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UPON my lips she laid her touch divine,
And merry speech and careless laughter died;

She fixed her melancholy eyes on mine,

And would not be denied.

I saw the West-wind loose his cloudlets white,
In flocks, careering through the April sky;
I could not sing, though joy was at its height,
For she stood silent by.

I watched the lovely evening fade away,--
A mist was lightly drawn across the stars.
She broke my quiet dream,— I heard her say,
"Behold your prison-bars!

"Earth's gladness shall not satisfy your soul,
This beauty of the world in which you live;
The crowning grace that sanctifies the whole,
That I alone can give."

I heard, and shrunk away from her afraid;
But still she held me, and would still abide.
Youth's bounding pulses slackened and obeyed,
With slowly ebbing tide.

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I LOOK across the land and sea, into the quiet west,

I

gaze

I hear the waves' low lullaby,
And yet my heart is not at rest.
The heron wings his stately way
In silence to his reedy nest,
The white mists steal upon the day,
And yet my soul is all unrest.

The even bells break from the coast,
Like sudden songs of angels blest,
That love at lingering hours the most
To bring the hearts of mortals rest.

"Weep not," they say, "the plaint of love Is but a holy loss confess'd;

Sweet eyes look ever from above.

Be still, sad heart, and sink to rest!"

THE POEТ.

Once a Week.

"SWEET" did you say that my verse was?
O could I but bring to your ear
The soundless songs that entrance me,
Which only my soul can hear,-

Songs learned when my soul was beginning,
Before it was fettered in me,
And could hear the universe singing
Its endless symphony.

I hear those harmonies ever,
And whenever I strive to sing,
My soul is sad with the failure
To make my melodies ring

As they rang when it bathed in the brightness
That streamed on it from the Throne,
Where thought of itself is music,
And effort and fruit are one.

Spectator.

From The Cornhill Magazine.
A PERSIAN PASSION PLAY.

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD.

EVERYBODY has this last autumn been either seeing the Ammergau Passion Play or hearing about it; and to find any one who has seen it and not been deeply interested and moved by it, is very rare. The peasants of the neighbouring country, the great and fashionable world, the ordinary tourist, were all at Ammergau, and were all delighted; but what is said to have been especially remarkable was the affluence there of ministers of religion of all kinds. That Catholic peasants, whose religion has accustomed them to show and spectacle, should be attracted by an admirable scenic representation of the great moments in the history of their religion, was natural; that tourists and the fashionable world should be attracted by what was once the fashion and a new sensation of a powerful sort, was natural; that many of the ecclesiastics there present should be attracted there, was natural too. Roman Catholic priests mustered strong, of course. The Protestantism of a great number of the Anglican clergy is supposed to be but languid, and Anglican ministers at Ammergau were sympathizers to be expected. But Protestant ministers of the most unimpeachable sort, Protestant Dissenting ministers, were there, too, and showing favour and sympathy; and this, to any one who remembers the almost universal feeling of Protestant Dissenters in this country, not many years ago, towards Rome and her religion,- the sheer abhorrence of Papists and all their practices,- could not but be striking. It agrees with what is seen also in literature, in the writings of Dissenters of the younger and more progressive sort, who show a disposition for regarding the Church of Rome historically rather than polemically, a wish to do justice to the undoubted grandeur of certain institutions and men produced by that Church, quite novel, and quite alien to the simple belief of earlier times, that between Protestants and Rome there was a measureless gulph fixed. Something of this may no doubt, be due to that keen eye for Non-conformist business in which our great

