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The pleasure-house is dust :-behind, before,
This is no common waste, no common

gloom;

But Nature, in due course of time, once

more

Shall here put on her beauty and her bloom.

She leaves these objects to a slow decay,
That what we are, and have been, may be

known;

But at the coming of the milder day,
These monuments shall all be overgrown.

One lesson, Shepherd, let us two divide, Taught both by what she shows, and what conceals;

Never to blend our pleasure or our pride

With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels."

VOL. III.

с

THE DESERT-BORN.

BY THOMAS HOOD.

"Fly to the desert, fly with me."-LADY HESTER STANHOPE.

"TWAS in the wilds of Lebanon, amongst its barren hills,

To think upon it, even now, my very blood

it chills!

My sketch-book spread before me,

pencil in my hand,

and my

I gazed upon the mountain range, the red tumultuous sand,

The plumy palms, the sombre firs, the cedars

tall and proud,—

When lo! a shadow pass'd across the

paper

like a cloud,

And looking up I saw a form, apt figure

for the scene,—

Methought I stood in presence of some oriental queen!

The turban on her head was white as any driven snow;

A purple bandalette past o'er the lofty brow below,

And thence upon her shoulders fell, by either jewell'd ear;

In yellow folds voluminous she wore her long cachemere;

Whilst underneath, with ample sleeves, a Turkish robe of silk

Enveloped her in drapery the colour of new

milk;

Yet oft it floated wide in front, disclosing

underneath

A gorgeous Persian tunic, rich with many a broider'd wreath,

Compell'd by clasps of costly pearl around her neck to meet

And yellow as the amber were the buskins on her feet!

Of course I bow'd my lowest bow—of all the things on earth,

The reverence due to loveliness, to rank, or ancient birth,

To power, to wealth, to genius, or to anything uncommon,

A man should bend the lowest in a Desert to a Woman!

Yet some strange influence stronger still, though vague and undefined,

Compell'd me, and with magic might subdued my soul and mind;

There was a something in her air that drew the spirit nigh,

Beyond the common witchery that dwells in woman's eye!

With reverence deep, like any slave of that peculiar land,

I bow'd my forehead to the earth, and kiss'd the arid sand;

And then I touch'd her garment's hem, devoutly as a Dervise,

Predestinated (so I felt) for ever to her

service.

Nor was I wrong in auguring thus my fortune from her face,

She knew me, seemingly, as well as any

her race;

of

"Welcome!" she cried, as I uprose sub

missive to my feet;

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