§§§§©®°¶ №te :Ekſºſſſ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!！!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!！!!!!!! #!!! ſae ， ， ， ， ， <~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • ſiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii ： {}{[] |ſº $ſ; ſ'Iſºſſº } № ：= e ： • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • № © ® °C ， ！ ſſſſſſſſſſſſ IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII ſitt S} \º Nº.J.),\º SAS A Sy, S/NJ º': ĶåššX-?）’’’ （’’. !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!！!！!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!！ • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • & Illinºminimummillilulu K-- - - - - - - - - - - - ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ : * ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~. LONDON : EDWARD MOXON, DOVER STREET. MDCCCXXXIX. T.ONI)0N 3 BRADHURY AND Eva Ns, painterts ro The QUEEN3, W H ITERR (A R$ 2 f \ I SHOULD perhaps apologise for the Poem which ap- pears first in the title-page of this volume, not keeping the same order in the arrangement of its contents. That, however, which precedes it, was written with a view of serving as an introduction to a series of similar Fables; and though my intention in this respect was altered, I suffered the indication of it more by chance than design to remain. These pages can scarcely fail to present many differ- ences and inequalities of style, since they have been composed at intervals during six or seven years, while both my opinions and my power of the great art, whose name they take in vain, have necessarily under- gone a considerable change. BETTISFIELD PARK, May, 1839. CONTENTS. APPROACH to Venice on a November Day Fra Cipolla Proserpine Helen returned to the House of Menelaus Amphion Tiberius Jotham’s Fable In the Palazzo del Te. Mantua From a Picture by Nicolo Poussin Terracina King Otho's Chapel tº The “Friar and the Ass” The Strategy of Death Gipsies To a Spring that was dried up near Hanmer To the River Dee The Hermit X i CONTENTS. Chissy Death of the Venetian Jew To a Cock of the Woods, in a Poulterer's Shop, London Prometheus g Chimes of Antwerp Diana Thrasimene Lines The Cardinal PAGE 74 75 77 78 79 80 82 84 85 Written after seeing the Picture, by F. Solimeme, of the Messenger of Syphax conveying Poison to Sophonisba 87 Lines - . . 90 Pescara 91 Pine of Hertzgovitz 93 Written after reading Horace Walpole's Account of Castle Hen- ningham . . 95 To an Eagle 96 Written under the Pine in the Colonna Garden, Rome 98 FRAGMENTS.– A Ruined Venetian speaking of his Pictures 99 The Answer of Pyrrhus to Fabricius.-(From Ennius.) ... 102 From a Fragment of Gallus ... 103 From Ovid's Epistle of Sappho to Phaon t ... 104 Proteus.—Written in Italy, during the Winter of 1830-31 . 105 Lines . 118 On the Painting of the Fates, by Michael Angelo . 119 CONTENTS, A Winter Scene CaSSandra Macerata A Wirelai g w A Morning Walk in Rome A View in Holland Salerno Melancholy The Origin of Music Genoa Spring FRA C IPOL LA, AND OTHER POEMS. APPROACH TO VENICE ON A NOVEMBER DAY. CLEAR shines the sun, but yet the cloud is grey, And the fresh breeze comes scented with the spray Of the wild billow, that with thundering fall, Broke its huge mass gainst Malamocco's wall; Then bade its rider, ever fierce and free, To Winter bear the homage of the sea. ... On Styria's peaks his gathering storms repose, And shroud the giant on his couch of snows, Ere yet descending through the howling air He bends the pine, and strips the poplar bare, Ere the tall cypress, 'mid the naked scene, 'Gainst the white tower shall rise with deeper green, And the broad oxen, from the swelling Po, To their warm stalls, and sheltering village go : While houseless beggars in the biting cold ſ Sit numbed to sleep, and dream of feasts and gold. By empty villas and by mouldering vines Gleams the pale ray, that warms not though it shines; B 2 APPROACII TO WENICE Yet these but late their clustering grapes have shed, To glad the living,-those are of the dead: These still shall wake with Nature wakening, And tint the landscape with the hues of spring. They come no more, no more shall beauty's hand Strike the soft harp, in halls Palladio plann'd, No more, last refuge of despairing pride, Luxurious pomp a people's fall shall hide. But vaulted roofs with hollow sound reply, When Brenta's breezes sweep careering by, And bear the leaves in gathering heaps to rest At gates which hailed a monarch once their guest *. Alike the eagle's wide-spread lineage bind The hosts he sought, the realm.he left behind ; And for the subjects of his sires, o'er them The sword must hang, to guard the diadem That crowns another—vanished race and fame, Fit guest of Venice now, the Valois' name. I saw a pilgrim on a jutting stone High on the Alps, which, ages long agone, The thoughtful traveller from Lombardy Has marked when mountain shadows gather nigh, * IIenry of Valois, king of Poland, and afterwards of France, who spent Some time at Venice, on his way to assume that crown, in 1574. ON A NOVEMBER DAY. And they who come up on the other side Alike its marble ridges have descried, And spring to welcome what with fond regret They leave, who mid-way in the path have met. Exile he seemed, as one whom hard-eyed fate Had shut, stern portress, from his palace gate, And bade the spider, unmolested there -> Weave the grey web, that none should turn to tear; But an old Jew, with contemplative smile Watch the congenial insect's cunning wile, Smile in those stately halls that this should be, Where once he cringed, no lowlier knave than he, In the long pageant of departed years, Pomp, power, ambition, all that life endears To the bond-servants of its gilded chain, The proud, the great, the glorious, and the vain. There had he come betimes, and waited long, With hate untired, as rivers ever strong, But humble guise, as if his life had been |Made but to serve the lordly Nazarene, And there with staff and garb of Sable hue, Oft had he sat when gayer souls withdrew, And fed on bitter thoughts that use had nursed, Till second nature had become the first : 4 APPROACH TO WIENICE And there till Lido's waste, and briny wave Shall mark him still an outcast, and his grave In the dead grass and barren sand be made, Where shrine is none, nor prayer was ever prayed, Save of his worn and stern and weary race, Above their last, and desolate dwelling place ; Still shall he sit, as seasons glide away, O'er the proud pile, contemptuous of decay, And his vile count of usance mutter o'er, A serpent coiling on the untrodden floor, Last of the living links, that men may see "Twixt what was there, and what remains to be ; Ere from the lonely rooms and shattered wall Rent by his hand the very frescos fall, And sordid ruin, with a drear repose, Broods o'er that scene of long-forgotten woes, Whose name so glorious once, the peasant scarcely knows. Yet once he knew it, or his fathers knew, When Genoa's banner at Chiozza flew “, * En effet tout Était a Venise dans une profonde consternation, ct dans une agitation extrème. C'était au milieu de la nuit qu'on y avait appris la perte de Chiozza, par le retour de quelques braves qui avaient inutilement essayé de s'y jeter. Le tocsin de S.