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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;
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 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!

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