But never yet hath bride or maid

In ARABY'S gay Haram smiled,
Whose boasted brightness would not fade
Before AL HASSAN's blooming child.

Light as the angel shapes that bless
An infant's dream, yet not the less
Rich in all woman's loveliness ;-

· With eyes so pure,

that from their ray

Dark Vice would turn abashed away,

Blinded like serpents, when they gaze

a

Upon the emerald's virgin blaze; a
Yet filled with all youth's sweet desires,
Mingling the meek and vestal fires
Of other worlds with all the bliss,
The fond, weak tenderness of this;

A soul, too, more than half divine,

Where, through some shades of earthly feeling,
Religion's softened glories shine,

Like light through summer foliage stealing,
Shedding a glow of such mild hue,
So warm, and yet so shadowy too,

As makes the very darkness there

More beautiful than light elsewhere.

They say that if a snake or serpent fix his eyes on the lustre of those stones, (emeralds,) he immediately becomes blind."-Ahmed ben Abdalaziz, Treatise on Jewels.

Such is the maid who, at this hour,

Hath risen from her restless sleep,
And sits alone in that high bower,

Watching the still and shining deep.
Ah! 'twas not thus,—with tearful eyes
And beating heart,—she used to gaze
On the magnificent earth and skies,

In her own land, in happier days.

Why looks she now so anxious down
Among those rocks, whose rugged frown

Blackens the mirror of the deep?

Whom waits she all this lonely night?

Too rough the rocks, too bold the steep,
For man to scale that turret's height !-

So deemed at least her thoughtful sire,
When high, to catch the cool night-air,
After the daybeam's withering fire,a

He built her bower of freshness there,
And had it decked with costliest skill,
And fondly thought it safe as fair:-
Think, reverend dreamer! think so still,

Nor wake to learn what Love can dare;—

Love, all-defying Love, who sees

No charm in trophies won with ease;—

a «At Gombaroon and the Isle of Ormus it is sometimes so hot, that the

people are obliged to lie all day in the water."-Marco Polo.

Whose rarest, dearest fruits of bliss
Are plucked on danger's precipice!
Bolder than they, who dare not dive

For pearls, but when the sea's at rest,
Love, in the tempest most alive,

Hath ever held that pearl the best

He finds beneath the stormiest water.
Yes-ARABY's unrivalled daughter,

Though high that tower, that rock-way rude,
There's one who, but to kiss thy cheek,
Would climb th' untrodden solitude

Of ARARAT's tremendous peak,"

And think its steeps, though dark and dread,
Heaven's pathways, if to thee they led!
Ev'n now thou seest the flashing spray,
That lights his oar's impatient way;—
Ev'n now thou hear'st the sudden shock
Of his swift bark against the rock,

a «This mountain is generally supposed to be inaccessible. Struy says, "I can well assure the reader that their opinion is not true, who suppose this mount to be inaccessible." He adds, that "the lower part of the mountain is cloudy, misty, and dark, the middlemost part very cold, and like clouds of snow, but the upper regions perfectly calm."-It was on this mountain that the ark was supposed to have rested after the Deluge, and part of it, they say, exists there still, which Struy thus gravely accounts for:-"Whereas none can remember that the air on the top of the hill did ever change or was subject either to wind or rain, which is presumed to be the reason that the Ark has endured so long without being rotten."-See Carreri's Travels, where the Doctor laughs at this whole account of Mount Ararat.

And stretchest down thy arms of snow,

As if to lift him from below!

Like her to whom, at dead of night,
The bridegroom, with his locks of light,*
Came, in the flush of love and pride,
And scaled the terrace of his bride ;—
When, as she saw him rashly spring,
And midway up in danger cling,

She flung him down her long black hair,

Exclaiming, breathless, "There, love, there!"
And scarce did manlier nerve uphold

The hero ZAL in that fond hour,

Than wings the youth who, fleet and bold,

Now climbs the rocks to HINDA's bower.

See-light as up their granite steeps

The rock-goats of ARABIA clamber,

Fearless from crag to crag he leaps,

b

And now is in the maiden's chamber.

She loves but knows not whom she loves,

Nor what his race, nor whence he came ;—

a In one of the books of the Shah Nâmeh, when Zal (a celebrated hero of Persia, remarkable for his white hair) comes to the terrace of his mistress Rodahver at night, she lets down her long tresses to assist him in his ascent;— he, however, manages it in a less romantic way by fixing his crook in a projecting beam."-See Champion's Ferdosi.

"On the lofty hills of Arabia Petræa are rock-goats."-Niebuhr.

Like one who meets, in Indian groves,
Some beauteous bird without a name,
Brought by the last ambrosial breeze,
From isles in th' undiscovered seas,
To show his plumage for a day

To wondering eyes, and wing away!
Will he thus fly-her nameless lover?
ALLA forbid! 'twas by a moon
As fair as this, while singing over
Some ditty to her soft Kanoon,*
Alone, at this same witching hour,
She first beheld his radiant eyes

Gleam through the lattice of the bower,

Where nightly now they mix their sighs;

And thought some spirit of the air

(For what could waft a mortal there?)

Was pausing on his moonlight way

To listen to her lonely lay!

This fancy ne'er hath left her mind:

And though, when terror's swoon had past,

She saw a youth, of mortal kind,

Before her in obeisance cast,—

Yet often since, when he hath spoken

Strange, awful words,—and gleams have broken

a «Canun, espèce de psalterion, avec des cordes de boyaux; les dames en touchent dans le serrail, avec des décailles armées de pointes de cooc."Toderini, translated by De Cournand.