THE MOORISH PRINCE.

FROM THE GERMAN OF FERDINAND FREILIGRATH.

BY C. T. BROOKS.

His lengthening host through the palm-vale wound;
The purple shawl on his locks he bound;
He hung on his shoulders the lion-skin,
Martially sounded the cymbal's din.

Like a sea of termites, that black, wild swarm
Swept, billowing onward: he flung his dark arm,
Encircled with gold, round his loved one's neck:
"For the feast of victory, maiden, deck!

"Lo! glittering pearls I've brought thee there,
To twine with thy dark and glossy hair,

And the corals, all snake-like, in Persia's green sea,
The dripping divers have fished for me.

"See plumes of the ostrich, thy beauty to grace!
Let them nod, snowy white, o'er thy dusky face;
Deck the tent, make ready the feast for me,
Fill the garlanded goblet of victory!"

And forth from his snowy and shimmering tent

The princely Moor in his armor went.

So looks the dark moon, when, eclipsed, through the gate

Of the silver-edged clouds she rides forth in her state.

A welcoming shout his proud host flings;

And "welcome!" the stamping steed's hoof rings;
For him rolls faithful the negro's blood,
And Niger's old, mysterious flood.

"Now lead us to victory, lead us to fight!"

They battled from morning far into the night;
The hollow tooth of the elephant blew
A blast that pierced each foeman through.

How scatter the lions! The serpents fly
From the rattling tambour; the flags on high,
All hung with skulls, proclaim the dead,
And the yellow desert is dyed in red.

So rings in the palm-vale the desperate fight;
But she is preparing the feast for the night;
She fills the goblets with rich palm-wines,

And the shafts of the tent-poles with flowers she twines.

With pearls, that Persia's green flood bare,
She winds her dark and curly hair;

Feathers are floating her brow to deck,
And gay shells gleam on her arms and neck.

She sits by the door of her lover's tent,
She lists the far war-horn till morning is spent ;
The noon-day burns, the sun stings hot,

she heeds it not. The garlands wither, she heeds

The sun goes down in the fading skies,
The night-dew trickles, the glow-worm flies,
And the crocodile looks from the tepid pool
As if he, too, would enjoy the cool.

The lion, he stirs him and roars for prey,
The elephant-tusks through the jungles make way,
Home to her lair the giraffe goes,

And flower-leaves shut, and eyelids close.

Her anxious heart beats fast and high:

When a bleeding, fugitive Moor, draws nigh:-
"Farewell to all hope now! The battle is lost!
Thy lover is captured, he's borne to the coast,-

"They sell him to white men, - he's carried

"O spare!

The maiden falls headlong; she clutches her hair;
All quivering she crushes the pearls in her hand,
She hides her hot cheek in the burning-hot sand.

PART II.

"Tis fair-day; how sweeps the tempestuous throng
To circus and tilt ground, with shout and with song!
There's a blast of trumpets, the cymbal rings,
The deep drum rumbles, Bajazzo springs.

Come on! come on! - how swells the roar !
They fly as on wings, o'er the hard, flat floor;
The British sorrel, the Turk's black steed
From plumed beauty seek honor's meed.

And there, by the tilting-ground's curtained door,
Stands, silent and thoughtful, a curly-haired Moor.
The Turkish drum he beats full loud;

On the drum is hanging a lion-skin proud.

He sees not the knights and their graceful swing,
He sees not the steeds and their daring spring;
The Moor's dry eye, with its stiff, wild stare,
Sees nought but the shaggy lion-skin there.

He thinks of the far, far-distant Niger,

And how he once chased there the lion and tiger;

And how he once brandished his sword in the fight,

And came not back to his couch at night.

And he thinks of her, who, in other hours,

Decked her hair with his pearls and plucked him her flowers; His eye grew moist, with a scornful stroke

He smote the drum-head,

it rattled and broke.

THE VISIT.

ASKEST, 'How long thou shalt stay?'
Devastator of the day!

Know, each substance and relation

In all Nature's operation

Hath its unit, bound, and metre,

And every new compound

Is some product and repeater,

Some frugal product of the early found.

But the unit of the visit,

The encounter of the wise,

Say, what other metre is it

Than the meeting of the eyes?

Nature poureth into nature

Through the channels of that feature.

And, though thy rede be church or state,

Frugal multiples of that.

Speeding Saturn cannot halt,
Linger, thou shalt rue the fault:
If Love his moment overstay,
Hatred's swift repulsions play.

ETHNICAL SCRIPTURES.

CHALDEAN ORACLES.

WE owe to that eminent benefactor of scholars and philosophers, the late Thomas Taylor, who, we hope, will not long want a biographer, the collection of the "Oracles of Zoroaster and the Theurgists," from which we extract all the sentences ascribed to Zoroaster, and a part of the remainder. We prefix a portion of Mr. Taylor's preface:

"These remains of Chaldæan theology are not only venerable for their antiquity, but inestimably valuable for the unequalled sublimity of the doctrines they contain. They will doubtless, too, be held in the highest estimation by every liberal mind, when it is considered that some of them are the sources whence the sublime conceptions of Plato flowed, and that others are perfectly conformable to his most abstruse dogmas.

"I add, for the sake of those readers that are unacquainted with the scientific theology of the ancients, that as the highest principle of things is a nature truly ineffable and unknown, it is impossible that this visible world could have been produced by him without mediums; and this not through any impotency, but, on the contrary, through transcendency of power. For if he had produced all things without the agency of intermediate beings, all things must have been, like himself, ineffable and unknown. It is necessary, therefore, that there should be certain mighty powers between the supreme principle of things and us: for we, in reality, are nothing more than the dregs of the universe. These mighty powers, from their surpassing similitude to the first god, were very properly called by the ancients, gods; and were considered by them as perpetually subsisting in the most admirable and profound union with each other, and the first cause; yet so as amidst this union to preserve their own energy distinct from that of the highest god. For it would be absurd in the extreme, to allow that man has a peculiar energy of his own, and to deny that this is the case with the most exalted beings. Hence, as Proclus beautifully observes, the gods may be 67

VOL. IV. NO. IV.