A beam of burning light I hold!-- My good Damascus brand, And the jet-black charger that I ride Was foaled in the Arab land, And a hundred horsemen, mailed in steel, Follow my bold command! Through royal cities speeds our march-- The minster-bells are rung; The loud, rejoicing trumpets peal, The battle-flags are swung, And sweet, sweet lips of ladies praise The chieftain, brave and young. And now, in bright Provencal bowers, A minstrel-knight am I: A gentle bosom on my own Throbs back its ecstasy; A cheek, as fair as the almond flowers, Thrills to my lips' reply! I tread the fanes of wondrous Rome, Crowned with immortal bay, And myriads throng the Capitol To hear my lofty lay, While, sounding o'er the Tiber's foam, Their shoutings peal away! Oh, triumph such as this were worth The poet's doom of pain, Whose hours are brazen on the earth, But golden in the brain: I close the starry gate of dreams, And walk the dust again! POWER OF BEAUTY, AND A PLAIN MAN'S LOVE. BY N. P. WILLIS. That the truths arrived at by the unaccredited short road of "magnetism" had better be stripped of their technical phraseology, and set down as the gradual discoveries of science and experience, is a policy upon which acts many a sagacious believer in "clairvoyance." Doubtless, too, there is, here and there, a wise man, who is glad enough to pierce, with the eyes of an incredible agent, the secrets about him, and let the world give him credit, by whatever name they please, for the superior knowledge of which he silently takes advantage. I should be behind the time, if I had not sounded to the utmost of my ability and opportunity the depth of this new medium. I have tried it on grave things and trifles. If the unveiling which I am about to record were of more use to myself than to others, perhaps I should adopt the policy of which I have just spoken, and give the result, simply as my own shrewd lesson learned in reading the female heart. But the truths I unfold will instruct the few who need and can appreciate them, while the whole subject is not of general importance enough to bring down cavilers upon the credibility of their source. I thus get rid of a very detestable though sometimes necessary evil, ("_qui nescit dissimulare nescit vivere_," says the Latin sage,) that of shining by any light that is not absolutely my own.