-Marc await appelé Soudain toute la population aux armes. Les citoyens de tous les rangs avaient confusément passé le reste de cette nuit Sur les places publiques, s'attendant d'un moment à l'autre a voir l'ennemi attaquer une capitale oil rien n’était organisé pour le repousser. Le jour parut, et l’on wit au haut des tours de Chiozza flottor l’étendard do Saint-Georgesau-dessus du pavillon de S.-Margrenversé. —l)a?"w, Histoire de Venise. ON A. NOVEMBER, DAY. In joy of triumph or extreme of ill, Honoured and loved, and sought, and trusted still ; And deem not fancy wayward, that she wrought Thus for that stranger with creative thought A lofty race and heritage, and stood Dreaming such dreams, by Brenta's falling flood. From his yet sleeping form, and forehead pale, Spoke the high air, that want could ne'er assail, And through the gloomy shadows of distress Yet broader beamed the lights of nobleness; There dimly stretched his native plains, before Rose misty peaks, with forests covered o'er, And scanty terraces on mountains high, And thin spread hamlets, and a colder sky; And he to German cities, far away Fared wearily, or farther still than they, And this of his own Italy, had been his latest day. I gazed until it seemed my wandering thought His sleeping vision's self-illusion caught ; And then we stood together, in the pile Which he had left, a short—a bitter while : Nor yet the glories of his ancient race, Torn from their old hereditary place, Had left cold shadows on the naked walls To chase each other through deserted halls. 6 APPROACH TO WENICE Thoughts of his youth, they came there back again, And his heart drank them, as the earth the rain. There was that true and strange epitome Of human life, and all that man can be, Where to the present’s ever-changing moods Speaks the old past, with fixed similitudes; There Titian's hand a warrior Doge portrayed, And there some idler of the summer shade ; There bent a maiden, with a glad surprise O'er gems, but foil to pleasure's beaming eyes; And there her merchant sire, who trafficked far With wary thrift, to Balkh, or Istakhar; Her with bright tresses Giorgione drew, As when love saw, and kindled at the view, And bore her fame of beauty far away, Past Este's towers, and Montefeltro's sway; Him Tintoretto's rapid hand designed, And fixed each passing thought that floated in his mind. The subtle priest that watched the late accord Of conclave's votes, and started up their lord, And bade avaunt dissembled age and pain, And grasped the crozier, like a charger's rein; The smooth-tongued envoy, ready still to lie, Sharp as his sword and cold, with piercing eye, ON A NOVEMBER, DAY. 7 And they who raised, and they who threw away Fortune and fame, with folly's vain display, Alike in that wild trance were imaged there; But they are past, and know no earthly care : And all of their old splendour that remains Surrounds their dust, in time-defying fanes. The porphyry pillar, and the sable stone, Sure test of gold—that "twere of virtues known, And marble monuments, and faint perfume Of burning censers, and the gorgeous gloom That broods in silence, o'er each sacred place, As present were the angel of their race,— These vanish not, though all beside is fled; But their last son must know another bed In life and death, and lay in humbler guise his head. Oh visions bright, of unforgotten hours, Bright, and yet wan, as grief's declining flowers, Wherewith o'er sepulchres she wreaths her head, And calls, how vainly 1 on the lost and dead Thus did my fancy fill that pilgrim's brain With ye, and feign the airy past again, And call up phantoms of ancestral fame, And power, and love, and give them all a name, Albeit fleeting, as Autumnal gleams. Ye wild waves dashing 'gainst the low-mouthed streams, 8 APPROACH TO VENICE ON A NOVEMBER DAY. That pour their floods far over the lagoons With turbid tide, in winter's watery moons; Ye winds that wailing through the city go, And fill no sails, and bear no banner now, But waſt the sea's corroding salt, to fade Some glorious fresco, in its lone arcade ; Ye tapering towers, far scattered, whence the bell Sounds through the air, with melancholy swell; Ye shades, companions of the breeze, that float With a strange power, o'er isle, and quay, and boat, Now distant, and now nearer, and suffuse The landscape ever with chamelion hues; So let me look on ye, and dream once more, And summon back the tales, and songs of yore From Arqua's poet vale, to Venice' farthest shore. FRA CIPOLLA. HOW FRIAR, ONION SHOWED THE COALS ON WHICH ST. LAURENCE WAS BROILED, INSTEAD OF THE FEATHER OF THE ANGEL GABRIEL, AS HE PROMISED, TO THE PEOPLE OF CERTALDO. (FROM THE DECAMERON.) A lui non plus qu’à son Laurent Je ne me fierai, moi, que Surun bon garant. TARTUFFE, Acte T. To the low valley where the Elsa brawls With tiny streamlet by Certaldo's walls, And lulls its slumbers, and first greets the cocks When the dim morning reddens on the rocks,— And time flows on in quiet harmony With its sweet voice,—and evermore go by The hours unheeded, as the vineyard weaves In the glad sun her garland of green leaves Until the fruit is blushing-ripe, and they As gently growing, to some festal day Call forth the happy villagers’ array; Once every year, or oftener if he could, C 10 FRA CIPOLLA. (So sure the welcome of his merry mood,) A little friar, called Cipolla, came ; The people loved him for his very name: For most that herb about Certaldo grows, And rears its savoury head in watered rows, A household name, and redolent of cheer, Nor he belied it with a mien severe, Nor took his gettings churlishly for right, If priest by day, he gossip was by night; And all the women loved the tales he told, And children laughed his antics to behold, And graver things he had at seasons for the old. He would that all knew how the Scriptures teach 'Tis not the poor want saving, but the rich : And still discreetly methodized his care And shunned the extreme, for evil dwelleth there; Oh there walks Lucifer, by night and day, And some have seen him, as in tales they say, He feared his wrath if he for souls should starve, And left untouched his palatine preserve. But in snug streets, where none proclaim their store By brazen beasts, and lacqueys, at the door, Nor lions' grinning heads affront the poor. FRA CIPOLLA. 11 Where gainful virtue, in the Balance sign, Hangs o'er our being's equatorial line, And each intends to keep what he has got, He came, and preached how wealth abideth not ; And oft a portion to his convent drew, And proved, at least, his saying might be true, Shriving for profit penitents like these ; But still he sought the country for his ease. Wandering he loved; for there was in his mind A sort of grace, in arabesque designed, Careless and free, that still its way would wend In many a guise, and left to chance the end ; So both as friar and as traveller wise, He took the full prerogative of lies; And never a Cardinal in Lateran Had more believers since the church began. To good St. Anthony his vows were paid At Padua's shrine, and in his name he prayed. 