Rich-fruited dates their branches fling,
The guardians of the desert spring,
Where camel-drivers pipe and sing.
I sat down to the meal-ah! then,
A fire-wind struck the beasts and men,
And drove me to a rocky den.

Where I lay faint, and saw the asp
Swell in the hot sand, that my grasp
Caught from the earth with anguished clasp.

I woke, and heard a voice as sweet As angel's cry-"Now on your feet, "Tis sunset, Hassan-rise and eat."

THE BABY KING.

Nor ten years old, and yet a king,
Throned high upon a velvet chair,
Beneath the gilded cloth of state,

He waves his sceptre with an air;
Welcomes the early with a nod,
Reproves the tardy with a frown ;
Then to his lady mother turns,

And counts the pearls upon her gown.

The chancellor, with ponderous brow, Talks to him of his common weal; He pulls him by his jewelled chain, And, laughing, hides the heavy seal.

The chamberlain, a stately lord,

Kneels down to yield his golden key; The monarch all the while intent, With the cat's cradle on his knee.

The privy council's grey beards meet, The wooden noddles bend together;

The king is hearing the debate,

And playing with a peacock's feather.

WHAT I SAW THROUGH A TUDOR WINDOW.

THERE were motley jesters sprawling on the floor, There were ribboned pages playing round the door, There were gallants tickling maidens with the rushes,

And criticizing all their various depth of blushes.

There were yeomen looking at the bloodhounds' teeth,

Sly varlets lifting tapestry to spy beneath,

Falconers with ruffling haggards rising from the fist,

Out of painted casements where the rose the lattice kissed.

There were stewards bragging of their length of sword,

Servants whispering slander of their lord,

Ushers strutting stately with their white-peeled

rods,

Mastiffs scratching, restless as the planks were

clods.

THE LECTURE-THEATRE AT PADUA. (Paracelsus.)

DON'T tell me, Rupert and Fritz, 'tis the wisest man of the age

Wiser than Geber, or Lully, or Rhazes, many a

stage;

He's all the learning of Scotus, his wit would baffle a Jew,

And with a keen-bladed syllogism he'll run a sly doctor through.

Look at his pile of brain, and the keen eye under the hair

Of the tangled heap of eyebrow, when those smug doctors stare;

What a mouth, all clamped and barred, to shut in a secret truth!

And then when he laughs, what a glare through his beard of his broad, white tooth!

How he smites the desk with his hand, and look at

his long gilt sword;

In the pommel he keeps a devil, bound to the will

of its lord:

Sometimes he screws off the top, and it's out in the shape of a fly;

But back when he reads his speech, or he beckons it home with his eye.

I've seen him track a nerve from the foot right up to the brain,

Seeking the cause of life, and the throne where the soul may reign;

As one in a workshop gropes, when the lights are all put out,

And the master is gone, pulling the ropes and

the wheels about.

Lifting the flaccid hand of the cold, white marble

limb,

As if the secrets of God were none of them hid

from him

་

As if he made better than that, aye, any day in the

week ;

He smites us down with a frown, if any one dare

to speak.