“We came—and to thy Earth—but not to us Be given our lady’s bidding to discuss: We came, my love; around, above, below, Gay fire-fly of the night, we come and go, Nor ask a reason save the angel-nod _She_ grants to us as granted by her God. But, Angelo, than thine grey Time unfurled Never his fairy wing o’er fairer world! Dim was its little disk, and angel eyes Alone could see the phantom in the skies, When first Al Aaraaf knew her course to be Headlong thitherward o’er the starry sea— But when its glory swelled upon the sky, As glowing Beauty’s bust beneath man’s eye, We paused before the heritage of men, And thy star trembled—as doth Beauty then!” Thus in discourse, the lovers whiled away The night that waned and waned and brought no day. They fell: for Heaven to them no hope imparts Who hear not for the beating of their hearts. [Illustration] NOTES TO AL AARAAF [Illustration] Page 129. _Al Aaraaf._ A star was discovered by Tycho Brahe which appeared suddenly in the heavens—attained, in a few days, a brilliancy surpassing that of Jupiter—then as suddenly disappeared, and has never been seen since. Page 130. _Capo Deucato._ On Santa Maura—olim Deucadia. Page 130. _Her who loved a mortal—and so died._ Sappho. Page 130. _And gemmy flower, of Trebizond misnamed._ This flower is much noticed by Lewenhoeck and Tournefort. The bee, feeding upon its blossom, becomes intoxicated. Page 131. _Clytia._ Clytia—the Chrysanthemum Peruvianum, or, to employ a better-known term, the turnsol—which turns continually towards the sun, covers itself, like Peru, the country from which it comes, with dewy clouds, which cool and refresh its flowers during the most violent heat of the day.—_B. de St. Pierre._ Page 131. _That aspiring flower that sprang on Earth._ There is cultivated in the king’s garden at Paris, a species of serpentine aloe without prickles, whose large and beautiful flower exhales a strong odour of the vanilla, during the time of its expansion, which is very short. It does not blow till towards the month of July—you then perceive it gradually open its petals—expand them—fade and die.—_St. Pierre._ Page 131. _Valisnerian lotus._ There is found, in the Rhone, a beautiful lily of the Valisnerian kind. Its stem will stretch to the length of three or four feet—thus preserving its head above water in the swellings of the river. Page 131. _Thy most lovely purple perfume._ The Hyacinth. Page 131. _The Nelumbo bud._ It is a fiction of the Indians, that Cupid was first seen floating in one of these down the river Ganges, and that he still loves the cradle of his childhood. Page 131. _To bear the Goddess’ song, etc._ And golden vials full of odours which are the prayers of the saints.—_Rev. St. John._ Page 132. _A model of their own._ The Humanitarians held that God was to be understood as having really a human form.—_Vide Clarke’s Sermons_, vol. i., page 26, fol. edit.