His arms to the far-away lands of his brothers, And the Pine-tree looks down on his rival, the

Palm.

IV.

Bathed in the tenderest purple of distance,
Tinted and shadowed by pencils of air,

Thy battlements hang o'er the slopes and the forests,
Seats of the Gods in the limitless ether,
Looming sublimely aloft and afar.

Above them, like folds of imperial ermine,

Sparkle the snow-fields that furrow thy forehead, — Desolate realms, inaccessible, silent,

Chasms and caverns where Day is a stranger, Garners where storeth his treasures the Thunder, The Lightning his falchion, his arrows the Hail!

V.

Sovereign Mountain, thy brothers give welcome:
They, the baptized and the crownèd of ages,
Watch-towers of Continents, altars of Earth,
Welcome thee now to their mighty assembly.
Mont Blanc, in the roar of his mad avalanches,
Hails thy accession; superb Orizaba,

Belted with beech and ensandalled with palm;
Chimborazo, the lord of the regions of noonday, —
Mingle their sounds in magnificent chorus
With greeting august from the Pillars of Heaven,
Who, in the urns of the Indian Ganges
Filter the snows of their sacred dominions,
Unmarked with a footprint, unseen but of God.

VI.

Lo! unto each is the seal of his lordship,
Nor questioned the right that his majesty giveth:
Each in his awful supremacy forces

Worship and reverence, wonder and joy.
Absolute all, yet in dignity varied,
None has a claim to the honors of story,
Or the superior splendors of song,

Greater than thou, in thy mystery mantled,
Thou, the sole monarch of African mountains,
Father of Nile and Creator of Egypt!

THE BIRTH OF THE PROPHET.

I.

HRICE three moons had waxed in heaven, thrice three moons had waned away, Since Abdullah, faint and thirsty, on the Desert's bosom lay

In the fiery lap of Summer, the meridian of the day;

II.

Since from out the sand upgushing, lo! a sudden fountain leapt ;

Sweet as musk and clear as amber, to his parching lips it crept.

When he drank it straightway vanished, but his blood its virtue kept.

III.

Ere the morn his forehead's lustre, signet of the Prophet's line,

To the beauty of Amina had transferred its flame divine;

Of the germ within her sleeping, such the consecrated sign.

IV.

And with every moon that faded waxed the splendor more and more,

Till Amina's beauty lightened through the matron veil she wore,

And the tent was filled with glory, and of Heaven it seemed the door.

V.

When her quickened womb its burden had matured, and Life began

Struggling in its living prison, through the wide Creation ran

Premonitions of the coming of a God-appointed

man.

VI.

For the oracles of Nature recognize a Prophet's

birth,

Blossom of the tardy ages, crowning type of human worth,

And by miracles and wonders he is welcomed to the Earth.

ΤΟ

VII.

Then the stars in heaven grew brighter, stooping downward from their zones;

Wheeling round the towers of Mecca, sang the moon in silver tones,

And the Kaaba's grisly idols trembled on their granite thrones.

.VIII.

Mighty arcs of rainbow splendor, pillared shafts of purple fire,

Split the sky and spanned the darkness, and with many a golden spire,

Beacon-like, from all the mountains streamed the lambent meteors higher.

IX.

But when first the breath of being to the sacred infant came,

Paled the pomp of airy lustre, and the stars grew dim with shame,

For the glory of his countenance outshone their feebler flame.

*X.

Over Nedjid's sands it lightened, unto Oman's coral deep,

Startling all the gorgeous regions of the Orient from sleep,

Till, a sun on night new-risen, it illumed the Indian steep.

XI.

They who dwelt in Mecca's borders saw the distant realms appear

All around the vast horizon, shining marvellous and clear,

From the gardens of Damascus unto those of Bendemeer.

XII.

From the colonnades of Tadmor to the hills of

Hadramaut,

Ancient Araby was lighted, and her sands the splendor caught,

Till the magic sweep of vision overtook the track of Thought.

XIII.

Such on Earth the wondrous glory, but beyond the sevenfold skies

God His mansions filled with gladness, and the seraphs saw arise

Palaces of pearl and ruby from the founts of Paradise.

XIV.

As the surge of heavenly anthems shook the solemn midnight air,

From the shrines of false religions came a wailing of despair,

And the fires on Pagan altars were extinguished everywhere.