And from the rose's branches, all day long,
Pours the melodious nightingale her song;
Amidst the leaves her bark-like nest is tost,
In melody, and love, and beauty lost.

The rich narcissus, quaffing dewy wine,

Clings to thy breast, where buds unnumbered twine:
No eye can see the bound where end thy bowers,
No tongue can number half thy gem-like flowers.

Such freshness lingers in thy air of balm,
That even the tulip's burning heart confesses
The life its sigh bestows at evening's calm,
When the glad cypress shakes her graceful tresses.

The waves of each rejoicing river

Murmur melody forever,

And to the sound, in wild amaze,

On their glad crests the dancing bubble plays.
While lotus flowers, just opened, there

Look with bright eyes towards heaven in prayer.

So clear thy waters that, reflected bright,
The dusky Ethiop's skin is pearly white.
So cool, that as the sun his fingers laves,
They shiver on the surface of thy waves.
The immortal lily, pure as angels' plumes,
All day, all night, the grove with light illumes;
The grove, where garlands, by the roses made,
Like clustering Pleiads, glimmer through the shade,
And hide amidst their leaves the timid dove,
Whose ringéd neck proclaims the slave of love.

Tell me what land can boast such treasures?
Is aught so fair, is aught so dear?
Hail! Paradise of endless pleasures!
Hail! beautiful, beloved Kashmeer!

Togray. Tr. L. S. Costello.

WHO

THE VALE OF CASHMERE.

WHO has not heard of the Vale of Cashmere, With its roses the brightest that earth ever gave, Its temples, and grottos, and fountains as clear As the love-lighted eyes that hung over their wave?

Oh, to see it at sunset, when warm o'er the lake
Its splendor at parting a summer eve throws,
Like a bride, full of blushes, when lingering to take
A last look of her mirror at night ere she goes!
When the shrines through the foliage are gleaming
half shown,

And each hallows the hour by some rites of its own.
Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells,

Here the magian his urn, full of perfume, is swinging, And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells

Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is ringing. Or to see it by moonlight, when mellowly shines The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines; When the waterfalls gleam, like a quick fall of stars, And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of Chenars Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet

From the cool, shining walks where the young people meet.

ERAL LIBRARY

University o MICHIGAN

CASHMERE.

Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute, as slowly it breaks.
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness, as if but just born of the Sun.
When the Spirit of Fragrance is up with the day,
From his harem of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like a lover
The young aspen-trees, till they tremble all over.
When the east is as warm as the light of first hopes,
And Day, with his banner of radiance unfurled,
Shines in through the mountainous portal that opes,
Sublime, from that valley of bliss to the world!

Thomas Moore.

THE FOUNTAIN OF CHINDARA.

ROM Chindara's warbling fount I come,

FROM

Called by that moonlight garland's spell;
From Chindara's fount, my fairy home,

Where in music, morn and night, I dwell.
Where lutes in the air are heard about,

And voices are singing the whole day long,
And every sigh the heart breathes out
Is turned, as it leaves the lips, to song!
Hither I come

From my fairy home,

And if there's a magic in music's strain,
I swear by the breath

Of that moonlight wreath,

Thy lover shall sigh at thy feet again.

Thomas Moore.

Ceylon, the Island.

THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON.

HEY sat in silent watchfulness

THEY

The sacred cypress-tree about,

And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.

Gray Age and Sickness waiting there Through weary night and lingering day, Grim as the idols at their side,

And motionless as they.

Unheeded in the boughs above

The song of Ceylon's birds was sweet; Unseen of them the island flowers Bloomed brightly at their feet.

O'er them the tropic night-storm swept, The thunder crashed on rock and hill; The cloud-fire on their eyeballs blazed, Yet there they waited still!

What was the world without to them? The Moslem's sunset-call, the dance Of Ceylon's maids, the passing gleam. Of battle-flag and lance?

They waited for that falling leaf

Of which the wandering Jogees sing: Which lends once more to wintry age The greenness of its spring.

Oh, if these poor and blinded ones
In trustful patience wait to feel
O'er torpid pulse and failing limb
A youthful freshness steal;

Shall we, who sit beneath that Tree
Whose healing leaves of life are shed,
In answer to the breath of prayer,
Upon the waiting head;

Not to restore our failing forms,
And build the spirit's broken shrine,

But on the fainting soul to shed
A light and life divine;

Shall we grow weary in our watch,
And murmur at the long delay ?
Impatient of our Father's time
And his appointed way?

Or shall the stir of outward things
Allure and claim the Christian's eye,
When on the heathen watcher's ear
Their powerless murmurs die?

Alas! a deeper test of faith

Than prison cell or martyr's stake,