Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sun-light falls ;-
Gay lizards glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;
And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

Of the warm West,-as if inlaid
With brilliants from the mine, or made
Of tearless rainbows, such as span
The unclouded skies of Peristan.

And then the mingling sounds that come,
Of shepherd's ancient reed, with hum
Of the wild bees of Palestine,

Banqueting through the flowery vales,
And, Jordan, those sweet banks of thine,
And woods, so full of nightingales.

But nought can charm the luckless Peri;
Her soul is sad-her wings are weary-
Joyless she sees the Sun look down
On that great Temple, once his own,*
Whose lonely columns stand sublime,
Flinging their shadows from on high,
Like dials, which the wizard, Time,

Had raised to count his ages by!

Yet haply there may lie concealed
Beneath those Chambers of the Sun
Some amulet of gems, annealed
In upper fires, some tablet sealed

With the great name of Solomon,
Which, spelled by her illumined eyes,
May teach her where, beneath the moon,
In earth or ocean, lies the boon,
The charm, that can restore so soon
An erring Spirit to the skies.

Cheered by this hope she bends her thither ;-
Still laughs the radiant eye of Heaven,
Nor have the golden bowers of Even
In the rich West begun to wither;—
When, o'er the vale of Balbec winging
Slowly, she sees a child at play,
Among the rosy wild flowers singing,
As rosy and as wild as they;
Chasing, with eager hands and eyes,
The beautiful blue damsel-flies,

*The Temple of the Sun at Balbec.

That fluttered round the jasmine stems,
Like winged flowers or flying gems :-
And, near the boy, who tired with play
Now nestling 'mid the roses lay,
She saw a wearied man dismount

From his hot steed, and on the brink
Of a small imaret's rustic fount

*

Impatient fling him down to drink.
Then swift his haggard brow he turned
To the fair child, who fearless sat,
Though never yet hath day-beam burned
Upon a brow more fierce than that,-
Sullenly fierce-a mixture dire,
Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire;
In which the Peri's eye could read
Dark tales of many a ruthless deed;
The ruined maid-the shrine profaned-
Oaths broken-and the threshold stained
With blood of guests!-there written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel's pen,
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.
Yet tranquil now that man of crime
(As if the balmy evening time
Softened his spirit) looked and lay,
Watching the rosy infant's play :-
Though still, whene'er his eye by chance
Fell on the boy's, its lurid glance

Met that unclouded, joyous gaze,
As torches, that have burnt all night
Through some impure and godless rite,
Encounter morning's glorious rays.
But, hark! the vesper call to prayer,
As slow the orb of daylight sets,
Is rising sweetly on the air,

From Syria's thousand minarets!
The boy has started from the bed
Of flowers where he had laid his head,
And down upon the fragrant sod

Kneels with his forehead to the south,

Lisping the eternal name of God

From Purity's own cherub mouth,

And looking, while his hands and eyes

Are lifted to the glowing skies,

Like a stray babe of Paradise,

Just lighted on that flowery plain,

And seeking for its home again.

Oh! 'twas a sight-that Heaven-that child

Imaret, "hospice où on loge et nourrit, gratis, les pèlerins pendant trois jours."-Toderini, translated by the Abbé de Cournand.-See also Castellan's Mœurs des Othomans, tom. v. p. 145.

E

A scene which might have well beguiled
Even haughty Eblis of a sigh

For glories lost and peace gone by.

And how felt he, the wretched Man
Reclining there—while memory ran
O'er many a year of guilt and strife,
Flew o'er the dark flood of his life,
Nor found one sunny resting-place,
Nor brought him back one branch of grace.
"There was a time," he said, in mild
Heart-humbled tones-" thou blessed child!
When, young and haply pure as thou,
I looked and prayed like thee-but now-
He hung his head-each nobler aim,

And hope, and feeling, which had slept
From boyhood's hour, that instant came
Fresh o'er him, and he wept-he wept!

Blest tears of soul-felt penitence!

In whose benign, redeeming flow

Is felt the first, the only sense

Of guiltless joy that guilt can know.

"There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from

the moon

Falls through the withering airs of June

Upon Egypt's land,* of so healing a power,

So balmy a virtue, that even in the hour

That drop descends, contagion dies,

And health re-animates earth and skies!

Oh, is it not thus, thou man of sin,

The precious tears of repentance fall?
Though foul thy fiery plagues within,

One heavenly drop hath dispelled them all!"

And now-behold him kneeling there
By the child's side, in humble prayer,
While the same sunbeam shines upon
The guilty and the guiltless one,

And hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven
The triumph of a Soul Forgiven!

"Twas when the golden orb had set,

While on their knees they lingered yet,
There fell a light more lovely far

Than ever came from sun or star,
Upon the tear that, warm and meek,
Dewed that repentant sinner's cheek.
To mortal eye this light might seem
A northern flash or meteor beam-

The Nucta, or Miraculous Drop, which falls in Egypt precisely on St. John's day, in June, and is supposed to have the effect of stopping the plague.

A

But well the enraptured Peri knew
'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw
From Heaven's gate, to hail that tear
Her harbinger of glory near !

