Elegant Extracts: Or, Useful and Entertaining Pieces of Poetry

according to the custom of my fore- upon him like one astonished, he beckonfathers, I always keep holy, after having ed to me, and, by the waving of his hand, washed myself, and offered up my morn- directed me to approach the place where ing devotions, I ascended the high hills of he sat. I drew near with that reverence Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the which is due to a superior nature; and day in meditation and prayer. As I was as my heart was entirely subdued by the here airing myself on the tops of the captivating strains I had heard, I fell mountains, I fell into a profound con- down at his feet, and wept. The genius templation on the vanity of human life; smiled upon me with a look of compasand passing from one thought to another, sion and affability that familiarized him Surely, said I, man is but a shadow, and to my imagination, and at once dispelled life a dream. Whilst I was thus musing, all the fears and apprehensions with I cast my eyes towards the summit of a which I approached him. He lifted me rock that was not far from me, where I from the ground, and taking me by the discovered one in the habit of a shepherd, hand, Mirza, said he, I have heard thee with a little musical instrument in his in thy soliloquies; follow me. hand. As I looked upon him, he ap- He then led me to the highest pinnacle plied it to his lips, and began to play up- of the rock, and placing me on the top on it. The sound of it was exceeding of it, Cast thy eyes eastward, said he, sweet, and wrought into a variety of and tell me what thou seest. I see, said tunes that were inexpressibly melodious, I, a huge valley, and a prodigious tide and altogether different from any thing I of water rolling through it. The valley had ever heard : they put me in mind of that thou seest, said he, is the vale of those heavenly airs that are played to the misery; and the tide of water that thou departed souls of good men upon their seest, is part of the great tide of eternity. first arrival in Paradise, to wear out the What is the reason, said I, that the tide impressions of the last agonies, and qua-' I see rises out of a thick mist at one lify them for the pleasures of that happy end, and again loses itself in a thick mist place. My heart melted away in secret at the other? What thou seest, said he, raptures.

is that portion of eternity, which is called I had been often told, that the rock be- Time, measured out by the sun, and fore me was the haunt of a genius; and reaching from the beginning of the world that several had been entertained with to its consummation. Examine now, that music, whc had passed by it, but said he, this sea, that is bounded with never heard that the musician had before darkness at both ends, and tell me what

thou discoverest in it. I see a bridge, in their hands, and others with urinals, said I, standing in the midst of the ride. who ran to and fro -upon the bridge, The bridge thou seest, said he, is buman thrusting several persons on trap-doors life; consider it attentively. Upon a which did not seem to lie in their way, more leisurely survey of it, I found that and which they might have escaped had it consisted of threescore and ten entire they not been thus forced upon them. arches, with several broken arches, which, The genius seeing me indulge myself added to those that were entire, made up in this melancholy prospect, told me I the number about an hundred. As I had dwelt long enough upon it: Take was counting the arches, the genius told thine eyes off the bridge, said he, and tell me that this bridge consisted at first of a me if thou seest any thing thou dost not thousand arches; but that a great food comprehend. Upon looking up, What swept away the rest, and left the bridge mean, said I, those great flights of birds in the ruinous condition I now beheld that are perpetually hovering about the it: but tell me further, said he, what thou bridge, and settling upon it from time to discoverest on it. I see multitudes of time? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, corpeople passing over it, said I, and a

morants, and, among many other featherblack cloud hanging on each end of it. ed creatures, several little winged boys, As I looked more attentively, I saw se- that perch in great numbers upon the veral of the passengers dropping through middle arches. These, said the genius, the bridge into the great tide that flowed are envy, avarice, superstition, despair, underneath it; and, upon further exami- love, with the like cares and passions nation, perceived there were innumerable that infest human life. trap-doors that lay concealed in the I here fetched a deep sigh: Alas, said bridge, which the passengers no sooner I, man was made in vain! how is he trod upon, but they fell through them in- given away to misery and mortality!

, to the tide, and immediately disappear. tortured in life, and swallowed up in ed. These hidden pil-falls were set very death! The genius being moved with thick at the entrance of the bridge, compassion towards me, bid me quit so so that throngs of people no sooner broke uncomfortable a prospect. Look no more, through the cloud, but many of them fell said he, on man in the first stage of his into them. They grew thinner towards existence, in his setting out for eternity; the middle, but multiplied and lay closer but cast thine eye on that thick mist into together towards the end of the arches which the tide bears the several generathat were entire.

tions of mortals that fall into it. I directed There were indeed some persons, but my sight as I was ordered, and (whether their number was very small, that conti- or no the good genius strengthened it nued a kind of hobbling march on the with any supernatural force, or dissipated broken arches, but fell through one after part of the mist that was before too thick another, being quite tired and spent with for the eye to penetrate) I saw the valley so long a walk.

