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Who bids the Stella Mira* go and come?

Why sits the Pole-star lone?

And why, like banded sisters, through the air
Go in bright troops the constellations fair?

Ben Khorat! dost thou mark?

The star! the star! By heavens, the cloud drifts o'er! Gone-and I live! nay-will my heart beat more? Look! master! 'tis all dark!

Not a clear speck in heaven!-my eye-balls smother! Break through the clouds once more! oh, starry mother!

I will lie down! Yet, stay!

The rain beats out the odour from the gums,

the rainbow, except when it was near the horizon, when it was generally white." It disappeared the following year, and has not been seen since.

* A wonderful star in the neck of the Whale, discovered by Fabricius in the fifteenth century. It appears and disappears seven times in six years, and continues in the greatest lustre for fifteen days together.

And strangely soft to-night the spice-wind comes !

I am a child alway

When it is on my forehead! Abra sweet!

Would I were in the desert at thy feet!

My barb! my glorious steed!
Methinks my soul would mount upon its track
More fleetly, could I die upon thy back!
How would thy thrilling speed

Quicken my pulse!—Oh, Allah! I get wild!
Would that I were once more a desert-child!

Nay-nay-I had forgot!

My mother! my star mother!—Ha! my breath

Stifles!- -more air!

-Ben Khorat! this is-death!

Touch me!- -I feel you not!

Dying!-Farewell! good master!-room! more room!

Abra! I loved thee! star-bright star ! I—come!”

How idly of the human heart we speak,

Giving it gods of clay! How worse than vain

Is the school homily, that Eden's fruit

Cannot be plucked too freely from " the tree
Of good and evil." Wisdom sits alone,

Topmost in heaven ;-she is its light-its God!
And in the heart of man she sits as high-
Though grovelling eyes forget her oftentimes,
Seeing but this world's idols. The pure mind
Sees her for ever: and in youth we come
Filled with her sainted ravishment, and kneel,
Worshipping God through her sweet altar-fires,
And then is knowledge "good." We come too oft-
The heart grows proud with fulness, and we soon
Look with licentious freedom on the maid
Throned in celestial beauty. There she sits,
Robed in her soft and seraph loveliness,
Instructing and forgiving, and we gaze
Until desire grows wild, and, with our hands
Upon her very garments, are struck down,
Blasted with a consuming fire from heaven!
Yet, oh! how full of music from her lips

Breathe the calm tones of wisdom! Human praise

Is sweet till envy mars it, and the touch
Of new-won gold stirs up the pulses well,
And woman's love, if in a beggar's lamp

"Twould burn, might light us cheerly through the world; But Knowledge hath a far more 'wildering tongue,

And she will stoop and lead you to the stars,
And witch you with her mysteries, till gold

Is a forgotten dross, and power and fame
Toys of an hour, and woman's careless love,
Light as the breath that breaks it. He who binds
His soul to knowledge steals the key of heaven-
But 'tis a bitter mockery that the fruit

May hang within his reach, and when, with thirst
Wrought to a maddening frenzy, he would taste-
It burns his lips to ashes!

K

THE HEALING OF THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS.

FRESHLY the cool breath of the coming eve
Stole through the lattice, and the dying gir
Felt it upon her forehead. She had lain
Since the hot noontide in a breathless trance,
Her thin pale fingers clasp'd within the hand
Of the heart-broken Ruler, and her breast,
Like the dead marble, white and motionless.
The shadow of a leaf lay on her lips,
And as it stirr'd with the awakening wind,
The dark lids lifted from her languid eyes,
And her slight fingers mov'd, and heavily
She turn'd upon her pillow. He was there—
The same lov'd, tireless watcher, and she look'd

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