ises, and listens with a
blush.

In the clear and rosy air, sparkling with a single star, the sharp
and spiry cypress-tree rises like a gloomy thought, amid the flow
of revelry. A singing bird, a single star, a solemn tree, an odorous
flower, are dangerous in the tender hour, when maidens in their twilight
bower sigh softer than the eve!

The daughter of the caliph comes forth to breathe the air: her lute her
only company. She sits her down by a fountain's side, and gazes on the
waterfall. Her cheek reclines upon her arm, like fruit upon a graceful
bough. Very pensive is the face of that bright and beauteous lady. She
starts; a warm voluptuous lip presses her soft and idle hand. It is her
own gazelle. With his large and lustrous eyes, more eloquent than many
a tongue, the fond attendant mutely asks the cause of all her
thoughtfulness.

'Ah! bright gazelle! Ah! bright gazelle!' the princess cried, the
princess cried; 'thy lips are softer than the swan, thy lips are softer
than the swan; but his breathed passion when they pressed, my bright
gazelle! my bright gazelle!

'Ah! bright gazelle! Ah! bright gazelle!' the princess cried, the
princess cried; 'thine eyes are like the stars of night, thine eyes are
like the stars of night; but his glanced passion when they gazed, my
bright gazelle! my bright gazelle!'

She seized her lute, she wildly threw her fingers o'er its thrilling
strings, and, gazing on the rosy sky, to borrow all its poetry, thus,
thus she sang--thus, thus she sang:

He rose in beauty like the morn
That brightens in bur Syrian skies;
Dark passion glittered in his eyes,
And Empire sparkled in his form!

My soul! thou art the dusky earth,
On which his sunlight fell;
The dusky earth, that dim no longer,
Now breathes with light, now beams with love!

He rose in beauty, like the morn
That brightens in our Syrian skies;
Dark passion glittered in his eyes,
And Empire sparkled in his form!

[Illustration: page174]

'Once more, once more! Ah! sing that strain once more!'

The princess started and looked round. Before her stood Alroy. She rose,
she would have retired; but, advancing, the conqueror stole her hand.

'Fair princess,' said Alroy, 'let it not be said that my presence
banished at once beauty and music.'

'Sire, I doubt not that Honain awaits you. Let me summon him.'

'Lady, it is not with Honain that I would speak.'

He seat