orchards arched in long arcades, that seemed
baronial halls, hung o'er with trophies:--so spread the boughs in
antlers. This orchard was the frontlet of the isle.

The fruit hung high in air, that only beaks, not hands, might pluck.

Here, the peach tree showed her thousand cheeks of down, kissed often
by the wooing winds; here, in swarms; the yellow apples hived, like
golden bees upon the boughs; here, from the kneeling, fainting trees,
thick fell the cherries, in great drops of blood; and here, the
pomegranate, with cold rind and sere, deep pierced by bills of birds
revealed the mellow of its ruddy core. So, oft the heart, that cold
and withered seems, within yet hides its juices.

This orchard passed, the vale became a lengthening plain, that seemed
the Straits of Ormus bared so thick it lay with flowery gems:
torquoise-hyacinths, ruby-roses, lily-pearls. Here roved the vagrant
vines; their flaxen ringlets curling over arbors, which laughed and
shook their golden locks. From bower to bower, flew the wee bird, that
ever hovering, seldom lights; and flights of gay canaries passed, like
jonquils, winged.

But now, from out half-hidden bowers of clematis, there issued swarms
of wasps, which flying wide, settled on all the buds.

And, fifty nymphs preceding, who now follows from those bowers, with
gliding, artful steps:--the very snares of love!--Hautia. A gorgeous
amaryllis in her hand; Circe-flowers in her ears; her girdle tied with
vervain.

She came by privet hedges, drooping; downcast honey-suckles; she trod
on pinks and pansies, blue-bells, heath, and lilies. She glided on:
her crescent brow calm as the moon, when most it works its evil
influences.

Her eye was fathomless.

But the same mysterious, evil-boding gaze was there, which long before
had haunted me in Odo, ere Yillah fled.--Queen Hautia the incognito!
Then two wild currents met, and dashed me into foam.

"Yillah! Yillah!--tell me, queen!" But she stood motionless; radiant,
and scentless: a dahlia on its stalk. "Where? Where?"

"Is not thy voyage now ended?--Take flowers! Damsels, give him wine to
drink. After his weary hunt, be the wanderer happy."

I dashed aside their cups, and flowers; still rang the vale with Yillah!

"Taji! did I know her fate, naught would I now disclose; my heralds
pledged their queen to naught. Thou but comest here to supplant thy
mourner's night-shade, with marriage roses. Damsels! give him wreaths;
crowd round him;