No sooner was the flowery crown

Placed on her head than sleep came down,
Gently as nights of summer fall,
Upon the lids of Nourmahal ;
And, suddenly, a tuneful breeze,
As full of small rich harmonies
As ever wind, that o'er the tents
Of Azab 3 blew, was full of scents,
Steals on her ear and floats and swells,
Like the first air of morning creeping
Into those wreathy, red-sea shells,

Where Love himself, of old, lay sleeping;-4
And now a spirit form'd, 't would seem,
Of music and of light, so fair,
So brilliantly his features beam,

And such a sound is in the air
Of sweetness, when he waves his wings,
Hovers around her, and thus sings:

The Pompadour pigeon is the species which, by carrying the fruit of the cinnamon to different places, is a great disseminator of this valuable tree. See Brown's Illustr., Tab. 19.

They have two mornings, the Soobhi Kazim, and the Soobhi Sadig, the false and the real day-break.-WARING.

And then, her voice-'t is more than humanNever, till now, had it been given

To lips of any mortal woman

To utter notes so fresh from heaven;
Sweet as the breath of angel sighs,

When angel sighs are most divine.—
Oh! let it last till night, she cries,

And he is more than ever mine..
And hourly she renews the lay,

So fearful lest its heavenly sweetness Should, ere the evening, fade away,

For things so heavenly have such fleetness!

But, far from fading, it but grows

Richer, diviner as it flows;

Till rapt she dwells on every string,

And pours again each sound along, Like Echo, lost and languishing

In love with her own wondrous song. That evening (trusting that his soul

Might be from haunting love released By mirth, by music, and the bowl)

The Imperial Selim held a feast In his magnificent Shalimar ;-(129) In whose saloons, when the first star Of evening o'er the waters trembled, The valley's loveliest all assembled: All the bright creatures that, like dreams, Glide through its foliage, and drink beams Of beauty from its founts and streams,' And all those wandering minstrel-maids, Who leave-how can they leave?-the shades Of that dear valley, and are found

Singing in gardens of the south 2 Those songs, that ne'er so sweetly sound

As from a young Cashmerian's mouth. There too the Haram's inmates smile ;

Maids from the west, with sun-bright hair,

And from the garden of the Nile,

Delicate as the roses there ;-3
Daughters of Love from Cyprus' rocks,
With Paphian diamonds in their locks ;-4
Light Peri forms, such as there are
On the gold meads of Candahar; 5
And they, before whose sleepy eyes,

In their own bright Kathaian bowers,
Sparkle such rainbow butterflies, 6

That they might fancy the rich flowers,

The waters of Cachemir are the more renowned from its being supposed that the Cachemirians are indebted for their beauty to them.-ALI YEZDI.

2. From bim I received the following little Gazzel, or Love Song, the notes of which he committed to paper from the voice of one of those singing-girls of Cachmere, who wander from that delightful valley over the various parts of India.-Persian Miscellanies.

The roses of the Jinan Nile, or Garden of the Nile (attached to the Emperor of Morocco's palace) are unequalled, and matrasses are made of their leaves for the men of rank to recline upon."— JACKSON.

4. On the side of a mountain near Paphos there is a cavern which produces the most beautiful rock crystal. On account of its brilliancy it has been called the Paphian diamond."-MARITI.

5. There is a part of Candabar called Peria, or Fairy-Land. THEVENOT. In some of those countries to the North of India vegetable gold is supposed to be produced.

These are the butterflies which are called in the Chinese language Flying Leaves. Some of them have such shining colours, and are so variegated, that they may be called flying flowers; and indeed they are always produced in the finest flower-gardens.-Duxx.

That round them in the sun lay sighing,

Had been by magic all set flying!

Every thing young, every thing fair,
From east and west is blushing there:
Except-except-oh Nourmahal!
Thou loveliest, dearest of them all,
The one, whose smile shone out alone,
Amidst a world the only one!
Whose light, among so many lights,
Was like that star, on starry nights,
The seaman singles from the sky,
To steer his bark for ever by!

Thou wert not there-so Selim thought,

And every thing seem'd drear without thee: But ah! thou wert, thou wert-and brought Thy charm of song all fresh about thee; Mingling unnoticed with a band

Of lutanists from many a land,
And veil'd by such a mask as shades
The features of young Arab maids,—'
A mask that leaves but one eye free,
To do its best in witchery,-
She roved, with beating heart, around,
And waited, trembling, for the minute
When she might try if still the sound

Of her loved lute had magic in it.

The board was spread with fruits and wine;
With grapes of gold, like those that shine
On Casbin's hills; 2-pomegranates full
Of melting sweetness, and the pears
And sunniest apples 3 that Caubul
In all its thousand gardens 4 bears;
Plantains, the golden and the green,
Malaya's nectar'd mangusteen; 5
Prunes of Bokara, and sweet nuts

From the far groves of Samarcand,
And Basra dates, and apricots,

Seed of the Sun, 6 from Iran's land ;-
With rich conserve of Visna cherries, 7
Of orange flowers, and of those berries
That, wild and fresh, the young gazelles
Feed on in Erac's rocky dells. 8
All these in richest vases smile,
In baskets of pure sandal-wood,
And urns of porcelain from that isle 9
Sunk underneath the Indian flood,

The Arabian women wear black masks with little clasps, prettily ordered.-CARRERI. NIEBUHR mentions their showing but one eye in conversation.

