LII.

I won't describe; description is my forte,

But every fool describes, in these bright days, His wond'rous journey to some foreign court,

And spawns his quarto, and demands your praiseDeath to his publisher, to him 'tis sport;

While Nature, tortured twenty thousand ways, Resigns herself with exemplary patience,

To guide-books, rhymes, tours, sketches, illustrations.

LIII.

Along this hall, and up and down, some, squatted
Upon their hams, were occupied at chess;

Others in monosyllable talk chatted,

And some seemed much in love with their own dress, And divers smoked superb pipes decorated With amber mouths of greater price or less; And several strutted, others slept, and some Prepared for supper with a glass of rum.*

LIV.

As the black eunuch entered with his brace
Of purchased infidels, some raised their eyes
A moment without slacking from their pace;

But those who sate, ne'er stirred in any wise:
One or two stared the captives in the face,

Just as one views a horse to guess his price? Some nodded to the negro from their station, But no one troubled him with conversation.

* In Turkey nothing is more common than for the Mussulmans to take several glasses of strong spirits by way of appetizer. I have seen them take as many as six of raki before dinner, and swear that they dined the better for it; I tried the experiment, but was like the Scotchman, who having heard that the birds called kittiewiaks were admirable whets, ate six of them, and complained that "he was no hungrier than when he be

gan,"

LV.

He leads them through the hall, and, without stopping,
On through a further range of goodly rooms,
Splendid but silent, save in one, where, dropping,*

A marble fountain echoes through the glooms
Of night, which robe the chamber, or where popping
Some female head most curiously presumes
To thrust its black eyes through the door or lattice,
As wondering what the devil noise that is.

LVI.

Some faint lamps gleaming from the lofty walls
Gave light enough to hint their further way,
But not enough to show the imperial halls
In all the flashing of their full array;
Perhaps there's nothing-I'll not say appals,

But saddens more by night as well as day,
Than an enormous room without a soul
To break the lifeless splendor of the whole.

LVII.

Two or three seem so little, one seems nothing:
In deserts, forests, crowds, or by the shore,
There solitude, we know, has her full growth in
The spots which were her realms for evermore;
But in a mighty hall or gallery, both in

More modern buildings and those built of yore,
A kind of death comes o'er us all alone
Seeing what's meant for many with but one.

LVIII.

A neat, snug study on a winter's night,

A book, friend, single lady, or a glass

Of claret, sandwich, and an appetite,

* A common furniture.-I recollect being received by Ali Pacha, in a room containing a marble basin and fountain, etc. etc.

Are things which make an English evening pass;
Though certes by no means so grand a sight
As is a theatre lit up by gas.

I pass my evenings in long galleries solely,
And that's the reason I'm so melancholy.

LIX.

Alas! man makes that great which makes him little: I grant you in a church 'tis very well:

What speaks of Heaven should by no means be brittle, But strong and lasting till no tongue can tell

Their names who reared it; but huge houses fit illAnd buge tombs worse-mankind, since Adam fell. Methinks the story of the tower of Babel

Might teach them this much better than I'm able.

LX.

Babel was Nimrod's hunting-seat, and then
A town of gardens, walls, and wealth amazing,
Where Nabuchadonosor, king of men,

Reign'd till one summer's day he took to grazing, And Daniel tamed the lions in their den,

The people's awe and admiration raising; 'Twas famous, too, for Thisbe and for Pyramus, And the calumniated Queen Semiramis

But to resume, should there be (what may not
Be in these days?) some infidels, who don't,
Because they can't, find out the very spot,
Of that same Babel, or because they won't,

(Though Claudius Rich, Esquire, some bricks has got And written lately two memoirs upon't)

Believe the Jews, those unbelievers, who
Must be believ'd, though they believe not you.

LXIII.

Yet let them think that Horace has exprest
Shortly and sweetly the masonic folly
Of those, forgetting the great place of rest,
Who give themselves to architecture wholly;
We know where things and men must end at last:
A inoral (like all morals) melancholy,

And "Et sepulchri immemor struis domos"
Shows that we build when we should but entomb us.

LXIV.

At last they reach'd a quarter most retired,
Where echo woke as if from a long slumber;
Though full of all things which could be desired,
One wondered what to do with such a number
Of articles which no body required;

Here wealth had done its utmost to encumber
With furniture an exquisite apartment,

Which puzzled nature much to know what art meant.

LXV.

It seemed, however, but to open on

A range or suit of further chambers, which Might lead to, heaven knows where; but in this one The moveables were prodigally rich:

Sofas 'twas half a sin to sit upon,

So costly were they; carpets every stitch Of workmanship so rare, they made you wish You could glide over them like a golden fish.

LXVI.

The black, however, without hardly deigning

A glance at that which wrapt the slaves in wonder, Trampled what they scarce trod for fear of staining, As if the milky way their feet was under With all its stars; and with a stretch attaining A certain press or cupboard niched in yonder In that remote recess which you may seeOr if you don't, the fault is not in me.

LXVII.

I wish to be perspicuous; and the black,
I say, unlocking the recess, pulled forth
A quantity of clothes fit for the back

Of any Mussulman, whate’er his worth;
And of variety there was no lack-

And yet, though I have said there was no dearth; He chose himself to point out what he thought Most proper for the Christains he had bought.

LXVIII.

The suit he thought most suitable to each
Was, for the elder and the stouter, first
A candiote cloak, which to the knee might reach,
And trowsers not so tight that they would burst,
But such as fit an Asiatic breech;

A shawl, whose folds in Cashmire had been nurst,
Slippers of saffron, dagger rich and handy;
In short, all things which form a Turkish Dandy.

LXIX.

While he was dressing, Baba, their black friend,
Hinted the vast advantages which they

Might probably obtain both in the end,