276. THE ISLES OF GREECE. The isles of Greece, the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set. The Scian and the Teian muse, The hero's harp, the lover's lute, I dreamed that Greece might still be free; For standing on the Persians' grave, I could not deem myself a slave. A king sate on the rocky brow Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; On my arrival at Venice, in the year 1816, I found my mind in a state which required study, and study of a nature which should leave little scope for the imagination, and furnish some difficulty in the pursuit. At this period I was much struck - in common, I believe, witɩ every other traveller - with the society of the Convent of St. Lazarus, which appears to unite all the advantages of the monastic institution.. without any of its vices. The neatness, the comfort, the gentleness, the unaffected devotion, the accomplishments, and the virtues of the brethren of the order, are well fitted to strike the man of the world with the conviction tha "there is another and a better" even in this life. These men are the priesthood of an oppressed and a noble nation. which has partaken of the proscription and bondage of the Jews an of the Greeks, without the sullenness of the former or the servility o the latter. This people has attained riches without usury, and all the honors that can be awarded to slavery without intrigue. But they have long occupied, nevertheless, a part of the "House of Bondage,” who has lately multiplied her many mansions. It would be difficult, perhaps, to find the annals of a nation less stained with crimes thar those of the Armenians, whose virtues have been those of peace, and their vices those of compulsion. But whatever may have been their destiny and it has been bitter whatever it may be in future, their country must ever be one of the most interesting on the globe; and perhaps their language only requires to be more studied to become more attractive. If the Scriptures are rightly understood, it was ir Armenia that Paradise was placed-Armenia, which has paid as dearly as the descendants of Adam for that fleeting participation of its soil in the happiness of him who was created from its dust. It was in Armenia that the flood first abated, and the dove alighted. But with the disappearance of Paradise itself may be dated almost the unhappiness of the country; for though long a powerful kingdom, it was scarcely ever an independent one, and the satraps of Persia and the pachas of Turkey have alike desolated the region where God created man in his own image. THOMAS MOORE. 1779-1852. (Manual, pp. 404-411.) FROM "LALLA ROOKH." 278. PARADISE AND THE PERI. One morn a Peri at the gate Of Life within, like music flowing, Through the half-open portal glowing, 'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; Though sunny the Lake of cool Cashmere, And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; How the waters of Heaven outshine them all! "Go, wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far As the universe spreads its flaming wall: Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years, One minute of Heaven is worth them all!" From Eden's fountain, when it lies "Nymph of a fair but erring line!" Cheered by this hope she bends her thither; — That fluttered round the jasmine stems, From his hot steed, and on the brink Like thunder-clouds, of gloom and fire! Met that unclouded, joyous gaze, But hark! the vesper call to prayer, From Syria's thousand minarets! Kneels, with his forehead to the south From purity's own cherub mouth, And looking, while his hands and eyes Like a stray babe of Paradise, And seeking for its home again! O, 'twas a sight- that Heaven - that Child A scene, which might have well beguiled E'en haughty Eblis of a sigh For glories lost and peace gone by! And how felt he, the wretched Man |