As her graceful arm she throws,
Child-like, around the breathing snows
Of an envied favourite's neck,
To scan with feminine delight,
The mingling chains of sequins bright,
And jewels rare, which sparkling deck
The wearer's form with rays of light.
Twain, engaged in grand duello,
With a well-judged aim and sure.
Launch the purple globes and mellow
Of luscious Husaini Angur ;

Or, continuous to and fro,
O'er the carpet's noiseless breast,
Opposing Surdas deftly throw;
While triumphs one with child-like jest,
If, in the opposing shock, the first
Her rivals fruity missiles burst;
For scattered wastefully around
Ripest fruits bestrew the ground,

Mingl'd with flowers of lustrous bloom,
Wafting floods of rich perfume;
While sprinkled o'er the numdah's
Honied sweet-meats various hued
Recal the modest daisy's sheen

O'er trim lawn adorning strewed.
Thus the lessening hours pass by
Unshadowed, sinless of alloy,
Beaming ever rapturously,
Banded neath the rule of joy!

green

We are then introduced to Zeila herself,

-proud Caubul's boast,

The loveliest of her damsel host;
The heart, the pride of Kohistan,
And ward of Aminullah Khan !

It appears from the account given of her "birth, parentage, and education" that she was born in Kashmere, raised in Kohistan, and called the Fair Maid of Kabul.

Night came on, as it ever will in Kabul as in other places, and the "damsel band" were compelled to betake themselves home again" to their lordly halls." Their horses were brought to convey them homewards; and so, encasing themselves "in the all-concealing Burka cover," for which Mr. Mackenzie, like other men of taste, has no toleration, they started for the town of Kabul. On the road, however, Zeila's palfrey runs away, and, making a desperate leap over the trunk of a tree, "stumbles, struggles, scrambles on," and presently comes fairly down with his lovely burden. Just at this critical moment, the hero of the tale makes his appearance :

With one unearthly giant bound,

He clears the space-now rescuing weaves
His powerful arm her form around,

From scaith, perchance from death receives
The maid, ere yet she reach the ground!

We are greatly relieved by this assurance; for, as the lady had fainted, and the horse had "rolled prostrate upon the grass," we confess that we had jumped to the conclusion, that the lady had reached the ground.

For sometime we are left in doubt as to the nature of "the form," which, "with lightning rush, burst through the dense. and neighbouring bush." It might be an Afghan-perhaps, Aminullah Khan himself; or an Englishman, Sir William McNaghten, General Elphinstone, Sir Alexander Burnes, or any other distinguished character. Whoever it might be, we soon learn that, determined to prove that it is something more than a bundle of clothes which he has rescued, he "unclasps the jewel band," and the "unfettered folds reluctantly"

From the veiled features slowly glide,

And, falling timorously aside,
Reveal the lovely mystery.

We have then an animated account of the beatific vision, that burst upon his enamoured sight; and, in the following stanza, we learn that the gentleman, who is so "enraptured and amazed," is "young Evelyn." The effect of so much beauty was quite bewildering. It was too much for his weak intellect to withstand:

So wild the visionary trance,

Which steeped his being with delight,
That all around him seemed to dance
And float amid a sea of light;
The very sward, the circling trees,

Seemed life-endued: the moaning breeze
Hovered above the silence there,

With pinion jubilant and benign,

And seemed to modulate the air

With hymns unearthly and divine;

Gazed he, and gazed he o'er again,

With feelings, which were almost pain;

He kindled ever and anon,

'Neath the new light which round them shone ;

And he had spurned in that rapt hour,

All that the world most values ever,
Riches, pride, birth, dominion, power,
Might that fond vision vanish never,

To measure aright the extent of this sacrifice, we should remember that young Evelyn was a subaltern in the army. Zeila comes to life again in due time; and then,—

Oh! Heaven! she finds her unveiled charms

Gaz'd o'er, and clasped by stranger arms.

And, soon after she has made this alarming discovery, there is a noise of men and horses, and a party appear, who have come in search of the missing Zeila. The lady upon this discreetly desires the stranger, whoever he may be, to depart as quickly as

possible. Whilst he is making up his mind on the subject, she gives him a love-token; and it is very evident that love at first sight has taken possession of them both. Young Evelyn hurries off, "deer-like, o'er the ground;" and, a flood of desolation falling over poor Zeila, she sinks

the lovely and ill-starred,

Weeping and desolate on the sward!

Evelyn gets safely home; but does not sleep comfortably that night. So he leaves his sleepless couch, and begins wandering about in the open air, thinking of the fair Zeila. After a little time, he begins to ascend the Jehan-numah. Having climbed the rock, he looks down, just as morning dawns upon the scene below, of which we have a very animated and picturesque description. Evelyn, looking down upon the landscape beneath him, falls into a brown study, from which he is awakened by

sounds of war

And shouts tumultuous from afar !
Hark! 'tis the crack of long jezail,
That rings adown the neighbouring vale!
Again, again, with rapid sound

The mingling matchlock shots resound!
Hark! 'tis a bugle's distant note

That rises on the passing breeze :
Hark! louder still the echoes float
Amid the hill declivities !

