield was to be lost,
The youth had started up, and turn'd away
From the light nymphs and their luxurious lay,
To muse upon the pictures that hung round,—
Bright images, that spoke without a sound,
And views, like vistas into fairy ground.
But here again new spells came o'er his sense ;--
All that the pencil's mute omnipotence
Could call up into life, of soft and fair,
Of fond and passionate, was glowing there:
Nor yet too warm, but touch'd with that fine art
Which paints of pleasure but the purer part;
Which knows even Beauty when half-veil'd is best,
Like her owa radiant planet of the west,
Whose orb when half retired looks loveliest!
There hung the history of the Genii-King,
Traced through each gay voluptuous wandering
With her from Saba's bowers, in whose bright eyes
He read that to be blest is to be wise,-
Here fond Zuleika woos with open arms
The Hebrew boy, who flies from her young charms,
Yet, flying, turns to gaze, and, half undone,
Wishes that Heaven and she could both be won!
And here Mohammed, born for love and guile,
Forgets the Koran in his Mary's smile ;-
Then beckons some kind angel from above
With a new text to consecrate their love! 3

With rapid step, yet pleased and lingering eye,
Did the youth pass these pictured stories by,
And hasten'd to a casement, where the light
Of the calm moon came in, and freshly bright
The fields without were seen, sleeping as still
As if no life remain'd in breeze or rill.
Here paused he, while the music, now less near,
Breathed with a holier language on his ear,
As though the distance, and that heavenly ray
Through which the sounds came floating, took away
All that had been too earthly in the lay.
Oh! could he listen to such sounds, unmoved,
And by that light-nor dream of her he loved?
Dream on, unconscious boy! while yet thou may'st;
'Tis the last bliss thy soul shall ever taste.
Clasp yet awhile her image to thy heart,
Ere all the light, that made it dear, depart.
Think of her smiles as when thou saw'st them last,
Clear, beautiful, by nought of earth o'ercast;
Recal her tears, to thee at parting given,
Pure as they weep, if angels weep, in heaven!
Think in her own still bower she waits thee now,
With the same glow of heart and bloom of brow,
Yet shrined in solitude-thine all, thine only,
Like the one star above thee, bright and lonely?
Oh, that a dream so sweet, so long enjoy'd,
Should be so sadly, cruelly destroy'd!

1 For the loves of King Solomon (who was supposed to preside over the whole race of Genii) with Balkis, the Queen of Sheba or Saba, see D'HERBELOT, and the Notes on the Koran, chap. 2.

* The wife of Potiphar, thus named by the Orientals. Her Adventure with the Patriarch Joseph is the subject of many of their poems

and romances.

The particulars of Mahomet's amour with Mary, the Coptic girl, in justification of which he added a new chapter to the Koran, may be found in GoNina's Notes upon Abulfeda, p. 151.

The song
is hush'd, the laughing nymphs are flown,
And he is left, musing of bliss, alone;-
Alone!-no, not alone-that heavy sigh,

That sob of grief, which broke from some one nigh—
Whose could it be?-alas! is misery found
Here, even here, on this enchanted ground?
He turns, and sees a female form, close veil'd,
Leaning, as if both heart and strength had fail'd,
Against a pillar near;-not glittering o'er
With gems and wreaths, such as the others wore,
But in that deep blue, melancholy dress,'
Bokhara's maidens wear in mindfulness
Of friends or kindred, dead or far away;-
And such as Zelica had on that day

He left her, when, with heart too full to speak,
He took away her last warm tears upon his cheek.

A strange emotion stirs within him,--more
Than mere compassion ever waked before;-
Unconsciously he opes his arms, while she
Springs forward, as with life's last energy,
But, swooning in that one convulsive bound,
Sinks, ere she reach his arms, upon the ground;-
Her veil falls off-her faint hands clasp his knees-
'Tis she herself!-'tis Zelica he sees!
But, ah, so pale, so changed-none but a lover
Could in that wreck of beauty's shrine discover
The once adored divinity! even he

Stood for some moments mute, and doubtingly
Put back the ringlets from her brow, and gazed
Upon those lids, where once such lustre blazed,
Ere he could think she was indeed his own,
Own darling maid, whom he so long had known
In joy and sorrow, beautiful in both;
Who, even when grief was heaviest-when loth
He left her for the wars-in that worst hour
Sat in her sorrow like the sweet night-flower,
When darkness brings its weeping glories out,
And spreads its sighs like frankincense about!

« Look up, my Zelica-one moment show Those gentle eyes to me, that I may know Thy life, thy loveliness is not all gone, But there, at least, shines as it ever shone. Come, look upon thy Azim-one dear glance, Like those of old, were heaven! whatever chance Hath brought thee here, oh! 't was a blessed one! There-my sweet lids-they move-that kiss hath run Like the first shoot of life through every vein, And now I clasp her, mine, all mine again! Oh the delight-now, in this very hour, When, had the whole rich world been in my power, I should have singled out thee, only thee, From the whole world's collected treasury— To have thee here-to hang thus fondly o'er My own best, purest Zelica once more!»

It was indeed the touch of those loved lips Upon her eyes that chased their short eclipse, And, gradual as the snow, at heaven's breath, Melts off and shows the azure flowers beneath, Her lids unclosed, and the bright eyes were seen Gazing on his,-not as they late had been,

1. Deep blue is their mourning colour.--HANWAY.

2 The sorrowful nyctanthes, which begins to spread its rich odour after sun-sci.