“In my fiftieth year, I began to suspect that the time of my traveling was past; and thought it best to lay hold on the felicity yet in my power, and indulge myself in domestic pleasures.  But, at fifty, no man easily finds a woman beautiful as the houries, and wise as Zobeide.  I inquired and rejected, consulted and deliberated, till the sixty-second year made me ashamed of wishing to marry.  I had now nothing left but retirement; and for retirement I never found a time, till disease forced me from public employment.

“Such was my scheme, and such has been its consequence.  With an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I trifled away the years of improvement; with a restless desire of seeing different countries, I have always resided in the same city; with the highest expectation of connubial felicity, I have lived unmarried; and with an unalterable resolution of contemplative retirement, I am going to die within the walls of Bagdad.”

Notes.—­Bag dad’—­A large city of Asiatic Turkey, on the river Tigris.

In the ninth century, it was the greatest center of Moslem power and learning.

Zobeide (Zo-bad’).—­A lady of Bagdad, whose story is given in the “Three Calendars” of the “Arabian Nights.”

In this selection the form of an allegory is used to express a general truth.

VIII.  THE BRAVE OLD OAK. (81)

Henry Fothergill Chorley, 1808-1872.  He is known chiefly as a musical critic and author; for thirty-eight years he was connected with the “London Athenaeum.”  His books are mostly novels. ###

A song to the oak, the brave old oak,
  Who hath ruled in the greenwood long;
Here’s health and renown to his broad green crown,
  And his fifty arms so strong. 
There’s fear in his frown, when the sun goes down,
  And the fire in the west fades out;
And he showeth his might on a wild midnight,
  When the storms through his branches shout.

In the days of old, when the spring with cold
  Had brightened his branches gray,
Through the grass at his feet, crept maidens sweet,
  To gather the dews of May. 
And on that day, to the rebec gay
  They frolicked with lovesome swains;
They are gone, they are dead, in the churchyard laid,
  But the tree—­it still remains.

He saw rare times when the Christmas chimes
  Were a merry sound to hear,
When the Squire’s wide hall and the cottage small
  Were filled with good English cheer. 
Now gold hath the sway we all obey,
  And a ruthless king is he;
But he never shall send our ancient friend
  To be tossed on the stormy sea.

Then here’s to the oak, the brave old oak,
  Who stands in his pride alone;
And still flourish he, a hale green tree,
  When a hundred years are gone.

IX.  THE ARTIST SURPRISED. (82)