PREPARE thy soul, young AzIM!-thou hast braved The bands of GREECE, still mighty though enslaved ; Hast faced her phalanx, armed with all its fame, Her Macedonian pikes and globes of flame;

All this hast fronted, with firm heart and brow;
But a more perilous trial waits thee now,
Woman's bright eyes, a dazzling host of eyes
From every land where woman smiles or sighs;
Of every hue, as Love may chance to raise
His black or azure banner in their blaze;
And each sweet mode of warfare, from the flash
That lightens boldly through the shadowy lash,
To the sly, stealing splendors, almost hid,
Like swords half-sheathed, beneath the downcast lid ;—
Such, AZIM, is the lovely, luminous host

Now led against thee; and, let conquerors boast
Their fields of fame, he who in virtue arms
A young, warm spirit against beauty's charms,
Who feels her brightness, yet defies her thrall,
Is the best, bravest conqueror of them all.

Now, through the Haram chambers, moving lights And busy shapes proclaim the toilet's rites; From room to room the ready handmaids hie, Some skilled to wreath the turban tastefully, Or hang the veil, in negligence of shade, O'er the warm blushes of the youthful maid, Who, if between the folds but one eye shone, Like SEBA's Queen, could vanquish with that one:

1

1 "Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine eyes."- Sol. Song.

While some bring leaves of Henna, to imbue
The fingers' ends with a bright roseate hue,1
So bright, that in the mirror's depth they seem
Like tips of coral branches in the stream:
And others mix the Kohol's jetty dye,

2

To give that long, dark languish to the eye, Which makes the maids, whom kings are proud to

cull

From fair Circassia's vales, so beautiful.

All is in motion: -rings and plumes and pearls
Are shining every where: -some younger girls
Are gone by moonlight to the garden-beds,
To gather fresh, cool chaplets for their heads;
Gay creatures! sweet, though mournful, 'tis to see
How each prefers a garland from that tree
Which brings to mind her childhood's innocent
day,

And the dear fields and friendships far away.
The maid of INDIA, blessed again to hold
In her full lap the Champac's leaves of gold,3
Thinks of the time when, by the GANGES' flood,
Her little playmates scattered many a bud

1 "They tinged the ends of her fingers scarlet with Henna, so that they resembled branches of coral.". Story of Prince Futtun in Bahardanush. 2 "The women blacken the inside of their eyelids with a powder named the black Kohol.” — Russel.

"None of these ladies," says Shaw, "take themselves to be completely dressed, till they have tinged the hair and edges of their eyelids with the powder of lead ore. Now, as this operation is performed by dipping first into the powder a small wooden bodkin of the thickness of a quill, and then drawing it afterwards through the eyelids over the ball of the eye, we shall bave a lively image of what the Prophet (Jer. iv. 30) may be supposed to mean by rending the eyes with painting. This practice is no doubt of great antiquity; for besides the instance already taken notice of, we find that where Jezebel is said (2 Kings, ix. 30) to have painted her face, the original words are, she adjusted her eyes with the powder of lead ore.”. Shaw's Travels.

3 "The appearance of the blossoms of the gold-colored Campac on the black hair of the Indian women has supplied the Sanscrit Poets with many elegant allusions.". See Asiatic Researches, vol. iv.

Upon her long black hair, with glossy gleam
Just dripping from the consecrated stream;
While the young Arab, haunted by the smell
Of her own mountain flowers, as by a spell,
The sweet Elcaya,1 and that courteous tree
Which bows to all who seek its canopy,2—
Sees, called up round her by these magic scents,
The well, the camels, and her father's tents;
Sighs for the home she left with little pain,
And wishes ev'n its sorrows back again!

