EASTERN THOUGHTS.

I.

THE THINKER AND THE POET.

SUNSHINE often falls refulgent

After all the corn is in;

Often Allah grants indulgent

Pleasure that may guard from sin :

Hence your

wives may

number four;

Though he best consults his reason,
Best secures his house from treason,
Who takes one and wants no more.

Nor less well the man once gifted
With one high and holy Thought,
Will not let his mind be shifted,
But adores it, as he ought;
Well for him whose spirit's youth
Rests as a contented lover,
Nor can other charms discover

Than in his absorbing Truth!

But the heaven-enfranchised Poet
Must have no exclusive home,
He must feel, and freely show it,—
Phantasy is made to roam :
He must give his passions range,
He must serve no single duty,
But from Beauty pass to Beauty,
Constant to a constant change.

With all races, of all ages,
He must people his Hareem;
He must search the tents of sages,

He must scour the vales of dream:
Ever adding to his store,

From new cities, from new nations,
He must rise to new creations,
And, unsated, ask for more.

In the manifold, the various,
He delights, as Nature's child,-
Grasps at joys the most precarious,
Rides on hopes, however wild!

Though his heart at times perceives

One enduring Love hereafter,

Glimmering through his tears and laughter,

Like the sun through autumn leaves.

II.

THE EASTERN EPICUREAN.

You are moaning, "Life is waning,"
You are droning, "Flesh is weak:
Tell me too, what I am gaining
While I listen, while you speak.

Calm the heart's insatiate yearning
Towards the distant, the unknown :
Only do so, without turning
Men to beasts, or flesh to stone.

Cry not loud, "The world is mad!
Lord how long shall folly rule?"
If you've nothing but the sad
To replace the jovial fool.

Sorrow is its own clear preacher,-
Death is still on Nature's tongue ;—

Life and joy require the teacher,
Honour Youth and keep it young.

Even you, ascetics, rightly,

Should appreciate Love and Joy ;—
For what you regard so lightly
Where's the merit to destroy?

III.

"To endure and to pardon is the wisdom of life.

Kuràn, 42, v. 41.

FATHER! if we may well endure

The ill that with our lives begins,

May'st Thou, to whom all things are pure,

Endure our follies and our sins!

Brothers if we return you good

For evil thought or malice done,
Doubt not, that in our hearts a blood

As hot as in your own may run.

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IV.

PHYSICAL AND MORAL BLINDNESS.

THE hab'ts here alluded to are familiar to every traveller in those parts of the East where a large portion of the population are subject to ophthalmia and other diseases of the eyes, brought on by dirt and carelessness. In Egypt the number is much increased by those who have blinded themselves, or been blinded by their parents, to avoid the conscription.

THE child whose eyes were never blest
With heavenly light, or lost it soon,
About another's neck will rest

Its arm, and walk like you at noon;
The blind old man will place his palm
Upon a child's fresh-blooming head,
And follow through the croud in calm
That infantine and trusty tread.

We, too, that in our spirits dark
Traverse a wild and weary way,
May in these sweet resources mark
A lesson, and be safe as they :
Resting, when young, in happy faith
On fair affection's daily bond,
And afterwards resigned to death,
Feeling the childly life beyond.