have seen Damascus, O my beauty!
And the splendor of the Pashas there;
What's their pomp and riches? why, I would not
Take them for a handful of thy hair!

BAYARD TAYLOR.

* * * * *

SYMPATHY FOR HORSE AND HOUND.

Yet pity for a horse o'erdriven,
And love in which my hound has part,
Can hang no weight upon my heart,
In its assumptions up to heaven:

And I am so much more than these
As thou, perchance, art more than I,
And yet I would spare them sympathy,
And I would set their pains at ease.

TENNYSON'S _In Memoriam._

* * * * *

THE BLOOD HORSE.

Gamarra is a dainty steed,
Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
Full of fire, and full of bone,
With all his line of fathers known;
Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
But blown abroad by the pride within!
His mane is like a river flowing,
And his eyes like embers glowing
In the darkness of the night,
And his pace as swift as light.

Look,--how 'round his straining throat
Grace and shining beauty float!
Sinewy strength is in his reins,
And the red blood gallops through his veins--
Richer, redder, never ran
Through the boasting heart of man.
He can trace his lineage higher
Than the Bourbon dare aspire,--
Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
Or O'Brien's blood itself!

He, who hath no peer, was born,
Here upon a red March morn;
But his famous fathers dead
Were Arabs all, and Arabs bred,
And the last of that great line
Trod like one of a race divine!
And yet,--he was but friend to one
Who fed him at the set of sun
By some lone fountain fringed with green;
With him, a roving Bedouin,
He lived (none else would he obey
Through all the hot Arabian day),--
And died untamed upon the sands
Where Balkh amidst the desert stands!

BARRY CORNWALL.

* * * * *

THE CID AND BAVIECA.

The king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true;
Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due,
"O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside
The liege lord of Castile himself, should Bavieca ride.

"For neither Spain nor Araby could another charger bring
So good as he, and certes, the best befits my king,
But, that you may behold him, and know him to the cor