And like a steadfast planet mount and burn-
And though its crown of flame

Consumed my brain to ashes as it shone,
By all the fiery stars! I'd bind it on!

"Ay-though it bid me rifle

My heart's last fount for its insatiate thirst-
Though every life-strung nerve be madden'd first-
Though it should bid me stifle

The yearning in my throat for my sweet child,
And taunt its mother till my brain went wild—

"All-I would do it all

Sooner than die, like a dull worm, to rot-
Thrust foully into earth to be forgot!

Oh heavens !-but I appal

Your heart, old man! forgive-ha! on your lives Let him not faint!-rack him till he revives !

“Vain-vain—give o'er! His eye

Glazes apace. He does not feel you now-
Stand back! I'll paint the death-dew on his brow!
Gods! if he do not die

But for one moment-one-till I eclipse

Conception with the scorn of those calm lips!

Shivering! Hark! he mutters

Brokenly now-that was a difficult breath-
Another? Wilt thou never come, oh Death!
Look! how his temple flutters!

Is his heart still? Aha! lift up his head!

He shudders-gasps-Jove help him!-so-he's dead."

**

How like a mounting devil in the heart
Rules the unrein'd ambition! Let it once
But play the monarch, and its haughty brow
Glows with a beauty that bewilders thought
And unthrones peace forever. Putting on
The very pomp of Lucifer, it turns

The heart to ashes, and with not a spring
Left in the bosom for the spirit's lip,

We look upon our splendor and forget

The thirst of which we perish! Yet hath life

Many a falser idol. There are hopes

Promising well; and love-touch'd dreams for some;
And passions, many a wild one; and fair schemes
For gold and pleasure-yet will only this
Balk not the soul-Ambition only, gives,
Even of bitterness, a beaker full!
Friendship is but a slow-awaking dream,
Troubled at best-Love is a lamp unseen,
Burning to waste, or, if its light is found,
Nursed for an idle hour, then idly broken-
Gain is a grovelling care, and Folly tires,
And Quiet is a hunger never fed—
And from Love's very bosom, and from Gain,
Or Folly, or a Friend, or from Repose-
From all but keen Ambition-will the soul
Snatch the first moment of forgetfulness

To wander like a restless child away.

Oh, if there were not better hopes than these—
Were there no palm beyond a feverish fame-
If the proud wealth flung back upon the heart
Must canker in its coffers-if the links
Falsehood hath broken will unite no more-
If the deep-yearning love, that hath not found
Its like in the cold world, must waste in tears-
If truth, and fervor, and devotedness,

Finding no worthy altar, must return

And die of their own fulness-if beyond

The grave there is no heaven in whose wide air

The spirit may find room, and in the love

Of whose bright habitants the lavish heart

May spend itself—what thrice-mock'd fools are we!

THE SCHOLAR OF THEBET BEN KHORAT.*

"Influentia cœli morbum hunc movet, interdum omnibus aliis amotis."— Melancthon de Anima, Cap. de Humoribus.

I.

NIGHT in Arabia. An hour ago,

Pale Dian had descended from the sky,

A famous Arabian astrologer, who is said to have spent forty years in discovering the motion of the eighth sphere. He had a scholar, a young Bedouin Arab, who, with a singular passion for knowledge, abandoned his wandering tribe, and, applying himself too closely to astrology, lost his reason and died.

Flinging her cestus out upon the sea,
And at their watches, now, the solemn stars
Stood vigilant and lone; and, dead asleep,
With not a shadow moving on its breast,
The breathing earth lay in its silver dew,
And, trembling on their myriad viewless wings,
Th' imprison'd odors left the flowers to dream,
And stole away upon the yielding air.
Ben Khorat's tower stands shadowy and tall
In Mecca's loneliest street; and ever there,
When night is at the deepest, burns his lamp
As constant as the Cynosure, and forth
From his loop'd window stretch the brazen tubes,
Pointing forever at the central star

Of that dim nebula just lifting now
Over Mount Arafat. The sky to-night
Is of a clearer blackness than is wont,
And far within its depths the colored stars*
Sparkle like gems-capricious Antarest
Flushing and paling in the Southern arch;

* "Even to the naked eye, the stars appear of palpably different colors; but when viewed with a prismatic glass, they may be very accurately classed into the red, the yellow, the brilliant white, the dull white, and the anomalous. This is true also of the planets, which shine by reflected light, and of course the difference of color must be supposed to arise from their different powers to absorb and reflect the rays of the sun. The original composition of the stars, and the different dispersive powers of their different atmospheres, may be supposed to account also for this phenomenon."

+ This star exhibits a peculiar quality-a rapid and beautiful change in the color of its light; every alternate twinkling being of an intense reddish crimson color, and the answering one of a brilliant white.

And azure Lyra, like a woman's eye,
Burning with soft blue lustre; and away
Over the desert the bright Polar star,
White as a flashing icicle; and here,
Hung like a lamp above th' Arabian sea,
Mars with his dusky glow; and fairer yet,
Mild Sirius, tinct with dewy violet,

*

Set like a flower upon the breast of Eve;
And in the zenith the sweet Pleiades,†
(Alas-that even a star may pass from heaven
And not be miss'd!)—the linked Pleiades
Undimm'd are there, though from the sister band
The fairest has gone down; and, South away,
Hirundo with its little company;

And white-brow'd Vesta, lamping on her path
Lonely and planet-calm, and, all through heaven,
Articulate almost, they troop to-night,

Like unrobed angels in a prophet's trance.

Ben Khorat knelt before his telescope,§
Gazing with earnest stillness on the stars.
The gray hairs, struggling from his turban-folds,
Play'd with the entering wind upon his cheeks,

* When seen with a prismatic glass, Sirius shows a large brush of exceedingly beautiful rays.

† The Pleiades are vertical in Arabia.

An Arabic constellation placed instead of the Piscis Australis, because the swallow arrives in Arabia about the time of the heliacal rising of the Fishes.

§ An anachronism, the author is aware. The Telescope was not invented for a century or two after the time of Ben Khorat.