"Joy, joy for ever! my task is done-
The gates are passed, and Heaven is won!
Oh! am I not happy? I am, I am-

To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad
Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam,*

And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad !
"Farewell, ye odours of Earth, that die
Passing away like a lover's sigh ;—
My feast is now of the Tooba Tree,+
Whose scent is the breath of Eternity!
"Farewell, ye vanishing flowers, that shone

In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief;—
Oh! what are the brightest that e'er have blown,
To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's throne,

Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf?
Joy, joy for ever!-my task is done-

The Gates are passed, and Heaven is won!"

"And this," said the Great Chamberlain, "is poetry! this flimsy manufacture of the brain, which in comparison with the lofty and durable monuments of genius, is as the gold filigree-work of Zamara beside the eternal architecture of Egypt!" After this gorgeous sentence, which, with a few more of the same kind, Fadladeen kept by him for rare and important occasions, he proceeded to the anatomy of the short poem just recited. The lax and easy kind of metre in which it was written ought to be denounced, he said, as one of the leading causes of the alarming growth of poetry in our times. If some check were not given to this lawless facility, we soon should be overrun by a race of bards as numerous and as shallow as the hundred and twenty thousand Streams of Basra.‡ They who succeeded in this style deserved chastisement for their very success;—as warriors have been punished, even after gaining a victory, because they had taken the liberty of gaining it in an irregular or unestablished manner. What, then, was to be said to those who failed? to those who presumed, as in the present lamentable instance, to imitate the licence and ease of the bolder sons of song, without any of that grace or vigour which gave a dignity even to negligence;-who, like them, flung the jereed care

The Country of Delight-the name of a province in the kingdom of Jinnistan, or Fairy Land, the capital of which is called the City of Jewels. Amberabad is another of the cities of Jinnistan.

The tree Tooba, that stands in Paradise, in the palace of Mahomet. See Sale's Prelim. Disc.-Tooba, says D'Herbelot, signifies beautitude, or eternal happiness.

"It is said that the rivers or streams of Basra were reckoned in the time of Pelal ben Abi Bordeh, and amounted to the number of one hundred and twenty thousand streams."-Ebn Haukal.

lessly, but not, like them, to the mark ;" and who," said he, raising his voice to excite a proper degree of wakefulness in his hearers, "contrive to appear heavy and constrained in the midst of all the latitude they allow themselves, like one of those young pagans that dance before the Princess, who is ingenious enough to move as if her limbs were fettered, in a pair of the lightest and loosest drawers of Masulipatam!"

It was but little suitable, he continued, to the grave march of criticism to follow this fantastical Peri, of whom they had just heard, through all her flights and adventures between earth and heaven; but he could not help adverting to the puerile conceitedness of the Three Gifts which she is supposed to carry to the skies,-a drop of blood, forsooth, a sigh, and a tear! How the first of these articles was delivered into the Angel's "radiant hand" he professed himself at a loss to discover; and as to the safe carriage of the sigh and the tear, such Peris and such poets were beings by far too incomprehensible for him even to guess how they managed such matters. "But, in short," said he, "it is a waste of time and patience to dwell longer upon a thing so incurably frivolous, puny, even among its own puny race, and such as only the Banyan Hospital for Sick Insects should undertake."

In vain did Lalla Rookh try to soften this inexorable critic; in vain did she resort to her most eloquent common-places,-reminding him that poets were a timid and sensitive race, whose sweetness was not to be drawn forth, like that of the fragrant grass near the Ganges, by crushing and trampling upon them,-that severity often extinguished every chance of the perfection which it demanded; and that, after all, perfection was like the Mountain of the Talisman, no one had ever yet reached its summit.+ Neither these gentle axioms, nor the still gentler looks with which they were inculcated, could lower for one instant the elevation of Fadladeen's eyebrows, or charm him into anything like encouragement, or even toleration, of her poet. Toleration, indeed, was not among the weaknesses of Fadladeen :-he carried the same spirit into matters of poetry and of religion, and, though little versed in the beauties or sublimities of either, was a perfect master of the art of persecution in both. His zeal was the same, too, in either pursuit ; whether the game before him was pagans or poetasters,―worshippers of cows, or writers of epics.

They had now arrived at the splendid city of Lahore, whose mausoleums and shrines, magnificent and numberless, where Death

"This account excited a desire of visiting the Banyan Hospital, as I had heard much of their benevolence to all kinds of animals that were either sick, lame, or infirm, through age or accident. On my arrival, there were presented to my view many horses, cows, and oxen, in one apartment; in another, dogs, sheep, goats, and monkeys, with clean straw for them to repose on. Above stairs were depositories for seeds of many sorts, and flat, broad dishes for water, for the use of birds and insects."-Parson's Travels. It is said that all animals know the Banyans, that the most timid approach them, and that birds will fly nearer to them than to other people.-See Grandpré.

"Near this is a curious hill, called Koh Talism, the Mountain of the Talisman, because, according to the traditions of the country, no person ever succeeded in gaining its summit."-Kinneir.