In short, the rebellion has commenced; and young Evelyn has nothing to do but to make the best of his way to cantonments. That bugle's summons, loud and shrill,

Has shorn him of his personal will,
And claims his martial energies.

The poet then gives us a description of his hero, from which we gather that he is a Scotchman, and that his name is not Evelyn, but Bruce, or rather that he is called Evelyn Bruce, and is a descendant of the hero :

The Bruce, the Bruce! Yes! his to claim
That monarch's lineage and his name!

The glorious blood, now throbbing wild
Within each young and ardent vein,
Retinged with nought of southern strain,
Speaks him old Scotia's reverent child.
The Bruce, the Bruce! Oh yes from him
The grace and vigour of each limb,
The bold, commanding, noble mien,
The beauty on each feature seen,
The haught nobility of soul,

No recreant thought may dare controul,
The dauntless courage native-born,

From childhood mid his mountain's nurst,

Which e'er doth toil and danger scorn,
Which, second to none, must needs be first

To nobly face and dare the worst.

"Such Evelyn Bruce"-in outer semblance. The characteristics of his mind are next set forth-his gallantry, his loyalty, and his other high qualities: and then we are told that, hearing the shrill bugle-notes,

With zealous haste he onward flies,

And cityward shapes his arduous way,
To join the distant, deathful fray.

It appears that the Bruce was at this time attired in the Afghan costume (though we are not quite sure that Scotia would have approved of his thus denationalising himself) and that he therefore managed to escape, "unharmed, unquestioned, unobserved." The rebellion has broken out. It is the fatal 2nd of November. The whole city is in a blaze:

In vain, O Burnes! are watch and ward;

In vain the prowess of thy guard,

The valiant, the devoted few,

To the last gasp so staunch and true;
In vain thy noble brother falls

Pierc'd by a score of matchlock balls;
In vain doth gallant Broadfoot bite
The dust amid the unequal fight.
Immortalised thro' every age,

Be that brief conflict's fruitless rage:
Died they as soldiers alone may die,
Flashing (the gaze of their agony,

Full on the face, as their bold spirits passed)

Unshaken defiance, and proud to the last.

We have then an animated stanza, devoted to a record of the

murder of Burnes:

Vainly they fought, as vainly fell :-
For hark, a wild discordant yell
Of savage triumph peals around.
Their bloody search hath prosper'd well.
A nobler victim they have found!
Horror! Oh most unholy sight!

Whom drag they, thus denuded, forth
From out yon hummaum's narrow door?
Whom 'neath redoubled sword strokes, smite
They ruthless to the soddened earth,
A weltering mass of wounds and gore ?
See how the assassin miscreants swarm
Around that gashed and fallen form!
Ill-fated Burnes! What hidden power,
Malignant ruled the imminent hour,
And thus revealed thy fatal place
Of shelter to thy murderer's gaze?
Oh! was it that presentiment

Of scaith so long foreseen, which bent
Thy high-souled daring to out-brave

The unsparing stroke of Afghan glaive ?
Or that devotion of thy soul

So swayed by honor's high controul-
So wedded to the noblest sense

Of duty's every exigence;

So glowing with the sacred flame,
Which gilds the patriot soldier's fame,
And bids him 'mid the ranks of death,
Joyous, yield up his latest breath,
If left unstained his country's name.
Though undismayed, unrobed, unarmed,
Why sought'st thou, with persuasions vain,
Rebellion's outburst to restrain ?

Full well hadst thou escaped unharmed,
Thy bloody fate: the favouring bath
Had shielded from their murderous wrath.
Yet didst thou, in that hour of woe,
Give thee to their death dooming ken :
Nor parley nor remonstrance then
Might turn aside one deathful blow.
Too well thy prescience had foretold
The coming crisis, and the doom
Which must consign thee to the tomb.
Vainly thy warnings sought t' unfold
The growing evil, vengefully
Doomed in rebellion to outburst;

And thou, oh! Burnes, ordained to be
Its noblest victim and its first!

66

Evelyn makes his way through the city; and, as he is going, somewhat doubting what course to take, he is arrested by a strange object, which "smites the ground close by his feet;" it turns out to be a slender arrow curiously wrought, with amber barb and shaft of gold," and attached to it is "a scroll with some fair legend fraught." This is, of course, a letter from Zeila, warning him to escape from the city, and telling him that two steeds are waiting him, "or at the Shor's, or Chandoul's gate," and that he had better fly as far as he can. But how the fair Zeila was so well acquainted with the accidental movements of the Bruce, does not very plainly appear.

66

Of course the Bruce rejects this unbecoming advice, and journeys on his perilous way through the city. Our apprehensions for his safety are here somewhat mitigated by the discovery, that he has both a sword and a pistol under his chogah, which, having been previously assured that he was weaponless," we had not by any means suspected. A party of rebels discover him to be a Kaffir, in spite of his disguise, and incontinently attack him. He stands at bay for a little time, but his "better angel" discretion "prompts him well;" and he "springs aside," turning up a narrow lane, and speeding on, until a "half-ruined dwelling meets his view," and seems to invite him to enter. He plunges in, ascends the staircase, finds himself on the roof, and

-thence on he strains Along the far outstretching line Of house-tops.

The enemy pursue him; and his doom would now soon

K