Within the boat a baby slept, Like a young pearl within its shell; While one, who seem’d of riper years, But not of earth, or earth-like spheres, Her watch beside the slumberer kept; Gracefully waving, in her hand, The feathers of some holy bird, With which, from time to time, she stirr’d The fragrant air, and coolly fann’d The baby’s brow, or brush’d away The butterflies that, bright and blue As on the mountains of Malay, Around the sleeping infant flew. And now the fairy boat hath stopp’d Beside the bank,—the nymph has dropp’d Her golden anchor in the stream; * * * * * A song is sung by the Peri in approaching, of which the following forms a part:— My child she is but half divine, Her father sleeps in the Caspian water; Sea-weeds twine His funeral shrine, But he lives again in the Peri’s daughter. Fain would I fly from mortal sight To my own sweet bowers of Peristan; But, there, the flowers are all too bright For the eyes of a baby born of man. On flowers of earth her feet must tread; So hither my light-wing’d bark hath brought her; Stranger, spread Thy leafiest bed, To rest the wandering Peri’s daughter. In another of these inchoate fragments, a proud female saint, named Banou, plays a principal part; and her progress through the streets of Cufa, on the night of a great illuminated festival, I find thus described:—