'Twas the soft season when the sycamore Bursts in full foliage, and its pensile flower Doth all the bees with its sweet breath invite, And fairy bells, so tremulous and light, 12 FRA CIPOLLA, Till twilight ushers in the summer night: And toil reposed, and stars were rising o'er The inn's long gallery and its open door— And horseman, pacing through the archway near, who back to Florence turned from country cheer; Far swelled the horn along the mountain side, And goats came bounding to their gentle guide, The peasant girl, with distaff in her hand, And her young sisters rolling in the sand ; And faintly rose the evening wind along The brushwood paths, and murmured with her song; And some stood watching for the loaded wain, Some marked the light moon glittering on the vane, And boys drove in, with many a stick and stone, The long-necked turkeys running gobbling on ; When, musing o'er with philosophic mind How like the world his mule, (for she was blind, And what he would still unrepining bore,) Through the old gate Cipolla came once more. Oh! some can look upon a heap of clay, And bid their thought the inspired hand obey, And call great Vulcan forth, as when he stood, Resting from toil, in deep considering mood, And mused on heavenly strife and giant wars— FRA CIPOLLA. 13 And at his feet the helm he made for Mars; And some from resined bow and catgut string, The deepest, sweetest sounds of music bring; But he who wisely scans a crowd, may see Low matter for a loftier mastery. He mounted upward on a porphyry stone, Where drank the herds, a tomb in ages gone : (Good sooth, for him that saying was, of old, That bad men search in sepulchres for gold,) And time-worn figures there you still might trace, That told, twice o'er, with melancholy grace, Broken and drilled, and dark with many a stain, How man for memory toils, and toils in vain. But wandering friars have a surer meed Than fame's pale phantom, to the dead decreed; And he from harm who sanctifies the swine, Ne'er need to look for honours more divine. Round come the swains, to banish blight and burn From man and beast, and of strange lands to learn, And relics touch which he has brought from them, And hear of Cairo and Jerusalem, And martyrs there who won their diadem. So stood the friar begirt, and thus he said, 14 FRA CIPOLLA. “My children dear, who ever have in dread The saints, and, mindful of your swelling store, Each year to blessed Anthony give more, And still his aid against the world implore ; The injurious world, that never gives but half • What conscience asks for gruntling or for calf, And with smooth cheats, and scrivening arts abhorred, Your gains would pilfer, and your thrift defraud; Lo, his poor vicar, I have come to ye, Whom most I ever loved, and joy to see. Oh yes, let others climb the marble stair, And gaze at purple that they gape to wear ; And the grave eyes of Popes and Princes meet, I walk below, the rather, in the street; For power and pride they play a changeful game, But my dear people ever is the same, And judges not, but takes the better part, Obedient counsels, and a reverent heart, Nor of unsated wishes knows the smart:- Unsated wishes, ah ! my children dear, That thought may lead far off, and night is here. I see your hearth-lights: Time is weary now, And fain would rest, like birds upon the bough, F.R.A. CIPOLLA. 15 And stretches o'er the world, sweet dreams to bring, With gliding shade his starry-spangled wing: Then go, whate'er his whisperings prompt obey; But I, on your behalf, must fast and pray. Whoe'er with me to-morrow shall behold The heavenly relic in this box of gold, The plume that once through all the exulting host The Archangel bore to earth, and then was lost, Until, our Italy to saints endeared, It with thy boast Loretto re-appeared: (Far it came floating o'er the Adrian sea, And heeded not the prayers of Rimini, Nor Fano, with the bishop at their head, Nor Senegaglia's hopes; but onward sped, Until it reached our Padua divine, And with its splendour lit the appointed shrine ;) For him, our patron who exalted made E’en the poor swine, wont in his steps to tread, As slow through Nature's adverse scale he rose, And knew at last a relic by the nose; For him, San "Tonio shall each care assuage, And war with all the devils straight engage: That swine remembering, for his own shall claim, I6 FR.A. CIPOLLA. Receive his offering, and inscribe his name. Fat be his farm, and fair and wise his spouse, Nor e'er a lawyer shall come near his house.” Oh treacherous speech, oh thought evoking words, That strike and know not half the answering chords, Nor where their sound shall vibrate far away, Nor what dark spirit shall the call obey; Amazed who ply them, oft in circles stand And wave their arms, a necromantic band, And rack their cunning vainly, to compel The shapes that answer to the shades of Hell; Not then such direful risk Cipolla ran, But he must strive at least with earthly man. For one was near, a boorish churl and rude With leathern looks that changed not with his mood, Dull from his birth, no faith inspired his brain, E’en superstition strove for him in vain, Dark is her night, but still with stars supplied— His darkness was a chaos or a void. Nor signs, nor power of holy church he knew, That changes hardest things, with heavenly dew, E’en hearts of men, and what can harder be, Or change more great than sin to sanctity, FR.A. CIPOLLA. 17 At things beyond him like an ape he mowed, And oft it passed for reverence with the crowd. A. muttering varlet from afar he came, Nor told Certaldo's households of his name; But turned the soft mould up, at little hire, In the long vineyards; and for winter fire The faggots bore, when on the arbute tree Hang the new frosts, and from the storm-vexed sea Come wailing clouds, and hurry round the moon, And wise men say it will be winter soon, And shake their heads, and reckon up the years, For all would be at times philosophers: E’en that false villain in whose elvish breast The mocking devil moved, and all would test ; Led by his prompting, softly crept the knave Through listening ranks that stood with souls to save, Light to the box his spider hand he stole, And took the feather out, and left a coal. The friar was gone: the cypress shadows fell Calm in the moonlight over wall and well; Few sounds along the scattered street were heard, Some wandering steps, some lattice faintly stirred; Tall seemed each figure lingering in the shade, ID 18 F.R.A. CIPOLLA, And o'er their heads the light bat flickering played : Like dreams he wings about his devious flight, Small herald of the people of the night; And they who see him follow far away To Fancy's realms, and love like him to play, And leave the world to plot, plan, reason, as it may. Up through the clouds he soars, and down again He plunges, faster than the falling rain; But not so fast as Cupid, when he flew To gain his Psyche through the aether blue ; And he the love-god's fluttering feet attended, But lagged behind or e'er the course was ended, And Cupid to the Thunderer's throne ascended. Then Juno to Love's cause compassion lent, And Ceres beautiful and provident, And strove, divinely pleading, to appease The angry daughter of the uncertain seas; In vain, till for the bride, at Jove's command, Sped Hermes graceful with his snaky wand; That sign supreme the mournful shades obey, The captive free, and speed her upward way : Hope stood to meet her, portress at the door, And, smiling, blessed the vase of beauty that she bore : FRA CIPOLLA. 