Meanwhile, through vast illuminated halls, Silent and bright, where nothing but the falls Of fragrant waters, gushing with cool sound From many a jasper fount, is heard around, Young Azim roams bewildered, nor can guess What means this maze of light and loneliness. Here, the way leads, o'er tessellated floors Or mats of CAIRO, through long corridors, Where, ranged in cassolets and silver urns, Sweet wood of aloe or of sandal burns; And spicy rods, such as illume at night The bowers of TIBET,3 send forth odorous light, Like Peris' wands, when pointing out the road For some pure Spirit to its blest abode: And here, at once, the glittering saloon

Bursts on his sight, boundless and bright as noon;

1 A tree famous for its perfume, and common on the hills of Yemen.— Niebuhr

2 Of the genus mimosa, "which droops its branches whenever any person approaches it, seeming as if it saluted those who retire under its shade.". Niebuhr.

3 "Cloves are a principal ingredient in the composition of the perfumed rods, which men of rank keep constantly burning in their presence."Turner's Tibet.

Where, in the midst, reflecting back the rays
In broken rainbows, a fresh fountain plays
High as the' enamelled cupola, which towers
All rich with Arabesques of gold and flowers:
And the mosaic floor beneath shines through
The sprinkling of that fountain's silvery dew,
Like the wet, glistening shells, of every dye,
That on the margin of the Red Sea lie.

Here too he traces the kind visitings Of woman's love in those fair, living things Of land and wave, whose fate-in bondage thrown For their weak loveliness is like her own! On one side gleaming with a sudden grace Through water, brilliant as the crystal vase In which it undulates, small fishes shine, Like golden ingots from a fairy mine; While, on the other, latticed lightly in With odoriferous woods of COMORIN,1 Each brilliant bird that wings the air is seen; Gay, sparkling loories, such as gleam between The crimson blossoms of the coral-tree 2 In the warm isles of India's sunny sea; Mecca's blue sacred pigeon,3 and the thrush Of Hindostan, whose holy warblings gush, At evening, from the tall pagoda's top;

4

Those golden birds that, in the spice-time, drop

1 "C'est d'où vient le bois d'aloes, que les Arabes appellent Oud Comari, et celui du sandal, qui s'y trouve en grande quantité." D'Herbelot.

2 "Thousands of variegated loories visit the coral-trees."- Barrow. 3 In Mecca there are quantities of blue pigeons, which none will affright or abuse, much less kill.". - Pitt's Account of the Mahometans.

"The Pagoda Thrush is esteemed among the first choristers of India It sits perched on the sacred pagodas, and from thence delivers its melodious song." Pennant's Hindostan,

About the gardens, drunk with that sweet food1
Whose scent hath lured them o'er the summer flood;2
And those that under Araby's soft sun

Build their high nests of budding cinnamon; 3
In short, all rare and beauteous things, that fly
Through the pure element, here calmly lie

4

Sleeping in light, like the green birds that dwell In Eden's radiant fields of asphodel!

So on, through scenes past all imagining,
More like the luxuries of that impious king,5
Whom Death's dark Angel, with his lightning torch,
Struck down and blasted even in Pleasure's porch,
Than the pure dwelling of a Prophet sent,
Armed with Heaven's sword, for man's enfranchise-
ment

Young Azim wandered, looking sternly round,
His simple garb and war-boots' clanking sound
But ill according with the pomp and grace
And silent lull of that voluptuous place.

"Is this, then," thought the youth, "is this the way "To free man's spirit from the deadening sway "Of worldly sloth,—to teach him, while he lives, "To know no bliss but that which virtue gives,

1 Tavernier adds, that while the Birds of Paradise lie in this intoxicated state, the emmets come and eat off their legs; and that hence it is they are said to have no feet.

2 Birds of Paradise, which, at the nutmeg season, come in flights from the southern isles to India; and "the strength of the nutmeg," says Tavernier, "so intoxicates them that they fall dead drunk to the earth."

3 "That bird which liveth in Arabia, and buildeth its nest with cinnamon." - Brown's Vulgar Errors.

4 "The spirits of the martyrs will be lodged in the crops of green birds." Gibbon, vol. ix. p. 421.

Shedad, who made the delicious gardens of Irim, in imitation of Paradise, and was destroyed by lightning the first time he attempted to enter them.