As true as e'er warmed a woman's breast- Thus saying, from her lips she spread Unearthly breathings through the place, That like two lovely saints they seemed, From their dim graves, in odour sleeping: While that benevolent PERI beamed Like their good angel, calmly keeping Watch o'er them till their souls would waken. a "In the East, they suppose the Phoenix to have fifty orifices in his bill, which are continued to his tail; and that, after living one thousand years, he builds himself a funeral pile, sings a melodious air of different harmonies through his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a velocity which sets fire to the wood, and consumes himself."-Richardson. High throbbed her heart, with hope elate, The Elysian palm she soon shall win, Smiled as she gave that offering in; Of Eden, with their crystal bells Ringing in that ambrosial breeze That from the throne of ALLA Swells; And she can see the starry bowls That lie around that lucid lake, Upon whose banks admitted Souls a Their first sweet draught of glory take! a But ah! even PERIS' hopes are vain— Th' immortal barrier closed-" Not yet," He shut from her that glimpse of glory— “Than evʼn this sigh the boon must be "That opes the Gates of Heaven for thee." a "On the shores of a quadrangular lake stand a thousand goblets, made of stars, out of which souls predestined to enjoy felicity drink the crystal wave."From Chateaubriand's Description of the Mahometan Paradise, in his Beau ies of Christianity. Now, upon SYRIA's land of roses a And, like a glory, the broad sun Hangs over sainted LEBANON; Whose head in wintry grandeur towers, To one, who looked from upper air How beauteous must have been the glow, The life, the sparkling from below! More golden where the sunlight falls ;— Of ruined shrines, busy and bright As they were all alive with light;– a Richardson thinks that Syria had its name from Suri, a beautiful and delicate species of rose, for which that country has been always famous;—hence, Suristan, the Land of Roses. b«The number of lizards I saw one day in the great court of the Temple of the Sun at Balbec amounted to many thousands; the ground, the walls, and stones of the ruined buildings, were covered with them."-Eruce. |