They are walking on with a trembling tread,
And painful the path thro' the jungle to thread;
And their hearts beat high at the sullen crush
Of the boughs swinging back to their broken hush;
And they hear the hiss of the startled snake,
And they see the bed in the trampled brake,
Where some ravening beast, aroused by the moon
To his prey, had reposed thro' the sultry noon.

But aye, as they paused for breath, the part
Of the cheerer was donned by the darker heart,
For the nerves of the one, whom in safety ye deemed
The gallanter spirit, now quail and cower,

While the calm which in common a dulness seemed,

Grew courage when kept thro' the perilous hour.

The jungle is cleared, and the moon shines bright
On a broad and silent plain;

And (gaunt in the midst) the streaming light
Sleeps, hushed on a giant Fane !

No late-built, gay, and glittering shrine,*
Like those the Boudhist holds divine;

The massy and antique solemnity of the Hindoo temple, compared with those devoted to the Boudhist religion, covered as the latter are with gilding, and grotesque ornaments made of the most gaudy and least durable materials, never fails to strike every traveller in the countries where the two religions are found together.

But simple--lone-grey-vast-and hoar,

All darkly-eloquent of Eld! The farthest years of untold yore That temple had beheld.

Sadly and desolately now,

It rais'd to Heaven its gloomy brow;
Its altars silent and untrod,-

The faith has left the Brahmin's God.*

There while the brothers gazing stood,
Their youthful blood grew chill,
Appalled beneath the Solitude,
The Sternness and the Still!

They have gain'd the sacred bound,
They have pass'd its broken wall;

And they quail as they walk, when they hear the sound Of their steps in the temple fall!

*

They stand in a desolate place,

Their roof the starr'd and breathless Space!

An altar at their feet, o'erthrown!

On the grey walls around, half-rased,

Strange shapes and mystic rhymes are traced,

Typing a past world's fate.

They (the Hindoo temples) were dreary and comfortless places, and there was no mistaking the religion which had the countenance and protection of the state."-Crauford's Embassy, p. 119.

And still, as if himself had grown
Its like upon a couch of stone
Majestic-shadowy--and alone
The dark Magician sate !

The white rays hush'd around him shining-
His broad brow knit and down-declining;
Fix'd on the wan Earth's mystic breast
His eyes-intent but dreaming-rest;
His mute form bending musingly,
And his hands clasp'd upon his knee.
Calmness sate round him like a robe,

The calmness of the crowned Dead,
The calmness of the solemn Globe
When Night makes Silence dread.
The calmness of some God reclin'd

On high-and brooding o'er Earth's doom, Or of some Cloud ere yet the wind

Hath voiced the breathless gloom.

The errand they tell, and the boon they crave.
It is done!—with a glassy eye

The Sorcerer look'd on the Twins, and gave,
In a chaunting tone, reply.

"Ten years ago, and the Book of Light
"Was oped at the page that bared to-night,
"And the Moon had buried her mother old,

"And the Dragon was up from his mountain-hold,