enjoy its happiness,--so fleet
It speeds to sorrowing hearts to turn their tears
To joy! How sweet to them when it appears,
And sends a gleam of Heaven through their lives!

"No! no! dear heart! I cannot go! It grieves
Thee! come, my dear one! quick to us return;
We here again will pair our love, and learn
How sweet it is to meet with joy again;
How happy will sweet love come to us then!"

She rests her head upon his breast, and lifts
Her face for Love's sweet kiss, and from them drifts
A halo o'er the shining gesdin-trees
And spreads around them Heaven's holy rays.
He kisses her sweet lips, and brow, and eyes,
Then turns his gaze toward the glowing skies:

"I bless thee, for thy sweetest spirit here!
I bless this glorious land, that brings me near
To one that wafts sweet Heaven in my heart;
From thy dear plains how can my soul depart?
O Mua, Mua! how my heart now sings!
Thy love is sweeter than all earthly things!
I would I were not crowned a king!--away
From this bright land--here would I ever stay!
As thou hast said, I soon will here return;
The earth cannot withhold me from this bourne,
And soon my time allotted there will end,
And hitherward how happy I will wend!"

"And when thou goest, how my love shall there
Guard thee, and keep thy heart with Mua here.
Another kiss!"

Her form doth disappear
Within the garden, gliding through the air.
He seats himself upon a couch and rests
His head upon his hand, and thought invests
Him round. His memory returns again
To Erech's throne, and all the haunts of men.
He rises, turns his footsteps to the halls,
And thoughtful disappears within its walls.

CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

[_Translated by various Babylonian and Assyrian Scholars_]

CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS

BABYLONIAN EXORCISMS

TRANSLATED BY REV. A.H. SAYCE, M.A.

The charms translated below will illustrate the superstition of the
Assyrians and Babylonians. Like the Jews of the Talmud, they believed that
the world was swarming with noxious spirits who produced the various
diseases to which man is liable, and might be swallowed with the food and
the drink that support life. They counted no less than 300 spirits of
heaven and 600 spirits of earth. All this, with the rest of their
mythology, was borrowed by the Assyrians from the primitive population of
Babylonia, who spoke an agglutinative language akin to the dialects of the
Finnic or Tatar tribes. The charms are written in this ancient l