and the mountains of El-Yem'en are 'the mountains of spices.' This poem ends with the following lines:—
'The phantom of thy form visited me in my slumber.
I said, "O phantom of slumber! who sent thee?"
He said, "He sent me whom thou knowest;
He whose love occupies thee!"
The beloved of my heart visited me in the darkness of night;
I stood, to show him honour, until he sat down.
I said, "O thou my petition, and all my desire,
Hast thou come at midnight, and not feared the watchmen?"
He said to me, "I feared, but, however, love
Had taken from me my soul and my breath.'"
"Compare the above with the second and five following verses of the fifth chapter of Solomon's Song. Finding that songs of this description are extremely numerous, and almost the only poems sung at Zikrs; that they are composed for this purpose, and intended only to have a spiritual sense (though certainly not understood in such a sense by the generality of the vulgar); I cannot entertain any doubt as to the design of Solomon's Song."
To this we cannot do better than quote the able reply of Dr. Noyes:—"Now, as to the first of these religious love-songs of the Mahometan dervishes, whatever slight resemblance it may have to any part of the Canticles, it differs essentially from any of them in the circumstance, that the Supreme Being is expressly introduced as the object of worship. Without this essential circumstance, no one could tell whether it were originally composed for a love-song, or a religious hymn expressing a longing for a union of the soul with God, according to the Sufi philosophy and religion.
"In the second poem, quoted by Mr. Lane, it is to be regretted that he did not quote the whole of it; for I can by no means admit the circumstance, that it was sung by the dervishes in their morning devotions, to be conclusive in regard to the original design of the hymn. Mr. Lane expressly tells us, in a note, that he found the last six lines inserted, with some slight alterations, as a common love-song, in a portion of the 'Thousand and One Nights,' printed at Calcutta, vol. i.
