As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and LALLA ROOKн remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay *, or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost, -the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. "It is," said he, with an appealing look to FADLADEEN, "in a lighter and humbler strain than the other: " then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began: desires are granted to such as inhabit the heaven of Indra; and if ever flower was worthy of paradise, it is our charming Ipomæa.”— Sir W. Jones. * 66 According to Father Premare, in his tract on Chinese Mythology, the mother of Fo-hi was the daughter of heaven, surnamed Flower-loving; and as the nymph was walking alone on the bank of a river, she found herself encircled by a rainbow, after which she became pregnant, and, at the end of twelve years, was delivered of a son radiant as herself."-Asiat. Res. 154 PARADISE AND THE PERI. ONE morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood, disconsolate; She wept to think her recreant race "How happy," exclaim'd this child of air, "Are the holy Spirits who wander there, "Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; "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! |