PARADISE AND THE PERI.

66

ONE morn a Peri, at the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate;
And as she listened to the Springs

Of Life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place!

How happy," exclaimed this child of air,

"Are the holy Spirits who wander there,

''Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall! "Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea,

66

And the stars themselves have flowers for me, "One blossom of Heaven outblooms them all!

"Though sunny the Lake of cool CASHMERE, "With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,*

Numerous small islands emerge from the Lake of Cashmere. One is called Char Chenaur, from the plane-trees upon it."Foster.

“And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; "Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, “And the golden floods that thitherward stray,* "Yet-O, 'tis only the Bless'd can say

66

"How the waters of Heaven outshine them all!

Go, wing thy flight from star to star,

"From world to luminous world, as far

66

As the universe spreads its flaming wall "Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, "And multiply each through endless years, "One minute of Heaven is worth them all!"

The glorious Angel, who was keeping
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew and listened
To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flower, which-Bramins say-
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.†

"The Altan Kol or Golden River of Tibet, which runs into the Lakes of Sing-su-hay, has abundance of gold in its sands, which employs the inhabitants all the summer in gathering it."-Description of Tibet in Pinkerton.

"The Brahmins of this province insist that the blue campac flowers only in Paradise.”—Sir W. Jones. It appears, however, from a curious letter of the Sultan of Menangcabow, given by Marsden, that one place on earth may lay claim to the possession of it. "This is the Sultan, who keeps the flower champaka that is blue, and to be found in no other country but his, being yellow elsewhere."-Marsden's Sumatra.