There were waves in the sunshine,
And green isles before him:
But a pale hand was beckoning
The Huguenot on;
And in blackness and ashes
Behind was St. John!
1841




THE CYPRESS-TREE OF CEYLON.

Ibn Batuta, the celebrated Mussulman traveller of the fourteenth
century, speaks of a cypress-tree in Ceylon, universally held sacred by
the natives, the leaves of which were said to fall only at certain
intervals, and he who had the happiness to find and eat one of them was
restored, at once, to youth and vigor. The traveller saw several
venerable Jogees, or saints, sitting silent and motionless under the
tree, patiently awaiting the falling of a leaf.

THEY sat in silent watchfulness
The sacred cypress-tree about,
And, from beneath old wrinkled brows,
Their failing eyes looked out.

Gray Age and Sickness waiting there
Through weary night and lingering day,--
Grim as the idols at their side,
And motionless as they.