bodies of Protestant Dissenters, to do them justice, are never wanting; to a perception that the case against the Church of England may be yet further improved by contrasting her with the genuine article in her own ecclesiastical line, by pointing out that she is neither one thing nor the other to much purpose, by dilating on the magnitude, reach, and impressiveness, on the great place in history, of her rival, as compared with anything she can herself pretend to. Something of this there is, no doubt, in some of the modern Protestant sympathy for things Catholic; but in general that sympathy springs, in Churchmen and Dissenters alike, from another and a better cause,- from the spread of larger conceptions of religion, of man, and of history, than were current formerly. We have seen lately in the newspapers, that a clergyman, who in a popular lecture gave an account of the Passion Play at Ammergau, and enlarged on its impressiveness, was admonished by certain remonstrants, who told him it was his business, instead of occupying himself with these sensuous shows, to learn to walk by faith, not by sight, and to teach his fellow-men to do the same. But this severity seems to have excited wonder rather than praise; so far had those wider notions about religion and about the range of our interest in religion, of which I have just spoken, conducted us. To this interest I propose to appeal in what I am going to relate. For the Passion Play at Ammergau, with its immense audiences, the seriousness of its actors, the passionate emotion of its spectators, brought to my mind something of which I had read an account lately; something produced, not in Bavaria nor in Christendom at all, but far away in that wonderful East, from which, whatever airs of superiority Europe may justly give itself, all our religion has come, and where religion, of some sort or other, has still an empire over men's feelings such as it has nowhere else. This product of the remote East I wish to exhibit while the remembrance of what has been at Ammergau is still fresh; and we will see whether that bringing together of strangers and enemies who once seemed to be as far as the poles asunder, which Ammergau in such a re

markable way effected, does not hold good shown. He passed several days there in

and find a parallel even in Persia.

meditation. The place appears to have made a great impression on him; he was entering a course which might and must lead to some such catastrophe as had happened on the very spot where he stood, and where his mind's eye showed him the Imam Ali lying at his feet, with his body pierced and bleeding. His followers say that he then passed through a sort of moral agony which put an end to all hesitation of the natural man within him. It is certain that when he arrived at Shiraz, on his return, he was a changed man. No doubts troubled him any more: he was penetrated and persuaded; his part was taken."

This Ali also, at whose tomb the Bâb went through the spiritual crisis here recorded, is a familiar name to most of us. In general our knowledge of the East goes but a very little way; yet almost every one has at least heard the name of Ali, the Lion of God, Mahomet's young cousin, and

Count Gobineau, formerly Minister of France at Teheran and at Athens, published, a few years ago, an interesting book on the present state of religion and philosophy in Central Asia. He is favourably known also by his studies in ethnology. His accomplishments and intelligence deserve all respect, and in his book on religion and philosophy in Central Asia he has the great advantage of writing about things which he has followed with his own observation and inquiry in the countries where they happened. The chief purpose of his book is to give a history of the career of Mirza Ali Mahommed, a Persian religious reformer, the original Bâb, and the founder of Bâbism, of which most people in England have at least heard the name. Bab means gate, the door or gate of life; and in the ferment which now works in the Mahometan East, Mirza Ali Mahommed,-who seems to have been made acquainted by Protestant mission- the first who, after his wife, believed aries with our Scriptures and by the Jews in him, and who was declared by Maof Shiraz with Jewish traditions, to have homet in his gratitude his brother, delestudied, besides, the religion of the Ghe- gate, and vicar. Ali was one of Mabers, the old national religion of Persia, homet's best and most successful captains; and to have made a sort of amalgam of he married Fatima, the daughter of the the whole with Mahometanism,-presented Prophet; his sons, Hassan and Hussein, himself, about five-and-twenty years ago, were, as children, favourites with Maas the door, the gate of life; found dis- homet, who had no son of his own to succiples, sent forth writings, and finally be- ceed him, and was expected to name Ali came the cause of disturbances which led as his successor. He named no successor. to his being executed, on the 19th of July, At his death Ali was passed over, and the 1849, in the citadel of Tabriz. The Bâb first caliph, or vicar and lieutenant of Maand his doctrines are a theme on which homet in the government of the state, was much might be said; but I pass them by. ex- Abu-Bekr; only the spiritual inheritance of cept for one incident in the Bâb's life, which Mahomet, the dignity of Imam, or Primate, I will notice. Like all religious Mahome- devolved by right on Ali and his children. tans, he made the pilgrimage to Mecca; Ali, lion of God as in war he was, held and his meditations at that centre of his aloof from politics and political intrigue, religion first suggested his mission to him. loved retirement and prayer, was the most But soon after his return to Bagdad he pious and disinterested of men. At Abumade another pilgrimage; and it was in Bekr's death he was again passed over in this pilgrimage that his mission became favour of Omar. Omar was succeeded by clear to him, and that his life was fixed. Othman, and still Ali remained tranquil. "He desired "-I will give an abridg- Othman was assassinated, and then Ali ment of Count Gobineau's own words chiefly to prevent disturbance and blood"to complete his impressions by going to shed, accepted the caliphate. Meanwhile Kufa, that he might visit the ruined the Mahometan armies had conquered mosque where Ali was assassinated, and Persia, Syria, and Egypt; the Governor where the place of his murder is still of Syria, Moawiyah, an able and ambitious

