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LAYS OF MANY LANDS.

The following pieces may so far be considered a series, as each is intended to be commemorative of some national recollection, popular custom, or tradition. The idea was suggested by Herder's "Stimmen der Völker in Liedern;" the execution is however different, as the poems in his collection are chiefly translations.

Most of those forming the present one have appeared, as well as the miscellaneous pieces attached to them, in the New Monthly Magazine.

MOORISH BRIDAL SONG.

It is a custom among the Moors, that a female who dies unmarried is clothed for interment in wedding apparel, and the bridal song is sung over her remains before they are borne from her home.

See the Narrative of a Ten Years' Residence in Tripoli,

by the sister-in-law of Mr. Tully.

THE citron groves their fruit and flowers were strewing
Around a Moorish palace, while the sigh

Of low sweet summer-winds, the branches wooing,
With music through their shadowy bowers went by;
Music and voices, from the marble halls,

Through the leaves gleaming, and the fountain-falls.

A

song of joy, a bridal song came swelling,

To blend with fragrance in those southern shades,

And told of feasts within the stately dwelling,

Bright lamps, and dancing steps, and gem-crown'd maids ; And thus it flow'd;-yet something in the lay

Belong'd to sadness, as it died away.

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