Damascus.

THE CONVERSION OF ST. PAUL.

THE midday sun, with fiercest glare,
Broods o'er the hazy, twinkling air;
Along the level sand

The palm-tree's shade unwavering lies,
Just as thy towers, Damascus, rise
To greet yon wearied band.

The leader of that martial crew
Seems bent some mighty deed to do,
So steadily he speeds,

With lips firm closed and fixed eye,
Like warrior when the fight is nigh,
Nor talk nor landscape heeds.

What sudden blaze is round him poured,
As though all Heaven's refulgent hoard
In one rich glory shone?

One moment, and to earth he falls:
What voice his inmost heart appalls?
Voice heard by him alone.

For to the rest both words and form
Seem lost in lightning and in storm,
While Saul, in wakeful trance,
Sees deep within that dazzling field

His persecuted Lord revealed
With keen yet pitying glance;

And hears the meek upbraiding call
As gently on his spirit fall,
As if the Almighty Son
Were prisoner yet in this dark earth,
Nor had proclaimed his royal birth,
Nor his great power begun.

"Ah! wherefore persecut'st thou me?"
He heard and saw, and sought to free
His strained eye from the sight:
But Heaven's high magic bound it there,
Still gazing, though untaught to bear
The insufferable light.

*

John Keble.

A

AN ORIENTAL IDYL.

SILVER javelin which the hills Have hurled upon the plain below, The fleetest of the Pharpar's rills, Beneath me shoots in flashing flow.

I hear the never-ending laugh

Of jostling waves that come and go, And suck the bubbling pipe, and quaff The sherbet cooled in mountain snow.

The flecks of sunshine gleam like stars
Beneath the canopy of shade;

And in the distant, dim bazaars
I scarcely hear the hum of trade.

No evil fear, no dream forlorn,

Darkens my heaven of perfect blue; My blood is tempered to the morn, My very heart is steeped in dew.

What Evil is I cannot tell;

But half I guess what Joy may be;
And, as a pearl within its shell,
The happy spirit sleeps in me.

I feel no more the pulse's strife, -
The tides of Passion's ruddy sea,
But live the sweet, unconscious life
That breathes from yonder jasmine-tree.

Upon the glittering pageantries
Of gay Damascus' streets I look
As idly as a babe that sees

The painted pictures of a book.

Forgotten now are name and race;

The Past is blotted from my brain; For Memory sleeps, and will not trace The weary pages o'er again.

I only know the morning shines,
And sweet the dewy morning air;
But does it play with tendrilled vines,
Or does it lightly lift my hair?

Deep-sunken in the charmed repose,

This ignorance is bliss extreme;
And whether I be Man, or Rose,
O, pluck me not from out my dream!

Bayard Taylor.

L

CAFÉS IN DAMASCUS.

ANGUIDLY the night-wind bloweth
From the garden round,

Where the clear Barrada floweth

With a lulling sound.

Not the lute-note's sweetest shiver

Can such music find,

As is on a wandering river,

On a wandering wind.

There the Moslem leaneth, dreaming

O'er the inward world,

While around the fragrant steaming

Of the smoke is curled,

Rising from the coffee berry,

Dark grape of the South;

Or the pipe of polished cherry,

With its amber mouth,

Cooled by passing through the water,

Gurgling as it flows,

Scented by the Summer's daughter,
June's impassioned rose.

By that Rose's spirit haunted
Are the dreams that rise,

Of far lands, and lives enchanted,

And of deep black eyes.

Thus with some sweet dream's assistance,
Float they down life's stream;

Would to Heaven our whole existence

Could be such a dream!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon.

Endor.

SAUL.

HOU whose spell can raise the dead,

Bid the prophet's form appear.

Samuel, raise thy buried head!

King, behold the phantom seer!"

Earth yawned; he stood the centre of a cloud :
Light changed its hue, retiring from his shroud :
Death stood all glassy in his fixed eye;

His hand was withered and his veins were dry;
His foot, in bony whiteness, glittered there,
Shrunken and sinewless, and ghastly bare:
From lips that moved not and unbreathing frame,
Like caverned winds, the hollow accents came.