Seraphs in all but " Knowledge," the keen light
That fell, refracted, through thy bounds, afar
Oh, Death! from eye of God upon that star:
Sweet was that error-sweeter still that death,—
Sweet was that error-ev'n with us the breath
Of Science dims the mirror of our joy,—
To them 'twere the Simoon, and would de-
stroy,-

For what (to them) availeth it to know

That Truth is Falsehood, or that Bliss is Woe?
Sweet was their death: with them to die was rife
With the last ecstasy of satiate life;—
Beyond that death no immortality,-

But sleep that pondereth, and is not to be.' And there---oh may my weary spirit dwell Apart from Heaven's Eternity, and yet how far from Hell!1

1 With the Arabians there is a medium between Heaven and Hell, where men suffer no punishment, but yet do not attain that tranquil and even happiness which they suppose to be characteristic of heavenly enjoyment.

Un no rompido sueno

Un dia puro-allegre-libre
Quiera-

Libre de amor-de zelo

De odio de esperanza-de rezelo.-Luis PONCE DE

LEON.

Sorrow is not excluded from "Al Aaraaf," but it is that sorrow which the living love to cherish for the dead, and which, in some minds, resembles the delirium of opium. The passionate excitement of Love and the buoyancy of spirit attendant upon intoxication are its less holy pleasures, the price of which, to those souls who make choice of "Al Aaraaf " as their residence after life, is final death and annihilation.

With guilty spirit, in what shrubbery dim,
Heard not the stirring summons of that hymn ?
But two they fell: for Heaven no grace imparts
To those who hear not for their beating hearts.
A maiden-angel and her seraph lover-
Oh, where (and ye may seek the wide skies over)
Was Love, the blind, near sober Duty known?
Unguided Love hath fallen-'mid tears of per-

fect moan."1

He was a goodly spirit-he who fell :
A wanderer by mossy-mantled well,—
A gazer on the lights that shine above,-
A dreamer in the moonbeam by his love!
What wonder? for each star is eyelike there,
And looks so sweetly down on Beauty's hair;
And they, and every mossy spring were holy
To his love-haunted heart and melancholy.
The night had found (to him a night of woe)
Upon a mountain crag, young Angelo,—
Beetling, it bends athwart the solemn sky,
And scowls on starry worlds that down beneath

it lie.

Here sate he with his love,-his dark eye bent
With eagle gaze along the firmament :
Now turn'd it upon her,-but ever then
It trembled to the orb of EARTH again.

"Ianthe, dearest, see, how dim that ray! How lovely 'tis to look so far away!

1 There be tears of perfect moan
Wept for thee in Helicon.-MILTON,

She seem'd not thus upon that autumn eve
I left her gorgeous halls,-nor mourned to leave.
That eve-that eve-I should remember well-
The sun-ray dropp'd, in Lemnos, with a spell
On th' Arabesque carving of a gilded hall
Wherein I sate, and on the draperied wall-
And on my eyelids-oh, the heavy light!
How drowsily it weigh'd them into night!
On flowers, before, and mist, and love they ran
With Persian Saadi in his Gulistan :

But oh, that light!-I slumber'd-Death, the while,

Stole o'er my senses in that lovely isle
So softly that no single silken hair

Awoke that slept,—or knew that he was there.

66

The last spot of Earth's orb I trod upon Was a proud temple call'd the Parthenon.1 More beauty clung around her column'd wall Than ev'n thy glowing bosom beats withal,2 And when old Time my wing did disenthrall Thence sprang I, as the eagle from his tower, And years I left behind me in an hour. What time upon her airy bounds I hung One half the garden of her globe was flung Unrolling as a chart unto my view Tenantless cities of the desert, too! Ianthe, beauty crowded on me, then, And half I wish'd to be again of men."

1 It was entire in 1687,-the most elevated spot in Athens.

2 Shadowing more beauty in their airy brows.

Than have the white breasts of the Queen of Love.-MAR

LOWE.

"My Angelo! and why of them to be ?
A brighter dwelling-place is here for thee;
And greener fields than in yon world above,
And woman's loveliness—and passionate love.”
. But, list, lanthe! when the air so soft
Fail'd, as my pennon'd spirit leapt aloft,1
Perhaps my brain grew dizzy; but the world
I left so late was into chaos hurl'd,-
Sprang from her station, on the winds apart,
And roll'd, a flame, the fiery Heaven athwart.
Methought, my sweet one, then I ceased to

soar

-

And fell, not swiftly as I rose before,

But with a downward, tremulous motion, through

Light, brazen rays, this golden star unto!
Nor long the measure of my falling hours:
For nearest of all stars was thine to ours,—
Dread star! that came, amid a night of mirth,
A red Dædalion on the timid Earth.

We came, and to thy Earth; but not to us Be given our lady's bidding to discuss : We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay firefly of the night we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod She grants to us, as granted by her God. But, Angelo, than thine gray Time unfurl'd Never his fairy wing o'er fairer world! Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes

1 Pennon-for pinion.-MILTON,

Alone could see the phantom in the skies,
When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be
Headlong thitherward o'er the starry sea;
But when its glory swell'd upon the sky,
As glowing Beauty's bust beneath man's eye,
We paus'd before the heritage of men,

And thy star trembled,--as doth Beauty then!
Thus, in discourse, the lovers whil'd away
The night that waned and waned and brought
no day.

They fell for Heaven to them no hope imparts
Who hear not for the beating of their hearts.

TO THE RIVER

FAIR river! in thy bright, clear flow
Of crystal, wandering water,
Thou art an emblem of the glow

Of beauty-the unhidden heart-
The playful maziness of art

In old Alberto's daughter;

But when within thy wave she looks,
Which glistens then, and trembles,—
Why, then, the prettiest of brooks

Her worshipper resembles ;
For in his heart, as in thy stream,
Her image deeply lies,—

His heart which trembles at the beam

Of her soul-searching eyes.