Ah! once, how little did he think

An hour would come, when he should shrink

With horror from that dear embrace,

Those gentle arms, that were to him

Holy as is the cradling place

Of Eden's infant cherubim!

And now he yields-now turns away,
Shuddering as if the venom lay
All in those proffer'd lips alone-

Those lips that, then so fearless grown,

Never until that instant came

Near his unask'd or without shame,

"Oh! let me only breathe the air,

"The blessed air, that's breath'd by thee,

"And whether on its wings it bear

66

Healing or death, 'tis sweet to me!

"There-drink my tears, while yet they fall

"Would that my bosom's blood were balm,

"And, well thou know'st, I'd shed it all,

66

"To give thy brow one minute's calm,

Nay, turn not from me that dear face

"Am I not thine-thy own lov'd bride

"The one, the chosen one, whose place "In life or death is by thy side? "Think'st thou that she, whose only light,

"In this dim world, from thee hath shone, "Could bear the long, the cheerless night,

"That must be hers when thou art gone?

"That I can live and let thee go,
"Who art my life itself?-No, no-
"When the stem dies, the leaf that grew

"Out of its heart must perish too!

"Then turn to me, my own love, turn,

"Before, like thee, I fade and burn;

Cling to these yet cool lips, and share

"The last pure life that lingers there!"

She fails she sinks as dies the lamp

In charnel airs, or cavern-damp,

So quickly do his baleful sighs

Quench all the sweet light of her eyes.
One struggle- and his pain is past—
Her lover is no longer living!

One kiss the maiden gives, one last,

Long kiss, which she expires in giving!

"Sleep," said the PERI, as softly she stole
The farewell sigh of that vanishing soul,
As true as e'er warm'd a woman's breast

66 Sleep on, in visions of odour rest,
"In balmier airs than ever yet stirr'd
"The' enchanted pile of that lonely bird,
"Who sings at the last his own death-lay,*
“ And in music and perfume dies away!"

Thus saying, from her lips she spread

Unearthly breathings through the place,
And shook her sparkling wreath, and shed
Such lustre o'er each paly face,

That like two lovely saints they seem'd,
Upon the eve of doomsday taken

From their dim graves, in odour sleeping;
While that benevolent PERI beam'd

* "In the East, they suppose the Phoenix to have fifty orifices in his bill, which are continued to his tail; and that, after living one thousand years, he builds himself a funeral pile, sings a melodious air of different harmonies through his fifty organ pipes, flaps his wings with a velocity which sets fire to the wood, and consumes himself."-Richardson