tten the finest verses
that have been published these fifty years.' I did mine errand as
faithful as one of Homer's messengers, and had for answer:--'Tell Leyden
that I detest him, but I know the value of his critical
approbation.'"--_Lockhart's Life of Scott._

ODE TO THE EVENING STAR.

How sweet thy modest light to view,
Fair star! to love and lovers dear;
While trembling on the falling dew,
Like beauty shining through a tear.

Or hanging o'er that mirror-stream,
To mark that image trembling there,
Thou seem'st to smile with softer gleam,
To see thy lovely face so fair.

Though, blazing o'er the arch of night,
The moon thy timid beams outshine
As far as thine each starry light,
Her rays can never vie with thine.

Thine are the soft, enchanting hours
When twilight lingers on the plain,
And whispers to the closing flowers
That soon the sun will rise again.

Thine is the breeze that, murmuring bland
As music, wafts the lover's sigh,
And bids the yielding heart expand
In love's delicious ecstasy.

Fair star! though I be doom'd to prove
That rapture's tears are mix'd with pain,
Ah, still I feel 'tis sweet to love--
But sweeter to be loved again.

THE RETURN AFTER ABSENCE.

Oh! the breeze of the mountain is soothing and sweet,
Warm breathing of love, and the friends we shall meet;
And the rocks of the desert, so rough when we roam,
Seem soft, soft as silk, on the dear path of home;
The white waves of the Jeikon, that foam through their speed,
Seem scarcely to reach to the girth of my steed.

Rejoice, O Bokhara, and flourish for aye!
Thy King comes to meet thee, and long shall he stay.
Our King is our moon, and Bokhara our skies,
Where soon that fair light of the heavens shall arise--
Bokhara our orchard, the cypress our king,
In Bokhara's fair orchard soon destined to spring.

LAMENT FOR RAMA.

FROM THE BENGALI.

I warn you, fair maidens, to wail and to sigh,
For Rama, our Rama, to greenwood must fly;
Then hasten, come hasten, to see his array,
Ayud'hya is dark when our chief goes away.

All the people are flocking to see him pass by;
They are silent and sad, with the tear in their eye:
From the fish in the streamlets a broken sigh heaves,
And the birds of the forest lament f