But while the hours were yet unspent,

How burnt soe'er the waste,
Beside our pleasant meal he bent,
Unwon to sip or taste.

We toiled in desert paths, and he
The whole hot journey trod :—
From Nilus' flood, by Suez' sea,
Toward the rocks of God :—

And sang,

"When on my horse I ride,

In great Mohammed's day,

Then shall my sabre, flashing wide,
Its thousand foemen slay.' ""*

Though all his faith was wrapt about
With falsehood unsurpast,
And all his life was fading out
Before its gloomy Fast,

We had not in our varied band,
'Mid souls of more resource,
A blither eye, a prompter hand,
A heart of longer force.

* Literally :-"When I ride on my horse,
"In the times of the Prophet,
"I shall kill a thousand people."

SELIM, THE CAMEL-DRIVER.

But once at noon he quailed, and owned
To sickness and distress:

At night beside his fire he moaned,
In pain and sleeplessness:

At morn upon his camel's back,
Low-crouched, with shaded eye,
Still moving o'er the desert track,
Mukatteb* saw him die.

We bore him on, amid the rocks,
To Paran's ancient hill,

Where mild Tawârahs fold their flocks

Beside the silver rill;

And there his brother scooped a grave,
Where, in a far-gone year,
His father bought a field, to have
For a possession there.

Ye tents of Haiwat, mourn and tell-
Your palm is battered down,
Your pitcher broken at the well,
Your well of water flown.

Ye tents of Haiwat, mourn and weep:
Ye wives of Selim wail:

For Selim sleeps the lasting sleep

In Paran's far-off vale.

*The Written Valley.

And Thou, most Merciful and Just,
Thy creature's dearest Hold,
Be not extreme to judge the dust,
Nor cast it from Thy fold.

The deeds he wrought in Moslem faith,

Yet wrought in awe of Thee,

Good Father, cleanse from error's scathe, And weigh with charity.

C

THE OLD MONASTIC ORDERS.

HONOURED of God, the Church-the world-the earth

Owes them a lasting debt. In vanished times 'Twas theirs to witness against selfish crimes, And theirs to nurse, in days of mist and dearth, All skill and learning, and the goings-forth Of peaceful industry. But now their skies Have drifted hence, and men will soon despise The lingering legion that survives its worth. Good Mother, stay them not, but, firmly-voiced, Bless them courageously, and let them go. New mornings dawn, new-shadowed, new-rejoiced: Shine other suns, and other tempests blow. Instead of fathers shall thy children be,

Whom thou in all the world shalt vest with chieftaincy.

THE MOUNTAIN OF THE BURNING BUSH.

Exod. iii.

HOME of the Voice which all may hear who will,Heard but when hearkened for: in midst of thee High thoughts and projects, born spontaneously, Pure listening minds with their fair colours fill. And when lone Moses seeks thy haunted hill, In goodness nurtured, exercised in lore, With brethren's miseries afflicted sore, While vast ancestral hopes possess him still ;When all thy rocks have gazed into his heart, And with them all the Arabian stars by night;— O not in vain shall visions lure apart,

Or mystic voices on his soul alight;

Great wordless aspects, like great music heard,
Awakening all within to greet the appearing Word.