man, set himself up as caliph, his title was recognized by Amrou, the Governor of Egypt, and a bloody and indecisive battle was fought in Mesopotamia between Ali's army and Moawiyah's. Gibbon shall tell the rest: "In the temple of Mecca three Charegites or enthusiasts discoursed of the disorders of the church and state; they soon agreed that the deaths of Ali, of Moawiyah, and of his friend Amrou, the Viceroy of Egypt, would restore the peace and unity of religion. Each of the assassins chose his victim, poisoned his dagger, devoted his life, and secretly repaired to the scene of action. Their resolution was equally desperate; but the first mistook the person of Amrou, and stabbed the deputy who occupied his seat; the prince of Damascus was dangerously hurt by the second; Ali, the lawful caliph, in the mosque of Kufa, received a mortal wound from the hand of the third."

The events through which we have thus rapidly run ought to be kept in mind, for they are the elements of Mahometan history any right understanding of the state of the Mahometan world is impossible without them. For that world is divided into the two great sects of Shiahs and Sunis; the Shiahs are those who reject the first three caliphs as usurpers, and begin with Ali as the first lawful successor of Mahomet; the Sunis recognize Abu-Bekr, Omar, and Othman, as well as Ali, and regard the Shiahs as impious heretics. The Persians are Shiahs, and the Arabs and Turks are Sunis. Hussein, one of Ali's two sons, married a Persian princess, the daughter of Yezdejerd the last of the Sassanian kings, the king whom the Mahometan conquest of Persia expelled; and Persia, through this marriage, became specially connected with the house of Ali. "In the fourth age of the Hegira," says Gibbon, “a tomb, a temple, a city, arose near the ruins of Kufa. Many thousands of the Shiahs repose in holy ground at the feet of the vicar of God; and the desert is vivified by the numerous and annual visits of the Persians, who esteem their devotion not less meritorious than the pilgrimage of Mecca."

But, to comprehend what I am going to relate from Count Gobineau, we must push

our researches into Mahometan history a little further than the assassination of Ali. Moawiyah died in the year 680 of our era, nearly fifty years after the death of Mahomet. His son Yezid succeeded him on the throne of the caliphs at Damascus. During the reign of Moawiyah Ali's two sons, the Imams Hassan and Hussein, lived with their families in religious retirement at Medina, where their grandfather Mahomet was buried. `In them the character of abstention and renouncement, which we have noticed in Ali himself, was marked yet more strongly; but, when Moawiyah died, the people of Kufa, the city on the lower Euphrates where Ali had been assassinated, sent offers to make Hussein caliph if he would come among them, and to support him against the Syrian troops of Yezid. Hussein seems to have thought himself bound to accept the proposal. He left Medina, and, with his family and relations, to the number of about eighty persons, set out on his way to Kufa. Then ensued the tragedy so familiar to every Mahometan, and to us so little known, the tragedy of Kerbela. "O death," cries the bandit-minstrel of Persia, Kurroglou, in his last song before his execution, "O death, whom didst thou spare? Were even Hassan and Hussein, those footstools of the throne of God on the seventh heaven, spared by thee? No! thou madest them martyrs at Kerbela."

We cannot do better than again have recourse to Gibbon's history for an account of this famous tragedy. "Hussein trav ersed the desert of Arabia with a timorous retinue of women and children; but, as he approached the confines of Irak, he was alarmed by the solitary or hostile face of the country, and suspected either the defection or the ruin of his party. His fears were just; Obeidallah, the governor of Kufa, had extinguished the first sparks of an insurrection; and Hussein, in the plain of Kerbela, was encompassed by a body of 5,000 horse, who intercepted his communication with the city and the river. In a conference with the chief of the enemy he proposed the option of three conditions - that he should be allowed to return to Medina, or be stationed in a frontier garrison against the Turks, or safely con

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