The mossy grave thy tears have wet,
And the wind's wild moanings by,

Thou with thy kindred shalt forget,

Midst flowers-not such as die.

The shadow from thy brow shall melt,

The sorrow from thy strain,

But where thine earthly smile hath dwelt,

Our hearts shall thirst in vain.

Dim will our cabin be, and lone,

When thou, its light, art fled;

Yet hath thy step the pathway shown

Unto the happy dead.

And we will follow thee, our guide!

And join that shining band;

Thou'rt passing from the lake's green side

Go to the better land!"

The song had ceas'd-the listeners caught

no

breath,

That lovely sleep had melted into death.

THE INDIAN CITY.*

What deep wounds ever clos'd without a scar?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it.

Childe Harold.

I.

ROYAL in splendour went down the day

On the plain where an Indian city lay,

With its crown of domes o'er the forest high,
Red as if fused in the burning sky,

And its deep groves pierced by the rays which made
A bright stream's way thro' each long arcade,
Till the pillar'd vaults of the Banian stood,
Like torch-lit aisles midst the solemn wood,

*From a tale in Forbes's Oriental Memoirs.

And the plantain glitter'd with leaves of gold,

As a tree midst the genii-gardens old,

And the cypress lifted a blazing spire,

And the stems of the cocoas were shafts of fire.

Many a white pagoda's gleam

Slept lovely round upon lake and stream,

Broken alone by the lotus-flowers,

As they caught the glow of the sun's last hours,

Like rosy wine in their cups, and shed

Its glory forth on their crystal bed.

Many a graceful Hindoo maid,

With the water-vase from the palmy shade,

Came gliding light as the desert's roe,
Down marble steps to the tanks below;
And a cool sweet plashing was ever heard,
As the molten glass of the wave was stirr'd;
And a murmur, thrilling the scented air,
Told where the Bramin bow'd in prayer.

There wandered a noble Moslem boy

Thro' the scene of beauty in breathless joy ;
He gazed where the stately city rose

Like a pageant of clouds in its red repose;
He turn'd where birds thro' the gorgeous gloom
Of the woods went glancing on starry plume;
He track'd the brink of the shining lake,

By the tall canes feathered in tuft and brake,
Till the path he chose, in its mazes wound
To the very heart of the holy ground.

And there lay the water, as if enshrin'd
In a rocky urn from the sun and wind,
Bearing the hues of the grove on high,
Far down thro' its dark still purity.
The flood beyond, to the fiery west
Spread out like a metal-mirror's breast,
But that lone bay, in its dimness deep,
Seem'd made for the swimmer's joyous leap,