19 E’en Venus came relenting to the feast, | And all the kindred gods the nuptials graced *. Those heavenly powers on high Olympus lived, And Homer sung their deeds, and Greeks believed. Gaze on that old man's head, now they are gone, As Phidias stamped it on enduring stone ; Their relics are the Iliad and the Odyssey, And the expounder of their code is he. . Now rose the sun, and shy and shamefaced night Fled downward from the intolerable light; 'Neath the broad earth to other stars she goes On twilight wings, and seeks her loved repose. Slow rise the dressers of the vineyard tree, And forth with hook in hand go silently, And silent yet the village seems to sleep They leave behind ; nor dogs their baying keep ; And one by one old crones unheeded creep To household tasks, that love nor thanks repay : And mules expect the bells that warn them for the way. | * Few perhaps resort to Apuleius for the fable of Cupid and Psyche, but there should be fewer still on whose memories it is not stamped by the frescos of Raphael, and Giulio Romano, or the works of Canova and Gibson. 20 FRA CIPOLLA. 'Tis sweet to wander and at eve behold Some sunlit city, loved and famed of old, And all its towers in purple light arrayed, And darker now, and reddening into shade. And sweet the rest at noontide, by the well For pilgrims hewn, where some old citadel Throws its long shadows o'er the road, and fills The winding passes of the hoary hills; Those heaped up hills, with many a deep ravine, And half hid village and its towers between, And white rock jutting from the shadows dun, Of rifted marble, glittering in the sun, Seen leagues around, the mountain Gonfalon. But glad Certaldo holier things may hear To-day, and therefore rests the muleteer ; And therefore maidens in their bowers are seen With braided hair and many a flower between ; Bright looked the blooms, by joyous hands arrayed, And like a nymph of Ceres every maid— And graver matrons the procession joined, And beldams old, that lagging limped behind ; A shadowy fatal sisterhood they came, And greeted none but beggars, and the lame : Halting, with these they ran an envious race, FRA CIPOLLA. 21 And gathered round the church, and filled the place; And alms they begged, but age hath little need, And saints come first in charitable creed; New risen, by his lamp Cipolla stood, And hid his jolly visage in a hood. A jovial man and potent did he feel, The bells were ringing in the Campanile, White gleamed its airy tower; there was no shade Save what the sky of deepest azure made, And that unacted something, half begun, The quick gay crowd, the freshness, and the sun, His heart-strings knit as doth a clarion, And down he came, and girt him with a cord For lowliness, lest men should call him lord. Then came the mass, the people thronged before, Pale grew Cipolla, as a poplar hoar That sudden turns his white arms to the wind And bows his top, and he his head inclined, And “Ah,” he said, “all night a weary time I past, until I heard the cock-crow chime. “Ye shall see yet that relic, when the leaf Falls on the spot where stood the gathered sheaf, And through the yellow mulberry trees appear 22 F.R.A. CIPOLLA. The purple hills, and I again am here Far traversing the land-slips and the streams; Ah see, my children, how for ever beams The Holy Catholic Faith, and keeps the round Of Martyrs, with a mystery profound, And now, for 'tis his vigil, bids ye kiss A coal, whose fiery spirit into bliss Bore great St. Lawrence, and no other share To day your offerings.”—Conscience-stricken there Stood the dull thief, and half believed, and kissed The coal with fervour passing all the rest, At which Cipolla smiled, and went his way With heavy scrip, and blest the happy day, And promised in the blue Autumnal weather To come once more, with the Angel Gabriel's feather. PROSERPINE. —(?– OH Proserpine, that in the paths of Dis Joyously once wert gathering wreaths and flowers, Feeding thy spirit with a maiden's bliss, Now art thou throned amid the infernal powers; The breathless air broods o'er thee, and the towers Loom dimly, girding Phlegython around: Before, quick coming from Elysian bowers Stands Mercury, and Hell's unnatural hound Awes with his look; but thou severer grown, Like a young Fate dost hear imperiously: And all about, a light, like that the moon, Thy mother loves, casts over Sicily, Gleams from thy presence through the brazen door, That shapes of Death go by for evermore. HELEN RETURNED TO THE HOUSE OF MENELAUS. — Q--— Now, Helen, from the funeral roofs of Troy, The crashing domes of Priam, art thou come, Again thou seest him, to whom thy joy Was like the morning, in thine early home, Again, but not a captive's is thy doom, Led hither by the conquering Grecian spear, Bright flowers adorn thine unforgotten loom, And he, whose battle Jumo waged, is near, Great Menelaus—on thy beauty still He looks—’tis soft and pensive as a star, For memory dwells with thee, bereft of ill By that deep potion Polydamna far In Egypt gave;—Oh queen, whom wrath and bale Fly like a goddess, Argive Helen hail. AMPHION. AMPHION old, that with thine harmony As poets sing, didst build the Theban wall; How of that tale the deep reality Grows on my thought—great deeds are musical; And ever to the concert of the spheres They soar aloft, and thence our being sway, Heard through the night of time: lo! to whose ears Their voices come, whose spirits listen may, And thrill with lyric inspiration, they Rear up like thee the landmarks of the world. Jove was thy sire, but he whom chords obey Cyllenian Hermes, on the dewy-pearled Cithaeron gave the lyre; by thee away Lashed to a bull was jealous Dirce hurled. TIBERIUS. LIKE a dark shadow from a column cast Above some desecrate temple-site, I saw A vision, and a voice said low with awe, “This was Tiberius !” fearfully it past By Sarno's windings and the tremulous shore, Whence the dread Mountain's subterranean blast Shakes Prochyta and Capri: evermore Shone out Canopus o'er his haunted isle; But when memorial night grew wan and hoar, And stars were pale, and to the harbour pile Came busy lights with slowly gliding ray, Deep in the earth that spirit sunk away; Only the opposite peaks' volcanic glare, And the grey morning on the sea was there. JOTHAM'S FABLE. FROM THE BOOK OF JUDGES, CHAP. IX. -º-º- HEAR ye a fable of old, a tale of