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And should my youth, as youth is apt I Beverage and food; they edged the shore.

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Bare without leaf or bough, erect and smooth,

Their tresses nodding like a crested helm, The plumage of the grove.

Will ye believe The wonders of the ocean? how its shoals

And as when all the summer trees are Sprung from the wave, like flashing light,

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took wing,

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And rose like dust before the whirlwind's force.

But we sail'd onward over tranquil seas,
Wafted by airs so exquisitely mild,
That even to breathe became an act of
will,

And sense, and pleasure. Not a cloud by day

With purple islanded the dark-blue deep: By night the quiet billows heaved and glanced

Under the moon, that heavenly moon ! so bright,

That many a midnight have I paced the deck,

Forgetful of the hours of due repose;
Yea, til' the sun in his full majesty
Went forth, like God beholding his own

works.

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No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,

Breaks the serene of heaven:

In full orbed glory yonder moon divine

Rolls through the dark blue depths:
Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

The earliest sunbeams haste to wing their way,

With rainbow wreaths the holy stream adorning :

And duly the adoring moon at night

Sheds her white glory there,

And in the watery air

Suspends her halo-crowns of silver light.

AN EASTERN EVENING.

Like the round ocean, girdled with the EVENING comes on: arising from the

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THE SOURCE OF THE GANGES.
The Curse of Kehama.

NONE hath seen its secret fountain;
But on the top of Merû mountain,
Which rises o'er the hills of earth,

In light and clouds, it hath its mortal birth.

Earth seems that pinnacle to rear
Sublime above this worldly sphere,
Its cradle, and its altar, and its throne;
And there the new-born river lies
Outspread beneath its native skies,
As if it there would love to dwell
Alone and unapproachable.
Soon flowing forward, and resigned
To the will of the Creating Mind,
It springs at once, with sudden leap,
Down from the immeasurable steep;
From rock to rock, with shivering force
rebounding,

The mighty cataract rushes: heaven
around,

Like thunder, with the incessant roar resounding,

And Meru's summit shaking with the sound.

Wide spreads the snowy foam, the sparkling spray

Dances aloft; and ever there at morning

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song,

And solemn dance of festive multitude;

Now as the weary ages pass along, Hearing no voice save of the ocean flood,

Which roars for ever on the restless shores ;

Or, visiting their solitary caves, The lonely sound of winds, that moan around

Accordant to the melancholy waves. Wondering, he stood awhile to gaze

Upon the works of elder days. The brazen portals open stood, Even as the fearful multitude Had left them, when they fled Before the rising flood. High over-head, sublime, The mighty gateway's storied roof was spread,

Dwarfing the puny piles of younger

time.

With the deeds of days of yore That ample roof was sculptured o'er, And many a godlike form there met his eye,

And many an emblem dark of mystery. Through these wide portals oft had Baly rode

Triumphant from his proud abode,
When, in his greatness, he best rode
The Aullay, hugest of four-footed
kind,

The Aullay-horse, that in his force, With elephantine trunk, could bind And lift the elephant, and on the wind Whirl him away, with sway and swing, Even like a pebble from the practised sling.

Those streets which never, since the days of yore,

By human footstep had been visited;
Those streets which never more
A human foot shall tread,
Ladurlad trod. In sun-light, and sea-
green,

The thousand palaces were seen Of that proud city whose superb abodes

Seemed reared by giants for the immortal gods.

How silent and how beautiful they stand,

Like things of Nature! the eternal rocks

Themselves not firmer. Neither hath the sand

Drifted within their gates, and choaked their doors,

Nor slime defiled their pavements and their floors.

Did then the ocean wage
His war for love and envy, not in

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So thought Ladurlad, as he looked For where the mighty Ocean could not around,

Weening to hear the sound

Of Mermaid's shell, and song Of choral throng from some imperial

hall,

Wherein the immortal powers, at festival,

Their high carousals keep.
But all is silence dread,
Silence profound and dead,
The everlasting stillness of the deep.

Through many a solitary street, And silent market-place, and lonely

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A place of Paradise, where each device

spare,

There had he, with his own creation, Sought to repair his work of devasta

tion.

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Yea, beautiful as Mermaid's golden Upon the waves dispread : Others that, like the broad bannana Raised their long wrinkled leaves of growing, purple hue,

Like streamers wide out-flowing. And whatsoe'er the depths of Ocean [espied. From human eyes, Ladurlad there

hide

Of emulous art with nature strove to Trees of the deep, and shrubs and fruits

vie ;

And nature, on her part, Called forth new powers wherewith to vanquish art.

The Swerga-God himself, with cnvious eye,

Surveyed those peerless gardens in their prime;

Nor ever did the Lord of Light, Who circles Earth and Heaven upon his way, [sight Behold from eldest time a goodlier Than were the groves which Baly, in his

Made for his chosen place of solace and

and flowers,

As fair as ours.

Wherewith the Sea-nymphs love their locks to braid,

When to their father's hall, at festival

Repairing, they, in emulous array,

Their charms display,

To grace the banquet, and the solemn day.

THALABA'S HOME IN THE DESERT.

might, delight.

Thalaba.

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Even yet it was a place of Para

dise:

That, in a lonely tent, had cast

The lot of Thalaba.

L*

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Or when the winter torrent rolls Down the deep-channelled rain-course, foamingly,

Dark with its mountain spoils, With bare feet pressing the wet sand, There wanders Thalaba,

The rushing flow, the flowing roal,
Filling his yielded faculties;
A vague, a dizzy, a tumultuous joy.
Or lingers it a vernal brook

Gleaming o'er yellow sands?
Beneath the lofty bank reclined,
With idle eye he views its little waves,
Quietly listening to the quiet flow;
While, in the breathings of the stirring
gale,

The tall canes bend above.

Floating like streamers on the wind
Their lank uplifted leaves.

Nor rich, nor poor, was Moath; God had
given
[tent.
Enough, and blest him with a mind con-
No hoarded gold disquieted his dreams;
But ever round his station he beheld
Camels that knew his voice,
And home-birds, grouping at Oneiza's
call,

And goats that, morn and eve, Came with full udders to the damsel's

hand.

Dear child! the tent beneath whose shade they dwelt

It was her work; and she had twined
His girdle's many hues;

And he had seen his robe
Grow in Oneiza's loom.

How often, with a memory-mingled joy Which made her mother live before his sight,

He watched her nimble fingers thread the woof! [toiled, Or at the hand-mill, when she knelt and Toast the thin cake on spreading palm, Or fixed it on the glowing oven's side With bare wet arm, and safe dexterity.

'Tis the cool evening hour: The tamarind from the dew Sheathes its young fruit, yet green. Before their tent the mat is spread, The old man's awful voice Intone the holy book,

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