"There your carriages, light as air, you to the spicy east shall bear,—and the cross you shall find in your own bright land, already borne there by an unseen hand."
All the elves now seated themselves in the rose leaves,—Julius and his mother and the court occupying the finest. Then a gentle zephyr sprang up; which raised all the rose leaves into the air, and wafted them softly in the morning dawn home to the east,—the elves singing:—
To India, to India, the land of our birth!
Where the zephyrs blow lightly,
And the flowers glow brightly,
And the atmosphere scent-laden floats o'er the earth;
Where under the wide-spreading leaves we find shelter,
Nor care how winds whistle, nor how the storms pelter.
Over our heads
Their green roof spreads—
And safe within their vernal bowers
We elfin spirits dance and play,
While some soft and holy lay
Is sung by the tall and fragrant flowers
On their green stems bending,
And heavenward sending
Angel hymns of joyous blending.
In solemn pomp again we'll tread,
By our tapers' light,
In the still dark night,
To bring to their resting-place the dead!
—Away then, away! carried swift by the wind,
At the dawning of day to our native Ind!
THE TWO MISERS.
[Hebrew.]
miser living in Kufa had heard that in Bassora also there dwelt a Miser—more miserly than himself, to whom he might go to school, and from whom he might learn much. He forthwith journeyed thither; and presented himself to the great master as a humble commencer in the Art of Avarice, anxious to learn, and under him to become a student. "Welcome!" said the Miser of Bassora; "we will straight go into the market to make some purchase." They went to the baker.