THE HAREEM. 153 The Christian Pariah, whom both sects curse, (They curse all other men, and curse each other,) Walks through the world, not very much the worse Does all the good he can, and loves his bro ther. CHARLES DICKENS. THE HAREEM. BEHIND the lattice closely laced With filagree of choice design,Behind the veil whose depth is traced By many a complicated line,Behind the lofty garden-wall Where stranger face can ne'er surprise, That inner world her all-in-all, The Eastern woman lives and dies. Husband and children round her draw His will the single perfect law That scarce with choice her mind molests, Their birth and tutelage the ground And meaning of her life on earth, She knows not elsewhere could be found The measure of a woman's worth. If young and beautiful, she dwells Where one high-priest alone dispels Within the gay kiosk reclined, Above the scent of lemon groves, Where bubbling fountains woo the wind, And birds make music of their loves, She lives a kind of faery life, In sisterhood of fruits and flowers, Unconscious of the outer strife That wears the palpitating hours. And, when maturer duties rise In pleasures' and in passions' place, Her duteous loyalty supplies The presence of departed grace; THE HAREEM. So hopes she by untiring faith To win the bliss, to share with him Those glories of celestial youth That time can never taunt nor dim. 155 Thus is the ever closed hareem, Then let the moralist, who best Honours the female heart that blends The deep affections of the West, With thoughts of Life's sublimest ends, R. M. MILNES. THE BELEAGURED OAK. HARK! how the winds, among the giant boughs Of the old oak, are raging; to and fro They toss his skeleton limbs, and howl the while, As if in mockery of his changed estate: Fain would they rend his noble heart asunder, And hurl his lowering grandeur in the dust; But he defies them. Stubborn in his strength, He groans but yields not. He bethinks him too, Perchance, how soon swift Time will give him back The glory of his prime:-ah, then the winds With their glad lays, till all his young green leaves, All the quick pulses of his mighty frame, The golden sunlight on his head by day, CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS. 157 Of the rude blast. And so the peasant, doomed To toil from morn till eve on the bleak hills, Doth brave the sufferance, and with manly soul Bear up against the present weariness, By thinking of the hour when he shall see The light-not of the glorious stars in heaven- On his ear, In the pauses of his labour, oft doth fall He sees the ruddy blaze of his warm hearth, come, Turns, with blythe spirit, to his task again. T. WESTWOOD. CHRISTMAS THOUGHTS. SEVEN dreary winters gone and spent, How passed those years I will not say; God wash their sinful parts away! And blest be He for all their good. |