the secret of thy conduct, and teach me the plan upon which thy wisdom has built thy fortune." 5. "Young man," said Omar, "it is of little use to form plans of life. When I took my first survey of the world in my twentieth year, having considered the various conditions of mankind, in the hour of solitude I said thus to myself, leaning against a cedar which spread its branches over my head: 'Seventy years are allowed to man; I bave yet fifty remaining. 6. "Ten years I will allot to the attainment of knowledge, and ten I will pass in foreign countries; I shall be learned, and therefore I shall be honored; every city will shout at my arrival, and every student will solicit my friendship. Twenty years thus passed will store my mind with images, which I shall be busy, through the rest of my life, in combining and comparing. I shall revel in inexhaustible accumulations of intellectual riches; I shall find new pleasures for every moment, and shall never more be weary of myself. 666 7. "I will not, however, deviate too far from the beaten track of life, but will try what can be found in female delicacy. I will marry a wife as beautiful as the Houris, and wise as Zobeide; and with her I will live twenty years within the suburbs of Bagdad, in every pleasure that wealth can purchase, and fancy can invent. 8. "I will then retire to a rural dwelling, pass my days in obscurity and contemplation, and lie silently down on the bed of death. Through my life it shall be my settled resolution that I will never depend on the smile of princes; that I will never stand exposed to the artifices of courts; that I will never pant for public honors, nor disturb my quiet with the affairs of state.' Such was my scheme of life, which I impressed indelibly upon my memory. 9. "The first part of my ensuing time was to be spent in search of knowledge, and I know not how I was diverted from my design. I had no visible impediments without, nor any ungovernable passions within. I regarded knowledge as the highest honor, and the most engaging pleasure; yet day stole upon day, and month glided after month, till I found that seven years of the first ten had vanished, and left nothing behind them. 10. "I now postponed my purpose of travelling; for why should I go abroad, while so much remained to be learned at home? I immured myself for four years, and studied the laws of the empire. The fame of my skill reached the judges: I was found able to speak upon doubtful questions, and I was commanded to stand at the footstool of the caliph. I was heard with attention; I was consulted with confidence, and the love of praise fastened on my heart. 11. "I still wished to see distant countries, listened with rapture to the relations of travellers, and resolved some time to ask my dismission, that I might feast my soul with novelty; but my presence was always necessary, and the stream of business hurried me along. Sometimes I was afraid lest I should be charged with ingratitude; but I still purposed to travel, and therefore would not confine myself by marriage. 12. "In my fiftieth year, I began to suspect that the time of my travelling was past, and thought it best to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power, and indulge myself in domestic pleasures. But at fifty no man easily finds a woman beautiful as the Houris, and wise as Zobeide. I inquired and rejected, consulted and deliberated, till the sixty-second year made me ashamed of wishing to marry. I had now nothing left but retirement; and for retirement I never found a time, until disease forced me from public employ ment. 13. "Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence. With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried, and with an unalterable resolution of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the walls of Bagdad." VI. Verse 2.-Meaning of the metaphors "brightness of the flame,” and "fragrant flower"?-V. 7. Houris. In Mohammedan faith, the beautiful nymphs of Paradise.-Zobeide (Zo-bay'de), a beautiful and wise woman of Bagdad, who married the caliph Haroun al-Raschid. (See Arabian Nights.) CHAPTER XVI.-MISCELLANEOUS. [The versification of the following favorite piece is very happy; the pictures presented are striking; the old sexton's stern sense of duty is finely contrasted with the deep affection which led Bessie to her wonderful daring; and the improbabilities of the story are overlooked in the vividness of the coloring given to it.] "Curfew must not Ring To-Night." 1. Slowly England's sun was setting o'er the hill-top far away, Filling all the land with beauty, at the close of one sad day, And the last rays kissed the forehead of a man and maiden fair, He with footsteps slow and weary, she with sunny, floating hair; He with bowed head, sad and thoughtful, she with lips all cold and white, Struggling to keep back the, murmur, "Curfew must not ring to-night." 2. "Sexton," Bessie's white lips faltered, pointing to the prison old, With its turrets tall and gloomy, with its walls dark, damp, and cold, "I've a lover in that prison, doomed this very night to die At the ringing of the curfew, and no earthly help is nigh: Cromwell will not come till sunset," and her lips grew strangely white As she breathed the husky whisper, "Curfew must not ring to-night." 3. "Bessie," calmly spoke the sexton,-every word pierced her young heart Like the piercing of an arrow, like a deadly poison dart, "Long, long years I've rung the curfew from that gloomy, shadowed tower; Every evening, just at sunset, it has told the twilight hour: I have done my duty ever, tried to do it just and right, Now I'm old I still must do it: Curfew it must ring to-night." 4. Wild her eyes and pale her features, stern and white her thoughtful brow, And within her secret bosom Bessie made a solemn vow. or sigh, "At the ringing of the Curfew, Basil Underwood must die." And her breath came fast and faster, and her eyes grew large and bright, In an undertone she murmured, "Curfew must not ring to-night." 5. She with quick steps bounded forward, sprang within the old church door, Left the old man threading slowly paths so oft he'd trod before: Not one moment paused the maiden, but with eye and cheek aglow Mounted up the gloomy tower, where the bell swung to and fro; As she climbed the dusty ladder on which fell no ray of light, Up and up, her white lips saying, "Curfew shall not ring to-night." 6. She has reached the topmost ladder,-o'er her hangs the great dark bell; Awful is the gloom beneath her, like the pathway down to hell. So, the ponderous tongue is swinging, 'tis the hour of curfew now, And the sight has chilled her bosom, stopped her breath, and paled her brow. Shall she let it ring? No, never! Flash her eyes with sudden light, As she springs and grasps it firmly,-" Curfew shall not ring to-night." 7. Out she swung, far out,-the city seemed a speck of light below, "Twixt heaven and earth her form suspended, as the bell swung to and fro; And the sexton at the bell-rope, old and deaf, heard not the bell, But he thought it still was ringing fair young Basil's funeral knell. Still the maiden clung more firmly, and, with trembling lips and white, Said, to hush her heart's wild beating, "Curfew shall not ring to-night." |