́Our rocks are rough, but smiling there Our sands are bare, but down their slope The silvery-footed antelope As gracefully and gaily springs As o'er the marble courts of kings. Then come-thy Arab maid will be Oh! there are looks and tones that dart As if the very lips and eyes So come thy every glance and tone, Then fly with me-if thou hast known A gem away that thou hast sworn Come, if the love thou hast for me But if for me thou dost forsake Then, fare thee well-I'd rather make There was a pathos in this lay, That, ev'n without enchantment's art, With every chord fresh from the touch Of Music's spirit—'twas too much! *The hudhud, or lapwing, is supposed to have the power of discovering water under ground. Starting, he dash'd away the cup, Which, all the time of this sweet air, His hand had held, untasted, up, As if 'twere fix'd by magic thereAnd naming her, so long unnam❜d, So long unseen, wildly exclaim'd, "Oh NOURMAHAL! oh NoURMAHAL! "Hadst thou but sung this witching strain, "I could forget-forgive thee all, "And never leave those eyes again." The mask is off-the charm is wrought- 66 Remember, love, the Feast of Roses!" FADLADEEN, at the conclusion of this light rhapsody, took occasion to sum up his opinion of the young Cashmerian's poetry, of which he trusted they had that evening heard the last. Having recapitulated the epithets, "frivolous,"— "inharmonious"-" nonsensical," he proceeded to say that, viewing it in the most favourable light, it resembled one of those Maldivian boats to which the princess had alluded in the relation of her dream,a slight, gilded thing, sent adrift without rudder or ballast, and with nothing but vapid sweets and faded flowers on board. The profusion, indeed, of flowers and birds which this poet had ready on all occasions, not to mention dews, gems, &c.—was a most oppressive kind of opulence to his hearers; and had the unlucky effect of giving to his style all the glitter of the flower-garden without its method, and all the flutter of the aviary without its song. In addition to this he chose his subjects badly, and was always most inspired by the worst part of them. The charms of paganism, the merits of rebellion: These were the themes honoured with his particular enthusiasm; and, in the poem just recited, one of his most palatable passages was in praise of that beverage of the unfaithful, wine; "being, perhaps," said he, relaxing into a smile, as conscious of his own character in the haram on this point, "one of those bards whose fancy owes all its illumination to the grape, like that painted porcelain, so curious and so rare, whose images are only visible when liquor is poured into it." Upon the whole it was his opinion, from the specimens which they had heard, and which, he begged to say, were the mort tiresome part of the journey, that, whatever other merits this well-dressed young gentleman might possess, poetry was by no means his proper avocation; "and indeed,” concluded the critic, "from his fondness for flowers and for birds, I would venture to suggest that a florist or a bird-catcher is a much more suitable calling for him than a poet." They had now begun to ascend those barren mountains, which separate Cashmere from the rest of India; and, as the heats were intolerable, and the time of their encampments limited to the few hours necessary for refreshment and repose, there was an end to all their delightful evenings, and LALLA ROOKн saw no more of FERAMORZ. She now felt that her short dream of happiness was over, and that she had nothing but the recollection of its few blissful hours, like the one draught of sweet water that serves the camel across the wilderness, to be her heart's refreshment during the dreary waste of life that was before her. The blight that had fallen upon her spirits soon found its way to her cheek, and her Ladies saw with regret-though not without some suspicion of the cause--that the beauty of their mistress, of which they were almost as proud as of their own, was fast vanishing away at the very moment of all when she had most need of it. What must the King of Bucharia feel, when, instead of the lively and beautiful LaLLa ROOKн, whom the poets of Delhi had described as more |