“The Poet came to the Land of the East,

When Spring was in the air:

The earth was dressed for a wedding feast,

So young she seemed, and fair;

And the poet knew the Land of the East—

His soul was native there.

All things to him were the visible forms

Of early and precious dreams,—

Familiar visions that mocked his quest

Beside the Western streams,

Or gleamed in the gold of the clouds, unrolled

In the sunset’s dying beams.”

—Taylor, 1852.

If there is any land where every grain of sand and every blade of grass is pervaded³ by thrilling associations, that land is Palestine. Especially and peculiarly animated⁴ are its hills and vales to a poet such as Taylor proved to be. It may be that some superficial and matter-of-fact people who have visited the Holy Land in the hot season, have not felt the charm of[183] its sacredness, owing to heat, barrenness, vermin, and beggars. There may be a small class of iconoclastic⁵ jokers, who, caring not how holy or tender the theme, never fail to use it for ridicule⁶, if it suits their humoristic purpose. But the large class of travellers who visit Jerusalem and the country round about, feel the inspiring presence of the Past, and enjoy in an indescribable fullness the associations connected with it. In a higher and nobler degree, the mind imbued⁷ with poetic

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