Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glittering temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy,

And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to destroy;
Thais led the way

To light him to his prey,

And, like another Helen, fired another Troy.

VII.

Thus, long ago,

Ere heaving bellows learned to blow,
While organs yet were mute,-
Timotheus, to his breathing flute,
And sounding lyre,

Could swell the soul to rage, or kindle soft desire.
At last divine Cecilia came,

Inventress of the vocal frame;

The sweet enthusiast, from her sacred store,
Enlarged the former narrow bounds,

And added length to solemn sounds,

With nature's mother-wit, and arts unknown before. Let old Timotheus yield the prize,

Or both divide the crown;

He raised a mortal to the skies,

She drew an angel down.

John Dryden.

Persian Gulf (Green Sea).

THE

PERSIAN GULF.

THE morn hath risen clear and calm,
And o'er the Green Sea palely shines,
Revealing Bahrein's groves of palm,
And lighting Kishma's amber vines.
Fresh smell the shores of Araby,
While breezes from the Indian sea
Blow round Selama's sainted cape,

And curl the shining flood beneath,
Whose waves are rich with many a grape,
And cocoa-nut and flowery wreath,
Which pious seamen, as they passed,
Had toward that holy headland cast, -
Oblations to the Genii there
For gentle skies and breezes fair!
The nightingale now bends her flight
From the high trees, where all the night
She sung so sweet, with none to listen,
And hides her from the morning star
Where thickets of pomegranate glisten
In the clear dawn, -- bespangled o'er

With dew, whose night-drops would not stain The best and brightest scimitar

That ever youthful Sultan wore

On the first morning of his reign!

Thomas Moore.

A

Shiraz.

HENRY MARTYN AT SHIRAZ.

VISION of the bright Shiraz, of Persian bards the theme:

The vine with bunches laden hangs o'er the crystal

stream;

The nightingale all day her notes in rosy thickets trills, And the brooding heat-mist faintly lies along the distant hills.

About the plain are scattered wide in many a crumbling

heap,

The fanes of other days, and tombs where Iran's poets

sleep;

And in the midst, like burnished gems, in noonday light

One group beside the river-bank in rapt discourse are

seen,

Where hangs the golden orange on its boughs of purest

green;

Their words are sweet and low, and their looks are lit

with joy;

Some holy blessing seems to rest on them and their employ.

The pale-faced Frank among them sits: what brought him from afar ?

Nor bears he bales of merchandise, nor teaches skill in war:

One pearl alone he brings with him, the Book of life and death;

One warfare only teaches he,—to fight the fight of faith.

And Iran's sons are round him, and one, with solemn tone,

Tells how the Lord of Glory was rejected by his own; Tells, from the wondrous Gospel, of the trial and the doom,

The words divine of love and might, the scourge, the cross, the tomb!

Far sweeter to the stranger's ear those Eastern accents sound,

Than music of the nightingale that fills the air around : Lovelier than balmiest odors sent from gardens of the

rose,

The fragrance from the contrite soul and chastened lip that flows.

The nightingales have ceased to sing, the roses' leaves are shed,

The Frank's pale face in Tocat's field hath mouldered with the dead:

Alone and all unfriended, midst his Master's work he

fell,

With none to bathe his fevered brow, with none his tale to tell.

But still those sweet and solemn tones about him sound

in bliss,

And fragrance from those flowers of God for evermore is his :

For his the meed, by grace, of those who, rich in zeal and love,

Turn many unto righteousness, and shine as stars above. Henry Alford.

SHIRAZ.

ITY of palaces! how sweet the sight,

CITY

As there it spreads, all steeped in golden light! Flashing as if some precious gem were set On each rich dome and pointed minaret, The plane and cypress lofty as the towers, And homes still seen through intermingling bowers. Behold the stir of life! the turbaned throng

Comes forth like bees, and pours the walks along : Hark! from his shrine the Muezzin calls to prayer, And far those sounds the wandering breezes bear: "Allah is great!" seems whispering through the sky; "Allah is great!" the caverned hills reply;

The peasant hears, and, kneeling on the sod

With face toward Mecca, breathes the name of God; And e'en the child, mid blossomed groves at play, Stops in his pastime

*

"God is great!" to say!

Shiraz! the proud! not yet her fame hath ceased, Nurse of bright genius, Athens of the East! Where, sage and poet, brilliant Sadi sprang,