the Mount Gerizim. Trouble came to the trees, a dream to the murmuring forest : “Who shall be king,” they said, “the lord of the shades and the branches 3" And they chose the olive first, but the olive answered, “I pray ye, Why should I leave my fatness, wandering hither and thither, To be the lord of the trees; I, joy of the temple corners?” “Then come, sweet fig,” they cried, “for thine shall be the dominion.” But the fig-tree made reply, “My lot is cast in a border Sunny and fair to behold, I seek not the name of a ruler.” And they stooped their heads to the vine, “Oh queen of the beautiful clusters, 28 JOTHAM'S FABLE. Twine thy tendrils around us, and all our kind shall - obey thee.” But she laughed from a cup of gold; and said, “My throne is the wine-press, Why should I dwell with ye, whom God and man have adopted ?” Then they turned to the bramble, and hailed him with all their voices; “Hal” said the earth-born knave, with a sharp and emulous accent, “If ye anoint me king, see that ye trust in my shadow.” So did the bramble reign, the lord of the oaks and the cedars. IN THE PALAZZO DEL TE. MANTUA. —3– I GAME into a strange and silent room In a deserted palace; many a day Had those who reared it, in the dusty tomb Past from their musical bright name away; Leaving old solitary stones to say “I was Gonzaga :” yet the scene remains For them that Giulio painted; well he may Who comes from northern climes and Gothic fanes Stand there amazed, for from the peopled wall Look forth, as on their heaving battle-plains The thunder-smitten Titans: chief of all One I remember, on his new-fixed chains Glaring amid the earthquake, in his fall As who the conqueror hates, himself disdains. FROM A PICTURE, BY NICOLO POUSSIN. —º- THERE were two Satyrs 'neath a trailing vine, And one his pipe did touch melodiously ; But old Silenus on a twisted line Of branches swung, keeping in jeopardy The sweet song and the music all divine : Grey was his beard, how otherwise should't be With an old warrior who doth mind the day When Bacchus thundered over Asia ; Purple his visage, of autumnal hue, And well he knoweth all the gifts of wine: Wine that the fair nymph Nysa loveth too : And from her chalice, on the green hill's side, Pours to the hairy cloven-footed crew, That with their dances wake the echoes wide. TERRACINA. —$— THE black waves come in lashing the old walls, The shipless harbour from the shipless sea; The dreary wind sinks down at intervals, Winter is here, and yet it spring should be, Chasing the snows with sweet regality, And the wild hills enamelling with flowers, That now the myrtle sere and pallidly Turning its branches from the salt spray-showers Reigns o'er alone : On yon deserted towers An aloe grows, but its tall bloom is dead, Deep in his chink the bright green lizard cowers, Sunshiny elf, and fears the stranger's tread F: Rolling the loose stones down the steep, but he Loves thee, quaint creature, and thy watchful head. KING OTHO'S CHAPEL. —4-— WHo sees a chapel by the highway side, Where meet Bavarian lines with the Tyrol, And Einach's streams to neighbouring Kufstein glide, Not for its beauty only, to the knoll Whose slope it crowns, should turn considerately: Of hope and sorrow there was once the goal; 'Twas built for Otho, when across the sea A sceptre grasping, with a weakling hand, (Not such as in his Norman mastery Great Godfrey wielded) of his Fatherland On that same spot, he left the sacred earth; With many an envoy going strangely forth To old Minerva’s town. Lo! Memory Looking each way like Janus, there doth stand. THE * FRIAR AND THE ASS.” —-º'- The story is founded on an old Italian novel called “Novella di Gianni Andato al Bosco, a far legno.” * Io diró cosa incredibile evera.--DANTE, SoFT his low banks where sleepy Mincio laves, Worn with the strife of Guarda's stormy waves; And hills by poets loved, and many a town Unfading beauty blend with old renown, And still thine empire keep, oh Italy, Which was, and is, and evermore shall be, There dwelt, tradition thus preserves the tale, A simple peasant in a quiet vale. He knew but one condition from his birth, To toil, sole guerdon of the sons of earth; And tilled his scanty fields with little care, Want stood aloof, though plenty came not there ; F. 34 THE • * FRIAR AND THE ASS.” Yet still for holytides he kept a hoard To mark the day, and grace his frugal board, For of the saints, and tales of Saintly lore, Great was his love, and growing still his store. Hard by his home an ancient wood o'erspread The vale, divided by a river's bed, That through its depths with melancholy tone Swept on, by curling mists at evening shewn, Grateful its shade, when summer's moontide glare Blent wave and mountain with the dazzling air, When his white robes had winter stern arrayed, Its shelter warm, and grateful still its shade, There with his ass of much-enduring mood, Faggots he cut, and logs for fuel hewed; And cheered poor Sancho with a hearty thwack, When he heaped up the billets on his back, Yet still his path along the outskirts kept, Or open dingles, where the sunbeams slept, Nor ever had he wandered farther in Through the thick brakes that looked as black as sin, He feared each long and sombre avenue, The haunt of goblin grim, or loup-garou, For all around was nothing to be seen But thick-set branches, clothed in dismal green, THE * FRIAR AND THE ASS.” 35 Nor birds were there, but ravens dark and rooks, And moping owls in Solitary nooks, Nor beasts, save wandering hogs, that sought for mast, And oft he crossed himself if they came past, For into swine he knew that devils once were cast. It chanced one morning as to work he hied, A distant tower unseen before he spied ; For the wild winter's wind a gap had made, And heavy snows on brittle pines that laid, And a new vista to the sight displayed. At first he paused, and thought of goblin tricks, But plucked up courage at the crucifix That glittered clearly in the frosty air, And showed the house of holy men was there; Then with adventurous spirit brave and bold, He sung three aves, and his beads he told, And set forth towards this new discovery, But tied his trusty ass beneath a tree. Just then two friars came slowly up the road With sturdy backs, that bowed beneath their load, For mendicants they were, who all around, Begged alms, with good St. Francis' girdle bound, And fitting was it, so they preached and said, That all the neighbourhood should give them bread, Who for the sins of all, so sore their saint bestead; 36 THE “FRIAR AND THE ASS.” So round they went, and took their tithe in kind, Sure proof of godliness, and willing mind; And still by all 'twas ready to be paid, Whate'er they asked, by matron and by maid; For them poor Chanticleer forsook his post, His cheerful voice, the village clock, was lost; But 'twas no matter, for the convent tower Far o'er the hills, could still proclaim the hour; For them the earliest salads of the year, And ripest fruits the peasant strove to rear, And maize from off the terraced mountain's brow, And sweetest