The Continental Monthly, Vol I, Issue I, January 1862, page 209 by Various Authors
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its rim; Not a fleck of sorrow dim The flashing-smiles that swim In the crystal which restores their recollection.
Floating on the pitchy wine, Comes an odor of the brine, Half suggesting solemn surges of the sea; A sailor in the shrouds, Furling sail amid the clouds; Noisy breakers singing dirges on the lee, To those friends upon the main, Who have ventured once again, In the realm which cleaves in twain Loving hearts, that fill with pain When the storm proclaims the terrors of December. I will clink the beaded edge Of the beaker, while I pledge Safety over surf and sedge, Foaming round the sunken ledge, In the track of all the loved ones we remember.
And through Carolinian woods, Ever muffled in the hoods Of their fir-trees' aromatic evergreen, I can hear the mellow stops, Ever swaying in their tops, To the playing of an organist unseen. And the breezes bring the balm Of the solitude and psalm, From that indolence of calm, In the land of pine and palm, Over hills, and over rivers and savannas, Till my feelings undergo All their mortal overthrow, In celestial strains which flow, In a song of peace below, From those regions where archangels sing hosannas.
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A friend who has roamed in his time over the deserts and slept in Bedawee tents; one to whom the East is as a second mother, and in whose faith the Koran is necessary to really put the finishing touch to a true gentleman, sends us the following eccentric proverbs from the Arabic.
Words of Wisdom.
'A well is not to be filled with dew.'
There speaks the Arab, choice of water as of wine.
'May a deadly disease love you and Allah hate you!'
Uncle Toby, who would not have had the heart to curse a dog so, would have found the Excommunication of Ernulphus quite outdone in the desert, where cursing is perfected.
'He lays goose eggs, and expects young turkeys.'
'The dream of the cat is about mice.'
Meaning, as we say, that what is bred in the bone will not come out of the flesh.