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But the highest of all this young poet's achievements, is the visionary and romantic strain, entitled, "Recollections of the Arabian Nights." It is delightful even to us, who read not the Arabian Nights, nor ever heard of them, till late in life—we think we must have been in our tenth year; the same heart-soul-mind-awakening year that brought us John Bunyan and Robinson Crusoe, and in which—we must not say with whom we first fell in love. How it happened that we had lived so long in this world without seeing or hearing tell of these famous worthies, is a mystery; for we were busy from childhood with books and bushes, banks and braes, with libraries full of white, brown, and green leaves, perused in schoolroom, whose window in the slates showed the beautiful blue braided skies, or in fields and forests (so we thought the birch coppice, with its old pines, the abode of linties and cushats-for no long, broad, dusty, high-road was there—and but footpaths or sheep-walks winded through the pastoral silence that surrounded that singing or cooing grove), where beauty filled the sunshiny day with delight, and grandeur the one-starred gloaming with fear. But so it was; we knew not that there was an Arabian Night in the whole world. Our souls, in stir or stillness, saw none but the sweet Scottish stars. We knew, indeed, that they rose, and set, too, upon other climes; and had we been asked the question, should have said that they certainly did so; but we felt that they and their heavens belonged to Scotland. And so feels the fond, foolish old man still, when standing by himself at midnight, with withered hands across his breast, and eyes lifted heavenwards, that show the brightest stars somewhat dim now, yet beautiful as ever; out walks the moon from behind a cloud, and he thinks of long Loch Lomond glittering afar off with lines of radiance that lift up in their loveliness, flush after flush—and each sylvan pomp is statelier than the last—now one, now another, of her heron-haunted isles !

But in our egoism and egotism we have forgot Alfred Tennyson. To his heart, too, we doubt not that heaven seems almost always an English heaven; he, however, must have been familiar long before his tenth year with the Arabian Nights' Entertainments; for had he discovered them at that advanced period of life, he had not now so passionately and so imaginatively sung their wonders.

RECOLLECTIONS OF THE ARABIAN NIGHTS.

When the breeze of a joyful dawn blew free
In the silken sail of infancy,

The tide of time flowed back with me,
The forward-flowing tide of time;
And many a sheeny summer morn,
Adown the Tigris I was borne,
By Bagdat's shrines of fretted gold,
High-walled gardens green and old;
True Mussulman was I and sworn,

For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Anight my shallop, rustling through
The low and bloomèd foliage, drove
The fragrant, glistening deeps, and clove
The citron shadows in the blue:
By garden porches on the brim,
The costly doors flung open wide,
Gold glittering through lamplight dim,
And broidered sofas on each side:
In sooth it was a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Often, where clear-stemmed platans guard
The outlet, did I turn away

The boat-head down a broad canal

From the main river sluiced, where all

The sloping of the moonlit sward
Was damask work, and deep inlay

Of braided blooms unmown, which crept
Adown to where the water slept.

A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid'

A motion from the river won
Ridged the smooth level, bearing on
My shallop through the star-strewn calm,
Until another night in night

I entered, from the clearer light,
Imbowered vaults of pillar'd palm,
Imprisoning sweets, which, as they clomb
Heavenward, were stayed beneath the dome
Of hollow boughs.-A goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid!

Still onward; and the clear canal
Is rounded to as clear a lake.
From the green rivage many a fall
Of diamond rillets musical,
Through little crystal arches low
Down from the central fountain's flow
Fall'n silver-chiming, seemed to shake
The sparkling flints beneath the prow.
A goodly place, a goodly time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid!

Above through many a bowery turn
A walk with vary-coloured shells
Wandered engrained. On either side
All round about the fragrant marge,
From fluted vase, and brazen urn
In order, eastern flowers large,
Some drooping low their crimson bells
Half-closed, and others studded wide

With disks and tiars, fed the time
With odour in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Far off, and where the lemon grove
In closest coverture upsprung,
The living airs of middle night
Died round the bulbul as he sung.

Not he: but something which possessed
The darkness of the world, delight,
Life, anguish, death, immortal love,
Ceasing not, mingled, unrepressed,
Apart from place, withholding time,
But flattering the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Black-green the garden bowers and grots
Slumbered: the solemn palms were ranged
Above, unwooed of summer wind.

A sudden splendour from behind

Flushed all the leaves with rich gold green,
And flowing rapidly between

Their interspaces, counterchanged
The level lake with diamond plots
Of saffron light. A lovely time,
For it was in the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid!

Dark-blue the deep sphere overhead,
Distinct with vivid stars inlaid,

Grew darker from that under-flame;
So, leaping lightly from the boat,
With silver anchor left afloat,
In marvel whence that glory came
Upon me, as in sleep I sank
In cool soft turf upon the bank,

Entranced with that place and time,
So worthy of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Thence through the garden I was drawn-
A realm of pleasance, many a mound,
And many a shadow-checkered lawn
Full of the city's stilly sound.

And deep myrrh-thickets blowing round
The stately cedar, tamarisks,
Thick rosaries of scented thorn,

Tall orient shrubs, and obelisks

Graven with emblems of the time,
In honour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

With dazed vision unawares
From the long alley's latticed shade
Emerged, I came upon the great
Pavilion of the Caliphat,

Right to the carven cedarn doors,
Flung inward over spangled floors,
Broad-based flights of marble stairs
Ran up with golden balustrade,

After the fashion of the time,
And humour of the golden prime
Of good Haroun Alraschid.

The fourscore windows all alight
As with the quintessence of flame,
A million tapers flaring bright
From wreathed silvers, look'd to shame
The hollow-vaulted dark, and stream'd
Upon the moonèd domes aloof

In inmost Bagdat, till there seem'd

Hundreds of crescents on the roof

Of night new-risen, that marvellous time,
To celebrate the golden prime

Of good Haroun Alraschid.

Then stole I up, and trancedly
Gazed on the Persian girl alone,
Serene with argent-lidded eyes
Amorous, and lashes like to rays