With joys, that vanish while he sips, His country's curse, his children's shame, LALLA ROOKH had had a dream the night before, which, in spite of the impending fate of poor HAFED, made her heart more than usually cheerful during the morning, and gave her cheeks all the freshened animation of a flower that the Bid-musk has just passed over. She fancied that she was sailing on that Eastern Ocean, where the sea-gipsies, who live for ever on the water, enjoy a perpetual summer in wandering from isle to ilse, when she saw a small gilded bark approaching her. It was like one of those boats which the Maldivian islanders annually send adrift, at the mercy of winds and waves, loaded with perfumes, flowers, and odoriferous wood, as an offering to the Spirit whom they call King of the Sea. At first, this little bark appeared to be empty, but, on coming nearer She had proceeded thus far in relating the dream to her Ladies, when FERAMORZ appeared at the door of the pavilion. In his presence, of course, every thing else was forgotten, and the continuance of the story was instantly requested by all. Fresh wood of aloes was set to burn in the cassolets; the violet sherbets were hastily handed round, and, after a short prelude on his lute, in the pathetic measure of Nava, which is always used to express the lamentations of absent lovers, the Poet thus continued: THE day is lowering-stilly black Sleeps the grim wave, while heaven's rack, There's not a cloud in that blue plain Of a The mighty womb that gave him birth, And, having swept the firmament, Was now in fierce career for earth. And all was boding, drear and dark Nor friends upon the lessening strand And where was stern AL HASSAN then? "The Easterns used to set out on their longer voyages with music."-Harmer. †The Gate of Tears, the straits or passage into the Red Sea, commonly called Babelmandel. It received this name from the old Arabians, on account of the danger of the navigation, and the number of shipwrecks by which it was distinguished; which induced them to consider as dead, and to wear mourning for all who had the boldness to hazard the a."-Richardson. passage through it into the Ethiopic ocean."- In savage loneliness to brood With that keen second-scent of death, In the still warm and living breath!* While o'er the wave his weeping daughter Is wafted from these scenes of slaughter, As a young bird of Babylon,† Let loose to tell of victory won, Flies home, with wing, ah! not unstain'd And does the long-left home she seeks The flowers she nurs'd, the well-known groves, Shooting around their jasper fount.‡ * "I have been told that whensoever an animal falls down dead, one or more vultures, unseen before, instantly appear." ---Pennant. They fasten some writing to the wings of a Bagdat or Babylonian pigeon."-Travels of certain Englishmen. "The empress of Jehan-Guire used to divert herself with feeding tame fish in her canals, some of which were ma R |