25 MAY 1889, Page 16

POETRY.

THE TAJ MAHAL BY MOONLIGHT.

NOT purest marble from Carrara hewn Or Paros, not the everlasting snows On Himalaya's primal peaks, nor those About the cone of Fuji-yama strewn By April storms, not summer-clouds at noon That drift across the blue, or in repose Lie banked at even like aerial floes, Glisten more white than thou beneath the moon !

Thy pearly dome, and spires, and fretted walls,

Upborne upon the terraced marble, seem— So full the magic flood of moonlight falls—

To hang more lightly than the gossamer That floats at daybreak from the dreaming fir, Self-poised in aether o'er a crystal stream !