Idolatry and Philosophy of the Zabians. 219 
religion of angels, and genii, and fairies, and music, who saw in a 
cloudless sky an unchangeable emblem of the Eternal ; surely, if they 
had not the poetry of words, they had the poetry of thought. For 
there is a certain sensation in looking out into the heavens above us, 
which comes upon us ina calm night. I have known what it is, 
to stand by the nightly watch fires in the wildernesses of the New 
World; and I can tell what those beautiful maidens felt, who clothed 
im flowing dresses of the purest white, guarded the sacred fires, 
which were kept in the forests of Assyria ;—the dancing flame, the 
ascending smoke, the fire-lit countenances, the dark trees, and the 
bright, the blue, the beautiful sky,—it was poetry. 
Some of their fables however, bear a near resemblance to true 
poetry. The doctrine of transmigration will furnish an example. 
They feigned that at death the soul drank of the waters of the riv- 
er of Oblivion, and forgetting all its past life, immediately entered 
upon a new state of existence. This was most undoubtedly taken 
from circumstances which come under our knowledge in this life. 
For no man remembers that early period of infancy, before reason 
dawns, nor does he recollect what took place before his birth, though 
he is certain that he was then alive. Poetically speaking, he drinks 
of the river of Oblivion, and forgets the past. 
The more recent successors of the Chaldeans, doubtless taking 
example from the ancients, embody their philosophical dogmas in 
poetic language, as may be seen in that extraordinary passage of 
Hatifi, when alluding to the old astrological hypothesis of a presiding 
genius over each planet. ‘He bedecked the firmament with stars, 
and ennobled this earth with the race of men; he gently turned the 
auspicious new moon of the festival, like a bright jewel round the 
ankle of the sky. He placed the Hindoo Saturn, on the seat of that 
restive elephant, the revolving sphere, and put a rainbow into his 
hand, as a hook to restrain the intoxicated beast. He made silken 
strings of sunbeams for the lute of Venus, and presented Jupiter, 
who saw the felicity of true religion, with a rosary of clustering 
pleiads. ‘The bow of the sky became that of Mars, when he was 
honored with the command of the celestial host. For God conferred 
sovereignty on the sun, and squadrons of stars were his army.” 
In those regions, including the dominions of Priam, the governor 
of Troy, and extending almost to the banks of the Indus, which 
were under the sway of the king of the Chaldeans, nations of every 
color and every temper might be found. ‘The priesthood in the 
