Feeling the horses with my groping hands,
  I crept in darkness; and at length I came
  Upon two sister mares, whose rounded sides,
  Fine muzzles, and small heads, and pointed ears,
  And foreheads spreading ’twixt their eyelids wide,
  Long slender tails, thin manes, and coats of silk,
  Told me, that, of the hundred steeds there stalled,
  My hand was on the treasures.  O’er and o’er
  I felt their long joints, and down their legs
  To the cool hoofs;—­no blemish anywhere: 
  These I led forth and saddled.  Upon one
  I set the lily, gathered now for me,—­
  My own, henceforth, forever.  So we rode
  Across the grass, beside the stony path,
  Until we gained the highway that is lost,
  Leading from Sana, in the eastern sands: 
  When, with a cry that both the Desert-born
  Knew without hint from whip or goading spur,
  We dashed into a gallop.  Far behind
  In sparks and smoke the dusty highway rose;
  And ever on the maiden’s face I saw,
  When the moon flashed upon it, the strange smile
  It wore on waking.  Once I kissed her mouth,
  When she grew weary, and her strength returned. 
  All through the night we scoured between the hills: 
  The moon went down behind us, and the stars
  Dropped after her; but long before I saw
  A planet blazing straight against our eyes,
  The road had softened, and the shadowy hills
  Had flattened out, and I could hear the hiss
  Of sand spurned backward by the flying mares.—­
  Glory to God!  I was at home again! 
  The sun rose on us; far and near I saw
  The level Desert; sky met sand all round. 
  We paused at midday by a palm-crowned well,
  And ate and slumbered.  Somewhat, too, was said: 
  The words have slipped my memory.  That same eve
  We rode sedately through a Hamoum camp,—­
  I, Adeb, prince amongst them, and my bride. 
  And ever since amongst them I have ridden,
  A head and shoulders taller than the best;
  And ever since my days have been of gold,
  My nights have been of silver.—­God is just!

* * * * *

ELEUSINIA.[a]

[Footnote a:  See Number XXIII., September, 1859.]

THE SAVIOURS OF GREECE.

Life, in its central idea, is an entire and eternal solitude.  Yet each individual nature so repeats—­and is itself repeated in—­every other, that there is insured the possibility both of a world-revelation in the soul, and of a self-incarnation in the world; so that every man’s life, like Agrippa’s mirror, reflects the universe, and the universe is made the embodiment of his life,—­is made to beat with a human pulse.

We do all, therefore,—­Hindu, Egyptian, Greek, or Saxon,—­claim kinship both with the earth and the heavens:  with the sense of sorrow we kneel upon the earth, with the sense of hope we look into the heavens.