The golden grapes of Casbin.-Description of Persia. 3. The fruits exported from Caubul are apples, pears, pomegranates, etc.-ELPHINSTONE.

4 We sat down under a tree, listened to the birds, and talked with the son of our Mehmaundar about our country and Caubui, of which he gave an enchanting account: that city and its hundred thousand gardens, etc.-Id.

The Mangusteen, the most delicate fruit in the world; the pride of the Malay Islands.-MARSDEN.

6 A delicious kind of apricot, called by the Persians tokm-ekshems, signifying sun's seed.--Descript. of Persia.

7 Sweetmeats in a crystal cup, consisting of rose-leaves in conserve, with lemon or Visna cherry, orange-flowers, etc.-Russell. Antelopes cropping the fresh berries of Erac.-The Muallakat, a poem of TARAYA.

Mauri-ga-Sima, an island near Formosa, supposed to have been sunk in the sea for the crimes of its inhabitants. The vessels which the fishermen and divers bring up from it are sold at an immease price in China and Japan.-See KEMPFER.

Whence oft the lucky diver brings
Vases to grace the halls of kings.
Wines too, of every clime and hue,
Around their liquid lustre threw;

Amber Rosolly,'—the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green-Sea gushing;2
And Shiraz wine, that richly ran

As if that jewel, large and rare,
The ruby, for which Kublai-Khan
Offer'd a city's wealth,3 was blushing,
Melted within the goblets there!

And amply Selim quaffs of each,

And seems resolved the floods shall reach His inward heart,-shedding around

A genial deluge, as they run,

That soon shall leave no spot undrown'd, For Love to rest his wings upon.

He little knew how well the boy

Can float upon a goblet's streams, Lighting them with his smile of joy ;

As bards have seen him, in their dreams, Down the blue Ganges laughing glide Upon a rosy lotus wreath,4 Catching new lustre from the tide

That with his image shone beneath.

But what are cups, without the aid

Of song to speed them as they flow? And see-a lovely Georgian maid,

With all the bloom, the freshen'd glow Of her own country maiden's looks, When warm they rise from Teflis' brooks; And with an eye, whose restless ray,

Full, floating, dark-oh he, who knows His heart is weak, of Heaven should pray, To guard him from such eyes as those! With a voluptuous wildness flings Her snowy hand across the strings Of a syrinda, and thus sings:

And precious their tears as that rain from the sky,'
Which turns into pearls as it falls in the sea.
Oh! think what the kiss and the smile must be worth,
When the sigh and the tear are so perfect in bliss;
And own, if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

Here sparkles the nectar that, hallow'd by love,
Could draw down those angels of old from their sphere,
Who for wine of this earth left the fountains above,
And forgot Heaven's stars for the eyes we have here.
And, bless'd with the odour our goblet gives forth,
What spirit the sweets of his Eden would miss?
For oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

The Georgian's song was scarcely mute,

When the same measure, sound for sound,

Was caught up by another lute,

And so divinely breathed around, That all stood hush'd and wondering,

And turn'd and look'd into the air,
As if they thought to see the wing,

Of Israfil,3 the angel, there;
So powerfully on every soul
That new, enchanted measure stole.
While now a voice, sweet as the note
Of the charm'd lute, was heard to float
Along its chords, and so entwine

Its sound with theirs, that none knew whether The voice or lute was most divine,

So wondrously they went together:

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told, When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie, With heart never changing and brow never cold,

Love on through all ills, and love on till they die! One hour of a passion so sacred is worth

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss;
And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this.

"T was not the air, 't was not the words,
But that deep magic in the chords
And in the lips, that gave such power
As music knew not till that hour.
At once a hundred voices, said,

. It is the mask'd Arabian maid!»
While Selim, who had felt the strain
Deepest of any, and had lain
Some minutes wrapt, as in a trance,
After the fairy sounds were o'er,
Too inly touch'd for utterance,

Now motion'd with his hand for more:

Fly to the desert, fly with me,

Our Arab tents are rude for thee;

But oh! the choice what heart can doubt

Of tents with love, or thrones without?

The Nisan, or drops of spring rain, which they believe to produce pearls if they fall into shells.-RICHARDSON.

For an account of the share which wine had in the fall of the

The Angel of Music.-See note, p. 46.

As if 't were fix'd by magic there,-
And naming her, so long unnamed,
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 wroughtAnd Selim to his heart has caught, In blushes, more than ever bright, His Nourmahal, his Haram's Light' And well do vanish'd frowns enhance The charm of every brighten'd glance; And dearer seems each dawning smile For having lost its light awhile; And, happier now for all her sighs, As on his arm her head reposes,

She whispers him, with laughing eyes, Remember, love, the Feast of Roses!.

nonsen

In

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"> sical, 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, etc.— 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. addition to this, he chose his subjects badly, and was always most inspired by the worst parts 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, (131) 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 most 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 poct.