cheeses from his only cow ; And they with holy words repaid the gift, And absolution gave, and pious shrift, And built up many a chapel for their saint By the road side, lest zeal and grace should faint. Which oft they visited in long array, As circling months brought round a solemn day. Of these good brethren the quicker one Espied the ass, his name was Friar John; For gibes and jests, in convent walls renowned, Abroad the readiest at invention found, Short scraps of prayers he knew, and half the creed, And stoutly chanted, though he ne'er could read; TIIE * * FRIAR, AND THE ASS.” 37 But most he shone in 'suasive eloquence, And thus appeased the Prior for light offence; No geese or poultry could his suit resist, Their owners gave them, or they soon were missed; And loss and murrain, sure they justly bought, Who gave not alms, or grudged St. Francis aught. “Gramercy,” quoth he, “but our shoulders’ load On that pack-saddle were as well bestowed; 'Tis a plain sin to slight the saint's decree Who sent the ass, and tied him to the tree, Patient his servants' due approach to wait, Then drive him burthened to the convent gate; But first put on this halter round my head, I’ll remain here a little in his stead.”. His fellow stared, and wondered what came next, So new the sermon, though so old the text, And loitered: “Hence,” again he cried, “begone, I too shall follow with to-morrow's sun; But tell the Prior a fever in the plain O'ertook me toiling for the convent's gain, And the good peasant, in whose house I rest Bade thee go on, and answer for his guest, And gave, lest like again should come to pass, And holy men o'er-laboured be, his ass, So may he be remembered in the mass.” 38 THE * * FRIAR AND THE ASS.” Back came the woodman, and the monk was gone, So was his ass, but there was Friar John, Erect with saintly garb, and shaven brow, In the same place, where he the beast but now Had left, and tethered to the self same bough; Backward he started with a chilling fear, And thought some spirit of the wood was near ! Scarce could he stammer, Benedicite, His tongue seemed shrivelled, and his sense to flee, His trembling fingers strove to sign the cross, But strove in vain, and wandered at a loss; What still at starlit dawn, or twilight grey He feared to meet with, on his lonely way : What by his fire, when nights were drear and cold He heard, long howling on the wint'ry wold; That viewless presence, which the awful shade Of the dim forest to his thought conveyed, And every tree that murmured o'er his head Its cadence, seemed to summon from the dead. There stood the very fiend before his sight, Tall, dark, and silent in the fading light, And froze his veins, and palsied een his flight: Then thus the Friar :—“Cease your fear, my son, Nor tremble holy things to look upon ; TIIE * * FRIAR AND THE ASS,” 39 No ghost or goblin can this garb assume, Nor restless spirit, from unsainted tomb, Of flesh and blood am I, though just restored To my old shape, for which be Heaven adored : And you, who quiver there, were long my lord: Behold the fruits of pride and gluttony, And shun them both, or fear to follow me: For I all this, who sinfully forgot, To a vile ass was changed;—and ’twas my lot, As well thou knowest,-many a blow to bear ! How hard my burdens, and what scanty fare, As once, of all our house, the only one, Dainties profane, my heart was set upon, Nor vigils kept, nor fasts, but only tried, With outward show, the rotten core to hide. Down to a beast, I fell, but still prevailed My guardian spirit, for so sharply hailed Oft on my back that stick, which well I know, So shrewd its summons, and so sharp its blow ; So coarse my thistles, and so galled my skin, My legs so weary, and my sides so thin, That the blest company of saints above, Who wore this girdle, for St. Francis' love, Joint intercession made, my sentence to remove. 40 THE • * FRIAR, AND THE ASS.” “Again I come, once more a man on earth Absolved from sin, of grace though little worth; And my long days of degradation seem t Like the dim shadows of a troublous dream, That daylight strives to banish, yet remain In memory fixed, and dog the weary brain: And still this halter seems as 'twere a link To drag me o'er the precipice's brink. Untie me, then, for Christian charity, And once, my master, set thy servant free Then a poor pilgrim, at our founder's shrine, Refuge I’ll seek, and bless the powers divine ! Henceforth may peaceful days, and holy thoughts be mine.” Long stood the peasant in a corner pent, And heard the words, scarce knowing what they meant; And then, with trembling hand, untied the rope, And beating heart, that hardly dared to hope, Till by degrees composed, and re-assured, He ‘gan to think of all his ass endured; 'Twere long to tell the apologies he made,- What saints invoked, or to what martyrs prayed; Or how besought the Friar, at least to deign With him that night in shelter to remain ; THE • * FRIAR, AND THE ASS.” 41 And pass we, too, the frugal cottage feast, How round the fire, each feared to grow a beast. His wife and daughter, and his grandsire old, That wond’rous story when their guest had told, How restless memory raked up every sin, And conscience pricked their simple souls within And he in turns awoke, and soothed their dread : But to the cheer looked most, and hugely fed, Till came the hour of rest with sudden pace, And for repose each sought their destined place. But oft in bed with sleepless eyes they turned, And looked where yet the embers dimly burned, And thrilled to hear the watch-dog's lazy howl, And shrunk in terror from the whooping owl ; For darkness thus to wonder lent her aid, And filled with awe the superstitious shade; Discordant thoughts their fevered fancies bring, The ass of Balaam, and the Assyrian king. At last to dreams confused their terrors glide, And kind oblivion comes, that dreary train to hide. But now the night was past, the dappled dawn Stole o'er the woods, and streaked with light the lawn. At the pale moon, the mastiff ceased to bay : The clamorous rooks went wheeling on their way; G 42 THE * * FRIAR AND THE ASS.” Flown from their perch the cocks crew loud and shrill; The dew shone brightly, and the wind was chill; Already sought the Monk his convent-door, But left his dreaming hosts an hour before. Strange was his tale, and wild the mystery, Long o'er their hearts its shadows dark shall be, And the grey convent, with its portal tall, And sombre towers, and solitary wall, And the faint echo of its pealing choir Heard through the gate, shall solemn fear inspire ; For there, thus busy rumour through the dale Plies wondering peasants with her ghostly tale; For there he daily pours his orisons Who once was man, and beast of burden once ; There prays that saintly father in his cell, Saint though he was, to Satan's jaws who fell ! Oh! there in sooth is Sancho hid beside, To a low pillar, by the chapel, tied, Hard by a quaint old alabaster pile Throws its long shadows o'er the lonely aisle; And he who sleeps beneath it with his sword, Once of these towers