Page:Ainsworth's Magazine - Volume 2.pdf/76

silent river banks, with a quick eye and elastic step, somewhat after the fashion of the jerboa of the plain, but with a lustrous glance and a movement of grace which belongs to woman only.

It is only on arriving at Baghdad, that the European coming from the north, either by the Tigris or the Euphrates, feels that he has at length got fully and really into the East. He has passed towns that are Oriental, houses and garments that are Oriental, and jamis and menarehs that are Oriental, yeb the very greensward and every flowering plant reminds him of home; but, at Baghdad, there is no longer any greensward; and the rich deep green of the first long forest of palm-trees that he has met, with the bright blossoms of pomegranate and orange bursting into view below, lend to what else is Oriental that only which can fill up the cup of his anticipations; and no where does the sun set so beautifully—in such a clear, vivid blue green atmoaphere—as behind a boundless level forest of palms

But with these exceptions, which belong to nature and not to art, Baghdad, like most Mohammedan cities, is no longner what it was; its very magnificence is ruinous, and its ruins are crumbling into dust. The condition of a Mohammedan city is, now-a-days, the picture of Mohammedanism itself; and in no one place in the East is there any stay to the universal decay that pervades everything, except where the civilization of Christianity is rising upon the ashes of a faith which has involved in similar ruin the mind of man, the edifices which he constructs, and the country that he inhabits.

“ stow aroxe be from te womens of iat ATA? ‘Alea? he told not; bot he did awake, To curse the wither’d heart that would not break.’ BYRON.

Tans back the ivy-leaf Think—thongh no mote to meet—

Which once thy gentle bosom bere — [ How thon didat grow anto his heart 5 “My soul is fill'd with grief, In ail his visions sweet, Its goiden dreass of bliss is o'er. The jloveliest-—deareat—parest part. Yet as this leaf shall be, Thongh sere and broken Bre for ayes Conld’st thou but inly feel jmage 5! me B ae sivas clotbed ? the light of May. Anght of my bosom os ate tas

‘ Down from mine eyes if ceascless flow,

{f e'er thou tread'st SBC" Kien thou might'st shed with Te Those cloister’d halle and Sictured cells, | One little tear rie ate ehowld rend ‘As once beside mY when i Hearts twin in sympathy — Thy smiles threw © ex my soul thelr | Hearts form'd by wature’s self to blend. Think of my apirit’s bliss, While thy s¥ect pymph-like form h- Farewell !—olas! farewell— side;— pat word of sorrow must be breath’! Ah, did ¥ dream of this?— se bright pleasure dwell "Phat fate such hearts ghould soon divide. Round thee, an with thy life be wreath'dl Think, while these simple lines Give me a passing thought ? Traced by Affection’s hand thou'lt see, At times—I ask no more. Bat thou Of one who still enshrines So with my soul art wrought,

In his heart's texaple only thee; Lil tore thee always even as now!

———— lll