Daughter of Earth! therein thou deem'st aright;
And never yet did form more beautiful,

In dreams of night descending from on high,
Bless the religious Virgin's gifted sight,
Nor like a vision of delight,

Rise on the raptured Poet's inward eye.
Of human form divine was he,

The immortal Youth of Heaven who floated by,
Even such as that divinest form shall be
In those blest stages of our onward race,
When no infirmity,

Low thought, nor base desire, nor wasting care,
Deface the semblance of our heavenly sire.

The wings of Eagle or of Cherubim
Had seem'd unworthy him;

Angelic power and dignity and grace
Were in his glorious pennons; from the neck
Down to the ankle reach'd their swelling web
Richer than robes of Tyrian dye, that deck
Imperial Majesty :

Their colour like the winter's moonless sky,
When all the stars of midnight's canopy
Shine forth; or like the azure deep at noon,
Reflecting back to heaven a brighter blue.
Such was their tint when closed, but when outspread,
The permeating light

Shed through their substance thin a varying hue;
Now bright as when the rose,

Beauteous as fragrant, gives to scent and sight
A like delight; now like the juice that flows
From Douro's generous vine;

Or ruby when with deepest red it glows;

K

Or as the morning clouds refulgent shine,
When, at forthcoming of the Lord of Day,
The Orient, like a shrine,

Kindles as it receives the rising ray,
And heralding his way,

Proclaims the presence of the Power divine.

Thus glorious were the wings
Of that celestial Spirit, as he went
Disporting through his native element.
Nor these alone

The gorgeous beauties that they gave to view ;
Through the broad membrane branched a pliant bone,
Spreading like fibres from their parent stem,
Its veins like interwoven silver shone,
Or as the chaster hue

Of pearls that grace some Sultan's diadem. Now with slow stroke and strong behold him smite The buoyant air, and now in gentler flight, On motionless wing expanded, shoot along.

Through air and sunshine sails the Ship of Heaven;
Far, far beneath them lies

The gross and heavy atmosphere of earth;
And with the Swerga gales,

The Maid of mortal birth

At every breath a new delight inhales. And now toward its port the Ship of Heaven, Swift as a falling meteor, shapes its flight, Yet gently as the dews of night that gem, And do not bend the hare-bell's slenderest stem. Daughter of Earth, Ereenia cried, alight ; This is thy place of rest, the Swerga this, Lo, here my Bower of bliss!

He furl'd his azure wings, which round him fold Graceful as robes of Grecian chief of old. The happy Kailyal knew not where to gaze; Her eyes around in joyful wonder roam, Now turn'd upon the lovely Glendoveer, Now on his heavenly home.

Then to the Garden of the Deity
Ereenia led the Maid.

In the mid garden tower'd a giant Tree;
Rock-rooted on a mountain-top, it grew,
Rear'd its unrivall'd head on high,

And stretch'd a thousand branches o'er the sky,
Drinking with all its leaves celestial dew.
Lo! where from thence as from a living well
A thousand torrents flow!

For still in one perpetual shower,
Like diamond drops, ethereal waters fell
From every leaf of all its ample bower.
Rolling adown the steep

From that aërial height,

Through the deep shade of aromatic trees, Half-seen, the cataracts shoot their gleams of light, And pour upon the breeze

Their thousand voices; far away the roar, In modulations of delightful sound, Half-heard and ever varying, floats around. Below, an ample Lake expanded lies, Blue as the o'er-arching skies: Forth issuing from that lovely Lake A thousand rivers water Paradise. Full to the brink, yet never overflowing, They cool the amorous gales, which, ever blowing,

O'er their melodious surface love to stray;
Then winging back their way,

Their vapours to the parent Tree repay;
And ending thus where they began,

And feeding thus the source from whence they came,
The eternal rivers of the Swerga ran,
For ever renovate, yet still the same.

On that ethereal lake, whose waters lie
Blue and transpicuous, like another sky,
The Elements had rear'd their King's abode ;
A strong controlling power their strife suspended
And there their hostile essences they blended,
To form a Palace worthy of the God.
Built on the Lake the waters were its floor;
And here its walls were water arch'd with fire,
And here were fire with water vaulted o'er;

And spires and pinnacles of fire
Round watery cupolas aspire,

And domes of rainbow rest on fiery towers;
And roofs of flame are turreted around

With cloud, and shafts of cloud with flame are bound.
Here too the Elements for ever veer,
Ranging around with endless interchanging ;
Pursued in love, and so in love pursuing,
In endless revolutions here they roll;
For ever their mysterious work renewing;
The parts all shifting, still unchanged the whole.
Even we on earth at intervals descry
Gleams of the glory, streaks of flowing light,
Openings of heaven, and streams that flash at night
In fitful splendour, through the northern sky.

VI. THE RETREAT

'TWAS a fair scene wherein they stood,
A green and sunny glade amid the wood,
And in the midst an aged Banian grew.
It was a goodly sight to see
That venerable tree,

For o'er the lawn, irregularly spread,
Fifty straight columns propt its lofty head;
And many a long depending shoot,
Seeking to strike its root,

Straight like a plummet, grew towards the ground.
Some on the lower boughs which crost their way,
Fixing their bearded fibres, round and round,
With many a ring and wild contortion wound ;
Some to the passing wind at times, with sway
Of gentle motion swung;

Others of younger growth, unmoved, were hung Like stone-drops from the cavern's fretted height; Beneath was smooth and fair to sight,

Nor weeds nor briars deform'd the natural floor, And through the leafy cope which bower'd it o'er Came gleams of chequer'd light.

So like a temple did it seem, that there A pious heart's first impulse would be prayer.

A brook, with easy current, murmur'd near;
Water so cool and clear

The peasants drink not from the humble well,
Which they with sacrifice of rural pride,
Have wedded to the cocoa-grove beside;
Nor tanks of costliest masonry dispense