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 refresh

'See page 39.

ment and repose, there was an end to all their delightful evenings, and Lalla Rookh 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 Rookh, whom the poets of Delhi had described as more perfect than the divinest images in the House of Azor, (132) he should receive a pale and inanimate victim, upon whose cheek neither health nor pleasure bloomed, and from whose eyes Love had fled, -to hide himself in her heart!

If any thing could have charmed away he melancholy of her spirits, it would have been the fresh airs and enchanting scenery of that Valley, which the Persians so justly called the Unequalled. But neither the coolness of its atmosphere, so luxurious after toiling up those bare and burning mountains-neither the splendour of the minarets and pagodas, that shone out from the depth of its woods, nor the grottos, hermitages, and miraculous fountains, (133) which make every spot of that region holy ground;-neither the countless water-falls, that rush into the Valley from all those high and romantic mountains that encircle it, nor the fair city on the Lake, whose houses, roofed with flowers,(134) appeared at a distance like one vast and variegat ed parterre:-not all these wonders and glories of the most lovely country under the sun could steal her heart for a minute from those sad thoughts, which but darkened and grew bitterer every step she advanced.

The gay pomps and processions that met her upon her entrance into the Valley, and the magnificence with which the roads all along were decorated, did honour to the taste and gallantry of the young King. It was night when they approached the city, and, for the last two miles, they had passed under arches, thrown from hedge to hedge, festooned with only those rarest roses from which the Attar Gul, more precious than gold, is distilled, and illuminated in rich and fanciful forms with lanterns of the triple-coloured tortoise-shell of Pegu. (135) Sometimes, from a dark wood by the side of the road, a display of fire-works would break out, so sudden and so brilliant, that a Bramin might think he saw that grove, in whose purple shade the God of Battles was born, bursting into a flame at the moment of his birth.-While, at other times, a quick and playful irradiation continued to brighten all the fields and gardens by which they passed, forming a line of dancing lights along the horizon; like the meteors of the north as they are seen by those hunters, (136) who pursue the white and blue foxes on the confines of the Icy Sea.

These arches and fire-works delighted the ladies of the princess exceedingly, and, with their usual good logic, they deduced from his taste for illuminations,

Kachmire be Nazeer.-FORSTER.

that the King of Bucharia would make the most exemplary husband imaginable. Nor, indeed, could Lalla Rookh herself help feeling the kindness and splendour with which the young bridegroom welcomed her;but she also felt how painful is the gratitude which kindness from those we cannot love excites; and that their best blandishments come over the heart with all that chilling and deadly sweetness, which we can fancy in the cold odoriferous wind (137) that is to blow over this earth in the last days.

The marriage was fixed for the morning after her arrival, when she was, for the first time, to be presented to the monarch in that Imperial Palace beyond the lake, called the Shalimar. Though a night of more wakeful and anxious thought had never been passed in the Happy Valley before, yet when she rose in the morning and her ladies came round her, to assist inthe adjustment of the bridal ornaments, they thought they had never seen her look half so beautiful. What she had lost of the bloom and radiancy of her charms was more than made up by that intellectual expression, that soul in the eyes which is worth all the rest of loveliness. When they had tinged her fingers with the Henna leaf, and placed upon her brow a small coronet of jewels, of the shape worn by the ancient Queens of Bucharia, they flung over her head the rose-coloured bridal veil, and she proceeded to the barge that was to convey her across the lake; first kissing, with a mournful look, the little amulet of cornelian which her father had hung about her neck at parting.

The morning was as fair as the maid upon whose nuptials it rose, and the shining lake, all covered with boats, the minstrels playing upon the shores of the islands, and the crowded summer-houses on the green hills around, with shawls and banners waving from their roofs, presented such a picture of animated rejoicing, as only she who was the object of it all, did not feel with transport. To Lalla Rookh alone it was a melancholy pageant; nor could she have even borne to look upon the scene, were it not for a hope that, among the crowds around, she might once more perhaps catch a glimpse of Feramorz. So much was her imagination haunted by this thought, that there was scarcely an islet or boat she passed, at which her heart did not flutter with a momentary fancy that he was there. Happy, in her eyes, the humblest slave upon whom the light of his dear looks fell!-In the barge immediately after the Princess was Fadladeen, with his siken curtains thrown widely apart, that all might have the benefit of his august presence, and with his head full of the speech he was to deliver to the King, - concerning Feramorz, and literature, and the Chabuk, as connected therewith.

They had now entered the canal which leads from the lake to the splendid domes and saloons of the Shalimar, and glided on through gardens ascending from each bank, full of flowering shrubs that made the air all perfume; while from the middle of the canal rose jets of water, smooth and unbroken, to such a dazzling height, that they stood like pillars of diamond in the sunshine. After sailing under the arches of various saloons, they at length arrived at the last and most magnificent, where the monarch awaited the coming of his bride; and such was the agitation of her heart and frame, that it was with difficulty she walked up the marble steps, which were covered with cloth of