VIRTUE.

Sweet day!-so cool, so calm, so bright,

The bridal of the earth and sky; The dew shall weep thy fall to night;

For thou must die !

Sweet rose !-whose hue, angry and brave,

Bids the rash gazer wipe bis eye : Thy root is ever in its grave,

And thou must die!

Gay spring ! so full of sweets and bloom,

A casket stored with every joy ; Thy evening music tolls thy doom ;

For thou must die!

Virtue alone unfading flower !

Whose root nor time nor death can sever, Though final flames all else devour, Shall live for ever!

Herbert. PARADISE AND THE PERI.

FROM LALLA ROOKH.

One morn a Peri at the gate
Of Eden stood, disconsolate;
And as she listened to the springs

Of life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings,

Through the half-open portal glowing, She wept to think her recreant race Should ere have lost that glorious place.

• How happy,' exclaimed this child of air, • Are the holy spirits that wander there,

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall ; Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, And the stars themselves have flowers for me,

One blossom of heaven out-blooms them all!

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Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall ; Though bright are the waters of Sing-Su-Hay, And the golden floods that thitherward stray, Yet-oh 'tis only the blest can say

How the waters of heaven outsbine them all !

• Go wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far

As the universe spreads its flaming wall ; Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless year's

One minute of heaven is worth them all!'

The glorious angel, who was keeping
The gates of light, beheld her weeping;
And as he nearer drew, and listened
To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain when it lies
On the blue flower which-Bramins say-

Blooms no where but in Paradise !
Nymph of a fair, but erring line !
Gently he said — One hope is thine.
• 'Tis written in the book of fate,

The Peri yet may be forgiven Who brings to this eternal gate

The gift that is most dear to heaven!

Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin ;'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in !

Rapidly as comets run
To the embraces of the sun ;-
Fleeter than the starry brands,
Flung at night from angel hands
At those dark and daring spirits
Who would climb the empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the Peri Alies,
And lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the spirit go
To find this gift for heaven ?- I know
• The wealth,' she cries, of every urn,
In which unnumbered rubies burn,
Beneath the pillars of Chilminar ;
I know where the isles of perfume are,
Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby;
I know too where the Genii hid
The jewelled cup of their King Jamshid
With life's elixir sparkling high-
But gifts like these are not for the sky.

Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla’s wonderful throne !
And the drops of lifemoh what would they be
In the boundless deep of eternity ?'

While thus she mused, her pinions fanned
The air of that sweet Indian land,
Whose air is balm ; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks and amber beds ;
Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam
Of the warm sun, with diamonds teem;
Whose rivulets are like rich brides,
Lovely, with gold beneath their tides,
Whose sandal groves and bowers of spice
Might be a Peri's Paradise !
But crimson now her rivers ran

With human blood--the smell of death
Came reeking from those spicy bowers,
And man, the sacrifice of man,

Mingled his taint with every breath
Upwafted from the innocent flowers !
Land of the sun ! what foot invades
Thy Pagods and thy pillared sbades,
Thy cavern shrines and idol stones,
Thy monarchs and their thousand thrones ?