THE AV0XDEK3 OF TIIK SHOIJE. Ill 



" ' It was a garden still bej'ond all price, 

 Even yet it was a place of paradise ; 



And here were coral bowers, 



And grots of madrepores, 

 And banks of sponge, as soft and fair to eye 

 As e'er was mossy bed 



^^^le^eon the wood-nymphs lie 

 With languid hmbs in summer's sultry hours. 



Here, too, were living flowers, 



Which, like a bud compacted, 



Their purple cups contracted ; 



And now in open blossom spread, 

 Stretched, Uke green anthers, many a seeking head. 



And arborets of jointed stone were there, 

 And plants of fibres fine as silkworm's thread; 



Yea, beautiful as mermaid's golden hair 

 Upon the waves dispread. 



Others that, like the broad banana growing, 

 liaised their long wrinkled leaves of purple hue. 



Like streamers wide outflowing.' — Kthuma, xvi. 5. 



" A liuiidrctl times you might fancy you saw 

 tlie type, the very original of this description, 

 tracing, line by line, and image by image, the 

 details of the jjictnre ; and acknowledging, as 

 you proceed, the minute truthfulness willi which 

 it has been drawn. For such is the loveliness 

 of nature in these secluded reservoirs;, that the 

 accomplished pocf, when depicting the gorgeous 

 .scenes of Eastern mythology, — scenes the wildest 

 and most extravagant that imagination could 