was hailed the feudal lord ; And great the largess to the church he gave On death-bed laid, his sinful soul to save TITE • * FRIAR, AND TITE ASS.” 43 Now by his tomb, long reft of all its brass, One monk, at midnight, chants a sleepy mass : But who the knight, for whom he prays repose, Scant is his care, perchance the Prior knows, Or tomes can tell, their statutes that enclose. There Sancho waits, within the cloistered court, And crops its weeds, of fate foredoomed the sport Hard fate, yet harder than the marble stones, On which he rolls and turns his weary bones' FRESH blow the breezes from the blue Tyrol, Down many a grassy slope and flowery knoll, And bright green vineyards, which the fisher sees In Guarda's mirror twined with mulberry-trees, When down from Riva's mountain-shadowed shore, Or Scarca's streams he plies with sail or oar. Fresh blow the breezes, with untiring wing, From Alp to plain, and all their voices bring, From the drear regions of storm-drifted snow, And gloomy forests, murmuring far below, From the deep valley, which the sturdy steer Ploughs with slow step, or where the muleteer 44 THE • * FRIAR, AND THE ASS.” By craggy paths descending, hails the vine Promise of rest, and cheers his patient line, The cloud born torrent's wild and ceaseless swell, The wood's long whisper, and the tinkling bell Far up among those solitudes, the note Of roaming heifer, or of browsing goat, The hunter's challenge, or the herdsman's horn From crag to crag by bounding echo borne, Or sullen accents of some castle clock That warns the warder on embattled rock ; With mingling sounds float far the heavens through, Where faint the old, the wild wind gathers new, And now it eddies round a little town Girt with green hills, and streamlets gushing down From cleft and gully in the mountains high, In rock strewn channels swiftly racing by, And in the midst there stands a market-place, No pompous building, yet Italian grace Can simple forms for use alone refine, And please each peasant with its pure design. 'Twas this that reared for shelter and for shade The lengthening vista of that cool arcade, And carved above the windows fair to see With scroll-wreathed arch, and crowning Fleur-de-lis; THE • FRIAR AND THE ASS.” 45 'Twas this that fount its classic air that gave And scooped the marble for the sparkling wave, And where the ample vase its jet receives The margin twined with lotus-imaged leaves; No sculptured figures deck yon modest gate, Nor laureate lines imperial guests relate, Nor yet that word * by faction still profaned In cities proud, though better there maintained ; Gigantic blocks its rough hewn front compose, With quiet grandeur meeting friends or foes, Open without a sentinel it stands And a long line of level road commands. And now along that poplar shaded way Come young and old, and rich and poor to-day, For this the morrow of St. Julian's fair When hither make the neighbourhood repair ; Glad time by wandering minstrel gaily sought, For present joy, and food for future thought ; By many a maid anticipated long, Then shall she join the revel and the song; By thrifty burghers reckoned oft and well, Then pence may turn, and crowns to ducats swell. * Libertas. 46 TIIE * : FRIAR AND THE ASS.” Together mixed they throng from every side, Pour through the streets, and fill the market wide, There gathering groups contentious struggles wage To hear the Merry-Andrew on his stage, There lowing cattle their green pastures mourn, Unconscious victims, never to return ; And by that pillar stands a crop-eared ass, And with sonorous jaws salutes the crowd who pass. The silk-worm spinning on his mulberry tree, Feasts on the leaves, in roses hums the bee: The bright bird flutters in the summer fruit, And trills glad carols, till the winds are mute, As if they listed to a spirit nigh Of sunshine born, some Ariel of the sky; But the plain peasant who his profit sees In silken produce from his wasted trees, And reared those flowers to tempt the honey bees; Who rests attentive in the evening air, Nor stirs one step the wild bird's song to scare, Well with that minstrel pleased his grapes to share Sometimes but scantly gives, and grudges sore The daily drone, still begging at his door, And lest through this dissent and heresy Should come to pass, as wont too oft to be, THE • FRIAR AND THIE ASS.” 47 And one bad sheep should poison all the plains, Strict is the law St. Francis' rule ordains. And fair without the convent needs must show, And in poor guise its humble brethren go, For men might think their tale a lazy farce Who begging went with panniers, and an ass. Thus Sancho came rejected to the fair, Long his old master stood, and eyed him there, And listened to his voice, and scanned him o'er, And wondered, doubted, little, less, no more, Then in a sudden passion thus he stormed, “Oh, sordid wretch, a second time transformed, Whom saints nor angels have from sin released, Northy dark foretaste with thy fellow beasts, Nor fasts nor vigils in yon holy fame, Nor vows nor warning ever made in vain; Who in thy cell so well hast used the time, As now to bear a second load of crime, From that vile purgatory scarcely free, Sure 'tis thy fate that sends thee here to me, And this same stick that served thee well of old, Again must bring thee back to speech and human mould. Nay, never shake thy head, nor yet deny, The devil fails thee in so foul a lie, 48 THE “ FRIAR, AND TITE ASS,” Nor look with sidelong eyes, and backward ears, For every kick thou shalt repay with tears.” By this, around them grew the jeering crowd, For strange their gestures, and their converse loud; The affrighted ass, who all this lecture heard, Still shook his head, nor understood a word; The woodman stamped, and Sancho 'gan to bray, He clutched his staff, but first was forced to pay; Then having bought his own, he led him home, And gave him earnest of the time to come; And oft, and sore the shrinking beast must feel How sharply fall thy blows, oh, soul-compelling zeal. The time to come, alas, a little time ! No more the ass can into man sublime ; Vain as Medea's smoky crucible Old Pelia's limbs to nerve, the cudgel fell, As the fond wishes of that sister train Who stood around, the peasant's hopes were vain, Broken and poor, in pale October's sun, He looked already as his race were run, And still he knew nor respite nor repose, His weal to work, redoubled were his blows; THE • * FRIAR AND THIE ASS.” 49 But when November came with cloudy blast, One icy morn his master stood aghast, For there lay Sancho 'neath his roofless shed, Frozen, and stark, and famished, stiff and dead. And he must mourn for ever, for the soul Of sinful friar, past his mortal goal In beastly form, by holy Church unshriven, Outcast of earth, unchanged and unforgiven The friar in convent hidden safely bides, And hapless Sancho's fate with subtle smile derides. THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. HOW THREE REVELLERS WENT TO FIND DEATH, AND HOW THEY FOUND HIM. --O- Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary Bring the strong pois0n that I bought of him. SECOND PART OF KING HENRY WI. WHo tells old tales, and with the purple wine Warms his hoar forehead, calling out, Divine Beautiful Bacchus, and God Mercury, And Venus, daughter of the choral sea, That 'gainst the land deep melodies doth make In the pale moonshine when the forests shake, Bowed by the north wind toward the leaping waves? Who calls great poets from their haunted graves, Around the living still the spells to throw That in their hearts men treasured long ago? 