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 pluck'd 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
Fill'd 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 clearly 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 tasteIt burns his lips to ashes.

THE WIFE'S APPEAL.

"Love borrows greatly from opinion. Pride, above all things, strengthens affection."-E. L. BULWER.

He sat and read. A book with silver clasps,

All gorgeous with illuminated lines

Of gold and crimson, lay upon a frame

Before him. 'Twas a volume of old time;

And in it were fine mysteries of the stars
Solved with a cunning wisdom, and strange thoughts,
Half prophecy, half poetry, and dreams
Clearer than truth, and speculations wild
That touch'd the secrets of your very soul,
They were so based on Nature. With a face
Glowing with thought, he pored upon the book.
The cushions of an Indian loom lay soft
Beneath his limbs, and, as he turn'd the page,
The sunlight, streaming through the curtain's fold,
Fell with a rose-tint on his jewell'd hand;

And the rich woods of the quaint furniture

Lay deepening their vein'd colours in the sun,

But 'tis a bitter mockery that the fruit

May hang within his reach, and when, with thirst Wrought to a maddening frenzy, he would tasteIt burns his lips to ashes.