Bend thy forehead now, to take my kisses! 
      Lift in love thy dark and splendid eye: 
    Thou art glad when Hassan mounts the saddle,—­
      Thou art proud he owns thee:  so am I.

    Let the Sultan bring his boasted horses,
      Prancing with their diamond-studded reins;
    They, my darling, shall not match thy fleetness
      When they course with thee the desert plains!

    We have seen Damascus, O my beauty! 
      And the splendor of the Pashas there;
    What’s their pomp and riches? why, I would not
      Take them for a handful of thy hair!

BAYARD TAYLOR.

* * * * *

SYMPATHY FOR HORSE AND HOUND.

      Yet pity for a horse o’erdriven,
    And love in which my hound has part,
    Can hang no weight upon my heart,
      In its assumptions up to heaven: 

      And I am so much more than these
    As thou, perchance, art more than I,
    And yet I would spare them sympathy,
      And I would set their pains at ease.

TENNYSON’S In Memoriam.

* * * * *

THE BLOOD HORSE.

    Gamarra is a dainty steed,
    Strong, black, and of a noble breed,
    Full of fire, and full of bone,
    With all his line of fathers known;
    Fine his nose, his nostrils thin,
    But blown abroad by the pride within! 
    His mane is like a river flowing,
    And his eyes like embers glowing
    In the darkness of the night,
    And his pace as swift as light.

    Look,—­how ’round his straining throat
    Grace and shining beauty float! 
    Sinewy strength is in his reins,
    And the red blood gallops through his veins—­
    Richer, redder, never ran
    Through the boasting heart of man. 
    He can trace his lineage higher
    Than the Bourbon dare aspire,—­
    Douglas, Guzman, or the Guelph,
    Or O’Brien’s blood itself!

    He, who hath no peer, was born,
    Here upon a red March morn;
    But his famous fathers dead
    Were Arabs all, and Arabs bred,
    And the last of that great line
    Trod like one of a race divine! 
    And yet,—­he was but friend to one
    Who fed him at the set of sun
    By some lone fountain fringed with green;
    With him, a roving Bedouin,
    He lived (none else would he obey
    Through all the hot Arabian day),—­
    And died untamed upon the sands
    Where Balkh amidst the desert stands!

BARRY CORNWALL.

* * * * *

THE CID AND BAVIECA.

    The king looked on him kindly, as on a vassal true;
    Then to the king Ruy Diaz spake, after reverence due,
    “O king! the thing is shameful, that any man beside
    The liege lord of Castile himself, should Bavieca ride.