opening at the farther end, and spreading I passed some time in the contempla- forth into an inmense ocean, that had tion of this wonderful structure, and the a huge rock of adamant running through great variety of objects which it pre- the midst of it, and dividing it into two sented. My heart was filled with a deep equal parts. The clouds still rested on melancholy, to see several dropping un- one half of it, insomuch that I could disexpectedly in the midst of mirth and cover nothing in it: but the other apjollity, and catching at every thing that peared to me a vast ocean, planted with stood by them, to save themselves. Some innumerable islands, that were covered were looking up towards the heavens in with fruits and flowers, and interwoven a thoughtful posture, and, in the midst with a thousand little shining seas that of a speculation, stumbled and fell out of ran among them. I could see persons sight. Multitudes were very busy in the dressed in glorious habits, with garlands pursuit of bubbles, that glittered in their upon their heads, passing among the eyes, and danced before them: but often, trees, lying down by the sides of founwhen they thought themselves within the tains, or resting on beds of flowers; and reach of them, their footing failed, and could hear a confused harmony of singdown they sunk. In this confusion of ing birds, falling waters, human voices, objects, l observed some with sciinitars and musical instruments. Gladness grew

in me at the discovery of so delightful a his wishes, the gradual change of his scene. I wished for the wings of an disposition to all external objects, and eagle, that I might fly away to those the thoughtlessness with which he floats happy seats; but the genius told me along the stream of time, I sunk into a there was no passage to them, except slumber amidst my meditations, and, on through the gates of death that I saw a sudden, found my ears filled with the opening every moment upon the bridge. tumult of labour, the shouts of alacrity, The islands, said he, that lie so fresh and the shrieks of alarm, the whistle of winds, green before thee, and with which the and the dash of waters. whole face of the ocean appears spotted My astonishment for a time repressed as far as thou canst see, are more in num- my curiosity; but soon recovering myself ber than the sands on the sea-shore; so far as to inquire whither we were gothere are myriads of islands behind those ing, and what was the cause of such clawhich thou here discoverest, reaching fur- mour and confusion; I was told that they ther than thine eye, or even thine imagi- were launching out into the ocean of Life; nation, can extend itself. These are the that we had already passed the straits of mansions of good men after death, who, Infancy, in which multitudes had perishaccording to the degree and kinds of vir- ed, some by the weakness and fragility tue in which they excelled, are distri- of their vessels, and more by the folly, buted among these several islands, which perverseness, or negligence of those who abound with pleasures of different kinds undertook to steer them; and that we and degrees, suitable to the relishes and were now on the main sea, abandoned perfections of those who are settled in to the winds and billows, without any ihem; every island is a paradise accom- other means of security than the care of modated to its respective inhabitants. the pilot, whom it was always in our Are not these, O Mirza, habitations power to choose, among great numbers worth contending for? Does life appear that offered their direction and assistance. miserable, that gives thee opportunities

I then looked round with anxious eaof earning such a reward? Is death to gerness; and, first turning my eyes bebe feared, that will convey thee to so hind me, saw a stream flowing through happy an existence? Think not man was flowery islands, which every one that sailmade in vain, who has such an eternity ed along seemed to behold with pleasure; reserved for him.--I gazed with inexpres- but no sooner touched, than the current, sible pleasure on these happy islands. At which, though not noisy or turbulent, length, said I, Shew me now, I beseech was yet irresistible, bore him away. Be

I thee, the secrets that lie bid under those yond these islands, all was darkness; nor dark clouds, which cover the ocean on could

any of the passengers describe the the other side of the rock of adamant. shore at which he first embarked. The genius making me no answer, I

Before me, and on either side, was an turned about to address myself to him a expanse of waters violently agitated, and second time, but I found that he had left covered with so thick a mist, that the me: I then turned again to the vision most perspicacious eyes could see but a which I had been so long contemplating; little way. It appeared to be full of but instead of the rolling tide, the arched rocks and whirlpools, for many sunk unbridge, and the happy islands, I saw no- expectedly while they were courting the thing but the long hollow valley of Bag- gale with full sails, and insulting those dat, with oxen, sheep, and camels, graz- whom they had left behind. So numering upon the side of it.

Spectator. ous, indeed, were the dangers, and so

thick the darkness, that no caution could 02. The Voyage of Life; an Allegory. confer security.

Yet there were many, • Life,' says Seneca, is a voyage, in who, by false intelligence, betrayed their the progress of which we are perpetually followers into whirlpools, or by violence changing our scenes: we first leave child pushed those whom they found in their hood behind us, then youth, then the way against the rocks. years of ripened manhood, then the bet- 'The current was invariable and insurter or more pleasing part of old age.'— nountable; but though it was impossible The perusal of this passage having ex- to sail against it, or to return to the place cited in me a train of reflections on the that was once passed, yet it was not so state of man, the incessant fluctuation of violent as to allow no opportunities for

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