Dear Harp of my Country! farewell to thy numbers, This sweet wreath of song is the last we shall twine! Go, sleep with the sunshine of Fame on thy slumbers, Till touch'd by some hand less unworthy than mine; If the pulse of the patriot, soldier, or lover,

Have throbb'd at our lay, 'tis thy glory alone; I was but as the wind passing heedlessly over, And all the wild sweetness I wak'd was thy own.

XIII.-ECHO.

W sweet the answer Echo makes

How

To music at night,

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,
And far away, o'er lawns and lakes,
Goes answering light!

Yet Love hath echoes truer far,
And far more sweet,

Than e'er beneath the moonlight's star,
Of horn or lute, or soft guitar,
The songs repeat.

'Tis when the sigh, in youth sincere,
And only then,—

The sigh that's breath'd for one to hear,
Is by that one, that only dear,

Breath'd back again!

NATIONAL AIRS.

OFT IN THE STILLY NIGHT.

(SCOTCH AIR.)

stilly night,

OFT, in the ster's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me ;
The smiles, the tears,

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

The cheerful hearts now broken!

Thus, in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends, so link'd together,

I've seen around me fall,

Like leaves in wintry weather;
I feel like one,

Who treads alone,

Some banquet-hall deserted,

Whose lights are fled,

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night,

Ere Slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

LALLA ROOKH.

1817

THOMAS MOORE.

I.

PARADISE AND THE PERI.

I.

NE morn a Peri at the gate

ONE

Of Eden stood, disconsolate; And as she listen'd to the Springs

Of Life within, like music flowing, And caught the light upon her wings

Through the half-open portal glowing, She wept to think her recreant race Should e'er have lost that glorious place!

"How happy!" exclaim'd this child of air, "Are the holy Spirits who wander there,

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fali; Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me, One blossom of heaven out-blooms them all!

"Though sunny the Lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree Isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that Valley fall; Though bright are the waters of SING-SU-HAY, And the golden floods that thitherward stray, Yet-oh, 'tis only the Blest can say,

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!"

The glorious Angel, who was keeping
The gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
And, as he nearer drew and listen'd
To her sad song, a tear-drop glisten'd
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flow'r, which-Bramins say-
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.

"Nymph of a fair, but erring line!"
Gently he said "One hope is thine.
'Tis written in the Book of Fate,
The Peri yet may be forgiven
Who brings to this Eternal Gate
The Gift that is most dear to Heaven!

Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin

'Tis sweet to let the Pardon'd in!"

Rapidly as comets run

To th' embraces of the Sun ;-
Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands,
At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb th' empyreal heights,'
Down the blue vault the Peri flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the Spirit go

To find this gift for Heav'n ?-"I know
The wealth," she cries, "of every urn,
In which unnumber'd rubies burn,
Beneath the pillars of Chilminar;~

-

2

I know where the Isles of Perfume are
Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby ;— 3
I know, too, where the Genii hid
The jewell'd cup of their king Jamshid,'
With Life's elixir sparkling high-
But gifts like these are not for the sky.
Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla's wonderful Throne ?
And the Drops of Life-oh! what would they be
In the boundless Deep of Eternity?"

While thus she mus'd, her pinions fann'd
The air of that sweet Indian land,
Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks, and amber beds;
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides;
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's Paradise!

But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood-the smell of death Came reeking from those spicy bowers, And man, the sacrifice of man,

Mingled his taint with every breath Upwafted from the innocent flowers! Land of the Sun! what fool invades Thy Pagods and thy pillar'd shades—