wandered among these flowers, and fed with her own hands, in those marble basins, the small shining fishes of which she was so fond,309-the youth, in order to delay the moment of separation, proposed to recite a short story, or rather rhapsody, of which this adored Sultana was the heroine. It related, he said, to the reconcilement of a sort of lovers' quarrel which took place between her and the Emperor during a Feast of Roses at Cashmere; and would remind the Princess of that difference between Haroun-al-Raschid and his fair mistress Marida,310 which was so happily made up by the soft strains of the musician, Moussali. As the story was chiefly to be told in song, and FERAMORZ had unluckily forgotten his own lute in the valley, he borrowed the vina of LALLA ROOKH's little Persian slave, and thus began:

WHO has not heard of the vale of CASHMERE,

With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave,311 Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear

As the love-lighted eyes that hang over their wave?

Oh! to see it at sunset,-when warm o'er the Lake
Its splendour at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!-
When the shrines through the foliage are gleaming half
shown,

And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own.
Here the music of pray'r from a minaret swells,

Here the Magian his urn, full of perfume, is swinging, And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells

Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing, 312 Or to see it by moonlight,-when mellowly shines The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines ; When the water-falls gleam, like a quick fall of stars, And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet From the cool, shining walks where the young people

meet.

Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, call'd forth every one
Out of darkness, as if but just born of the Sun.
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day,
From his Haram of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, woos like a lover
The young aspen-trees,313 till they tremble all over.