if conscious of being caught in an oration, “it is quite cruel that a poet cannot wander through his regions of enchantment, without having a critic for ever, like the old Man of the Sea, upon his back!”[155]—FADLADEEN, it was plain, took this last luckless allusion to himself, and would treasure it up in his mind as a whetstone for his next criticism. A sudden silence ensued; and the Princess, glancing a look at FERAMORZ, saw plainly she must wait for a more courageous moment. But the glories of Nature, and her wild fragrant airs, playing freshly over the current of youthful spirits, will soon heal even deeper wounds than the dull Fadladeens of this world can inflict. In an evening or two after, they came to the small Valley of Gardens, which had been planted by order of the Emperor, for his favourite sister Rochinara, during their progress to Cashmere, some years before; and never was there a more sparkling assemblage of sweets, since the Gulzar-e-Irem, or Rose-bower of Irem. Every precious flower was there to be found, that poetry, or love, or religion has ever consecrated; from the dark hyacinth, to which Hafez compares his mistress’s hair,[156] to the _Cámalatá_, by whose rosy blossoms the heaven of Indra is scented.[157] As they sat in the cool fragrance of this delicious spot, and LALLA ROOKH remarked that she could fancy it the abode of that Flower-loving Nymph whom they worship in the temples of Kathay,[158] or of one of those Peris, those beautiful creatures of the air, who live upon perfumes, and to whom a place like this might make some amends for the Paradise they have lost,—the young Poet, in whose eyes she appeared, while she spoke, to be one of the bright spiritual creatures she was describing, said hesitatingly that he remembered a Story of a Peri, which, if the Princess had no objection, he would venture to relate. “It is,” said he, with an appealing look to FADLADEEN, “in a lighter and humbler strain than the other:” then, striking a few careless but melancholy chords on his kitar, he thus began:— ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Paradise & the Peri ------------------------------------------------------------------------ One morn a Peri at the gate Of Eden stood, disconsolate; And as she listen’d to the Springs Of Life within, like music flowing, And caught the light upon her wings Through the half-open portal glowing, She wept to think her recreant race Should e’er have lost that glorious place! “How happy,” exclaim’d this child of air, “Are the holy Spirits who wander there, “Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; “Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea, “And the stars themselves have flowers for me, “One blossom of Heaven out-blooms them all!