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Borne to the skies in clouds of soft perfume
For ever flourish, and for ever bloom!

These grateful songs, ye maids and youths

renew,

While fresh-blown violets drink the pearly dew; O'er Azibs banks while love-lorn damsels rove, And gales of fragrance breathe from Hager's 'grove.

So sung the youth, whose sweetly-warbled strains
Fair Mena heard, and Saba's spicy plains:
Sooth'd with his lay, the ravish'd air was calm,
The winds scarce whisper'd o'er the waving
palm:

The camels bounded o'er the flowery lawn,
Like the swift ostrich, or the sportful fawn;
Their silken bands the listening rose-buds rent,
And twined their blossoms round his vocal tent:
He sung, till on the bank the moonlight slept,
And closing flowers beneath the night-dew
wept ;

Then ceased, and slumber'd in the lap of rest
Till the shrill lark had left his low-built nest.
Now hastes the swain to tune his rapturous tales
In other meadows, and in other vales.

A PERSIAN SONG,

OF HAFIZ.

SWEET Maid, if thou wouldst charm my sight,

And bid these arms thy neck infold,

That rosy cheek, that lily hand,
Would give thy poet more delight
Than all Bocara's vaunted gold,
Than all the gems of Samarcand.

Boy, let yon liquid ruby flow,
And bid thy pensive heart be glad,
Whate'er the frowning zealots say:
Tell them, their Eden cannot show
A stream so clear as Rocnabad,
A bower so sweet as Mosellay.

O! when these fair perfidious maids,
Whose eyes our secret haunts infest,
Their dear destructive charms display,
Each glance my tender breast invades,
And robs my wounded soul of rest,
As Tartars seize their destined prey,

In vain with love our bosoms glow:
Can all our tears, can all our sighs,
New lustre to those charms impart ?
Can cheeks, where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dyes,
Require the borrow'd gloss of art?

Speak not of fate:-ah! change the theme, And talk of odours, talk of wine,

Talk of the flowers that round us bloom; 'Tis all a cloud, 'tis all a dream;

To love and joy thy thoughts confine,
Nor hope to pierce the sacred gloom.

7

Beauty has such resistless power,
That even the chaste Egyptian dame
Sigh'd for the blooming Hebrew boy;
For her how fatal was the hour,
When to the banks of Nilus came
A youth so lovely and so coy!

But ah! sweet maid, my counsel hear
(Youth should attend when those advise
Whom long experience renders sage):
While musick charms the ravish'd ear;
While sparkling cups delight our eyes,
and scorn the frowns of age.

Be

gay;

What cruel answer have I heard!
And yet, by heaven, I love thee still:
Can aught be cruel from thy lip?
Yet say, how fell that bitter word

From lips which streams of sweetness fill,
Which nought but drops of honey sip?

Go boldly forth, my simple lay,
Whose accents flow with artless ease,
Like orient pearls at random strung:
Thy notes are sweet, the damsels say;
But O! far sweeter, if they please

The nymph for whom these notes are sung.

An Ode in Imitation of Alexus.

Οὐ λίθοι, ἐδὲ ξύλα, δὲ

Τέχνη τεχνόνων αἱ πόλεις εἶσιν,

Αλλ' από ποτ ̓ ἂν ἴσιν ̓́ΑΝΔΡΕΣ

Αὐτὲς σώζειν εἰδότες,

Ελαῦθα τείχη καὶ πόλεις.

ALC, quoted by ARISTIDES.

WHAT Constitutes a State?

Not high-raised battlement or labour'd mound, Thick wall or moated gate;

Not cities proud with spires and turrets crown'd; Not bays and broad-arm'd ports,

Where laughing at the storm, rich navies ride, Not starr'd and spangled courts,

Where low-brow'd business wafts perfume to

With

pride.

No!-Men, high-minded Men,

powers as far above dull brutes endued In forest, brake, or den,

As beasts excel cold rocks and brambles rude;

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