basin, their refreshing murmur soothing the ear. At her feet lay a small stringed instrument resembling the ancient lyre, called a chirk; and occcasionally she roused herself from her reverie and struck a few notes on it. The melody she drew forth seemed by degrees to awaken her feelings, and, raising her tearful eyes to the stars which still divided the sky with morning, her face filled with the most mournful expression, she sang, in a low voice, words like the following, interrupted by her sighs :

Thou my dream! my vision thou!
Can my heart so weak be grown-
Dare I picture Jussuf's brow,
While a cloud obscures my own!
Better to the last be still-

Freeze my heart within thy core-
Better than with feelings thrill,

Fate has doomed should now be o'er.

Vainly may the lily pine,

For the sparkling stream will flow;
And in ceaseless radiance shine,
Careless of her love or woe:

Better that the wild lyre slept;

All to music's power unknown,
Than the breeze that o'er it swept,

Burst the chords which yield its tone.

As she ceased the instrument fell from her hand, and, sinking back on her couch of shawls, she wept. A gentle step approached her, a gentle voice startled her from her trance of sorrow.

"Fair girl," said the King, "I have followed you from Shiraz, where there was no longer an hour's happiness for me since you had deserted its gardens.'

Tootee turned on him her lustrous eyes-she beheld at her feet the same youth who had visited her with the Vizir, and the same glance that had startled her from the throne.

"If you are he whom I imagine," said she trem

blingly, "it is I who should kneel and entreat your pardon; if my senses deceived me, and you are of less exalted rank, I may ask wherefore do you seek me."

"I came to you first, Tootee,” replied the King, "out of mere listless curiosity: I saw you again, and the spell of your beauty, which I strove to resist, has bound my heart with bonds never to be broken. Return with me and render me happy by your presence." "You are then, indeed, Jehán-arâ!" exclaimed Tootee-"I was not deceived, but I am not the less unhappy. No, I can never be more to you than a thousand others-a toy to be admired to-day and thrown aside to-morrow-one flower of a garden, soon to wither and be succeeded by others more beautiful. No! I will not return."

"Alas! then," said the King, "I was indeed right: there is no happiness for me. The star is exalted and attracts the gaze of all, but it pines in the midst of glory, for it can never descend to the pleasures of the lowliest flower on which it shines. I obey you, cruel girl, but before I leave you for ever, and you pursue the phantom of fame which shuts out love from your heart, answer me one question. Were I indeed the humble youth for whom you mistook me, a mere soldier of fortune, with no incumbrance of wealth or state-could you love me then? The peasant who tills the ground, the shepherd who tends his flocks on yonder hills, has not a tenderer or truer heart than mine, which you reject."

"Were you my equal," sighed Tootee, "were you any other than the great, the glorious Jehán-arâ—you would not have cause to say that I rejected you."

"Tootee," said the King, "you have made my future all dark. You could have created a paradise for me, and my lot will now be all of earth. Your coldness tells me the truth too plainly adieu! I sought for love alone. It is, like the fabled talisman, ever disappearing

:

when apparently nearest,--you love me not and I have no more to hope."

"Hold!" cried Tootee, starting up-"is it indeed possible-can it be that you love me?-me-a dancinggirl!"

"Adored creature," exclaimed Jehan-arâ, "what is rank or station in the eyes of affection? the slightest charm of her we cherish is of more value than all the jems of the cup of Jamshid. Who asks the rose in what earth it sprung? who that gazes on its glories desires to know whence they arose ?-yet is thy beauty worthless to me without thy love; it is the perfume, not the leaves, which enchants the nightingale. I would at once cast away my crown, to be chosen by you, but that by offering it to you I can secure your happiness as well as my own.

"Then is my dream realized," cried Tootee, "be at rest, oh beloved of my soul, for thee alone I exist, and with thee alone will I pass the remainder of my life."

Tootee returned to Shiraz, but not as she had left it, dispirited and sad; she was now the happy favourite of the most amiable of monarchs, and the acknowledged queen of his affections. For one blissful year they lived in a paradise of their own, without a wish ungratified, and at the end of that time the roses in the cheek of Tootee began to grow richer in hue, her eyes became brighter and brighter, and her beauty almost celestial in its splendour. Little did Jehán-arâ imagine that these were the signs of decay, little did he think that she was rapidly fading from his sight, like a meteor gradually sinking away in the clouds, but it was so the startled physicians saw her fate approaching, and with trembling voices proclaimed to Jehán-arâ that her time was come.

Tootee died, of a rapid decline, in the arms of her lover, who saw her beautiful to the last, and received the latest breath which assured him that his devoted attachment was returned.

HIBERNIA'S HOMAGE TO MISS H. FAUCIT. 125

Within a few miles of Shiraz rises a temple shrine dedicated to the holy Scheik, Abdul-Azim; there, beneath a splendidly-carved monument, repose the ashes of the beloved Tootee, and there the days of the King of Persia were passed from that time forward. Round the tomb wave the most beautiful of Indian grasses; the elegant Durvá, whose flowers, when moved by the wind, glitter in the sun like minute rubies and emeralds, and which is supposed by the Hindoos to be the abode of a benevolent nymph; and the graceful Cusa, which is thus spoken of in the sacred books:"Thou art, oh lovely plant, a divinity neither subject to age nor death, thou art pure as a drop of fine gold."

HIBERNIA'S HOMAGE TO MISS HELEN FAUCIT.

“ Τεκνον τυφλου γέροντος
Αντιγονη.

SOPH.

BRIGHT Daughter of the Muse, whom Greece adored,
When Greece stood loftiest on the Hill of Fame,
Feeding with pious hand the sacred flame
Of man's immortal spirit, and outpoured
The thoughts sublime, which neither fire nor sword,
Nor Time's destructive wing shall ever tame-
Lady! Hibernia greets thee with acclaim
Fondly intense; for thou hast made the word
Of Sophocles to glow before her eyes.
Thou art Antigone! the captive heart
Pays thee a willing fealty, and start

The tribute tears to thy rare energies.

One Helen brought Greece to the verge of doom,
Our Helen calls up Hellas from the tomb.

WOODSIDE WAKE.

BY JAMES SMITH.

OUR memory is a picture-gallery of prized and precious cabinet-pieces, dear as the apple of our eye, on which, indeed, they first were traced, and thence transferred by swift and facile process to the chambers of

The old, old man halfe blind,

To whom the rolles, laid up in heaven above,
And records of antiquitie appear.

In the long, long winter evenings, we set them forth
in meet array, deterge the dimness and the dust which
gather on and partially obscure their vivid hues,
restore the fading touches, soften down the harsh, and
dwelling, now on this delicious bit of woodland
scenery, and now on that soft twilight sketch, enjoy
perpetually" a sunshine in a shady place.'
Just now,
a rustic festival gleamed on us from this visionary
canvass, a simple, primitive, and, withal, most hearty
festival, one of the few yet lingering in various of
the wayside nooks, and little-known localities of our
beloved land.

Fancy a bright and breezy day, the first of Summer, or the latest of the Spring,-you could not well determine which, for the leaves wore all the fresh green beauty of the one, and the skies shone with the brilliant richness of the other. Imagine, on such a day, a four-miles'walk, through woodland paths, green lanes, and meadows fragrant with a starry multitude of flowers; sometimes bewildered by concurring routes; as often venturing on the wrong one as the right, and always in a flutter of pleasurable excitement, occasioned by the novelty and strangeness of a ramblesay rather a journey of discovery-through a tract of country as primitive as it was picturesque.

&

First we struck into the fine old park of L