Then swift his haggard brow he turn'd To the fair child, who fearless sat, Though never yet hath day-beam burn'd Upon a brow more fierce than that, Sullenly fierce, a mixture dire,

Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire,
In which the Peri's eye could read

Dirk tales of many a ruthless deed:
The ruin`d maid — the shrine profaned —
Oaths broken and the threshold stain'd
With blood of guests! — there written, all,
Black as the damning drops that fall
From the denouncing Angel's pen,
Ere Mercy weeps them out again.

Yet tranquil now that man of crime
(As if the balmy evening time
Soften'd his spirit) look'd and lay,
Watching the rosy infant's play:—
Though still, whene'er his eye by chance
Fell on the boy's, its lurid glance

Met that unclouded joyous gaze,

As torches that have burnt all night
Through some impure and godless rite,
Encounter morning's glorious rays.

But hark! the vesper call to prayer,
As slow the orb of daylight sets,
Is rising sweetly on the air,

From Syria's thousand minarets!

The boy has started from the bed
Of flowers where he had laid his head,
And down upon the fragrant sod

Kneels, with his forehead to the south
Lisping the eternal name of God

From Purity's own cherub mouth,
And looking, while his hands and eyes
Are lifted to the glowing skies,
Like a stray babe of Paradise,
Just lighted on that flowery plain,
And seeking for its home again.

Oh, 'twas a sight. that Heaven — that child

A scene which might have well beguiled

Even haughty Eblis of a sigh

For glories lost and peace gone by!

And how felt he, the wretched man

Reclining there - while memory ran
O'er many a year of guilt and strife,
Flew o'er the dark flood of his life,
Nor found one sunny resting-place,
Nor brought him back one branch of grace!
There was a time," he said, in mild
Heart-humbled tones, "thou blessed child!
When, young and haply pure as thou,
I look'd and pray'd like thee; but now
He hung his head: each nobler aim,

And hope, and feeling, which had slept From boyhood's hour, that instant came Fresh o'er him, and he wept - he wept !

Blest tears of soul-felt penitence!
In whose benign redeeming flow
Is felt the first, the only sense

Of guiltless joy that guilt can know. "There's a drop," said the Peri, "that down from

the moon

Falls through the withering airs of June
Upon Egypt's land, of so healing a power,
So balmy a virtue, that e'en in the hour
The drop descends, contagion dies,
And health re-animates earth and skies!
Oh, it is not thus, thou man of sin,

The precious tears of repentance fall?
Though foul thy fiery plagues within,

One heavenly drop hath dispell'd them all!"

And now, behold him kneeling there
By the child's side, in humble prayer,
While the same sunbeam shines upon
The guilty and the guiltless one,

And hymns of joy proclaim through Heaven
The triumph of a Soul Forgiven!

'Twas when the golden orb had set,
While on their knees they linger'd yet,
There fell a light more lovely far
Than ever came from sun or star,
Upon the tear that, warm and meek,
Dew'd that repentant sinner's cheek.
To mortal eye this light might seem
A northern flash or meteor beam, -

But well the enraptured Peri knew
'Twas a bright smile the Angel threw
From Heaven's gate, to hail that tear
Her harbinger of glory near!

"Joy, joy forever! my task is done

The Gates are pass'd, and Heaven is won! Oh, am I not happy ? I am, I am —

To thee, sweet Eden! how dark and sad
Are the diamond turrets of Shadukiam,
And the fragrant bowers of Amberabad !
Farewell, ye odors of Earth, that die
Passing away like a lover's sigh!

My feast is now of the Tooba Tree,
Whose scent is the breath of Eternity!
Farewell, ye vanishing flowers, that shone

In my fairy wreath, so bright and brief!
Oh, what are the brightest that e'er have blown,
To the lote-tree, springing by Alla's throne,
Whose flowers have a soul in every leaf!
Joy, joy forever! my task is done!-

-

The Gates are pass'd, and Heaven is won!"

"AND this," said the Great Chamberlain, "is poetry! this flimsy manufacture of the brain, which, in comparison with the lofty and durable monuments of genius, is as the gold filigree-work of Zamara beside the eternal architecture of

Egypt!" After this gorgeous sentence, which, with a few more of the same kind, Fadladeen kept by him for rare and important occasions, he proceeded to the anatomy of the short poem just recited. The lax and easy kind of metre in which it was written ought to be denounced, he said, as one of the leading causes of the alarming growth of poetry in our times. If some check were not given to this lawless facility, we should soon be overrun by a race of bards as numerous and as shallow as the hundred-and-twenty thousand streams of Basra. They who succeeded in this style deserved chastisement for their very success,

as warriors have been punished, even after gaining a victory, because they had taken the liberty of gaining it in an irregular or unestablished manner. What, then, was to be said to those who failed? to those who presumed, as in the present lamentable instance, to imitate the license and ease of the bolder sons of song, without any of that grace or vigor which gave a dignity even to negligence, who, like them, flung the jereed carelessly, but not, like them, to the mark; "and who," said he, raising his voice to excite a proper degree of wakefulness in his hearers, "contrive to appear heavy and constrained in the midst of all the latitude they allow themselves, like one of those young pagans that dance before the Princess, who is ingenious enough to move as if her limbs were fettered, in a pair of the lightest and loosest drawers of Masulipatam!"