'Tis thou, old Winter. Come—thou comest soon With wizard mantle, for thy crescent moon Shines like a flame behind the chesnut bare, Whose black boughs shiver in the whistling air. THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. 51 To Mary mother beauty's songs may rise, And charm the angry spirit of the skies, That o'er the seas the shipman safe may sail, O'er all those liquid accents should prevail. But I will tell a wild and tragic story Again, with which the father and the glory Of Albion's verse his famous pilgrimage To Canterbury sped, where many an age Down to the dust of that Archbishop bent High mind, and lowly, with the same consent, The Pardoner told it, onward as they went. An antique legend of thy days of pride 'Tis now, fair Bruges, in the horizon wide Far, by thy tower of mariners descried. But they go gliding on their airy track To Baltic shores and Danish Skagerack. Or where the Dutchman from his wave-lashed piles To Helder looks, and Texel’s sandy isles, And hails his convoy, that with canvass free Breasts the long swell of rolling Zuyder Zee, And memory's filmy pall hangs idly over thee. But when thy streets to gathering earth displayed The pomp of arms and lustiness of trade, 52 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. And thronged the stranger merchants in thy squares, And spoke thy speech, and still thy gates were theirs, And in thy port was clustered many a prow, * By pier and tower so solitary now; Then sat three revellers, where a golden pard, Emblem of riot”, seemed its haunts to guard. Noontide and night they sat, and when for prime The yawning verger slowly wakes the chime, And scared the grave old burghers with their fray, Who slow to matins went, and chaffered by the way. Oft by the door where sleep had never been Danced a lone girl, and twirled her tambourine, And shook pale roses from her scattered hair Like hopes forgot, and none replaced them there. Oft stood the gipsy 'neath the morning star And looked like priestess of pale Lucifer. But happier maidens with averted eye Sped the rude haunt of losel lingerers by, On where the Dome its bird-loved steeple rears, And cleaves the air as glory cleaves the years, With hurrying steps they passed, and joyed to gain The open space that guards the holy fane, erº-ºº-ºº * See Dante's Inferno, Canto 1st, THE STRATEGY OF DEATH, 53 And scent its lime trees in the wandering wind, And leave the noisy narrow street behind. Oh pure as light their orisons arose That breathes at dawning on the earth's repose, When flowers awake, and birds are singing shrill At airy distance, o'er the highest hill. But far from these, by gilded palisade Fenced from the aisle, one day a grave was made, For one was coming, whom his florins' grace Had gained within a knightly resting-place, And honour, neath oblivion's nodding plume; There's many a changeling memory on a tomb. And when with long procession and with dole, And priests with burly gait, that for the soul Of their beloved brother lustily Sang hymns, the pomp those wassailers came by, And through the hostel rang the tinkling bell: “Go forth Sir Tun, and look thou answer well,” Thus cried they, “whom they carry in the street.” Quoth the tall host, and looked down on his feet, And up at the black rafters, as he drew A troubled sigh, “Too well, alas ! ye knew His name and him, a comrade old and true. 54 TITE STRATEGY OF DEATH, But when lean dogs were howling yesternight, And doors were barred, and stars were shining bright, And played the moonlight, like a spirit lone Down the long street, and all its crowds were gone, There came a felon dark that haunts these ways And in this country all the people slays, And none can see him with his biting spear, But still they shout, and shudder, Death is here !— And there is nothing—save a cold pale form— And wailing women and the funeral worm ; And so he smote yon gallant, as he sat Full feasted, with a feather in his hat. There was an end of drinking song I trow, And the grey monks may bear his body now ; And hark, the Miserere low they sing. But yesterday he revelled as a king, Lo now he goeth like a Lazarus”, With bell before him to his narrow house— Alas! my masters, ye may rail and jeer, When conscience wakes, ’tis evil reckoning here. Aye, and 'twere better 'gainst this pestilence Our peace to patch, for not an hour hence, Thus Shalt thou go begging from houso to house, With cuppe and clapper like a Lazarous. TESTAMENT OF CRESEIDE TIII, STRATEGY OF DEATII. 55 God wot, he dwelleth like the Gadarene In a waste place, that hath a village been ; A Charnel now.”—But up with one accord These madmen sprung, and stamped upon the board: “What, dost thou tell us of a murdering thief, And think to shield him with a priest's belief, And bid us from his coming shrink and fly Stand back,” they shouted. “Warlet—we defy Him whom thou palterest of this traitor, Death ! And we will seek him over holt and heath, And in his ribs our thirsty daggers sheath; And of his black blood thou shalt see the stain On their sharp points, when here we drink again l’ Pale grew the host, and followed to the door; Men thought that he was cheated of his score, And wondered why with shaded eyes he stood, And watched their flight in visionary mood. Scarce dies the echo of their mad career, Yet ring their wild words in his startled ear;— But they are gone Why stand like Terminus With a blank visage, Vintner, gazing thus? Without the town, beside a grassy mead, Where willows shade the cattle as they feed, 56 THE STRATEGY OF DEATII. And creeps the crouching fowler on his knees Through scented clover round the fallen trees, And, all unconscious of his treachery, The partridge cowers, as carts go creaking by, There sat an old man, looking at the smoke From a grey tower in lazy wreaths that broke. Idly he seemed to look; but in his mind Were pilgrim thoughts, that many a shrine could find E’en in that simple scene;—the village road, The cheerful green leaves, and the stork's abode High on the roof, such roof as Rubens drew, Or Teniers shadowed with aerial hue, And girt with feathery trees, that light falls through On coigne and turret, of Time's stealthy foot Long worn, but thither like a funeral mute He comes, with nodding panoply arrayed, And bears the shield aloft, and warrior blade, And hangs it up on some high monument. There sat the old man, on his dreams intent; And forward on his staff to meet the sunshine leant. But when this brotherhood, like a band of thieves That lurk by Moësel, with its rocks and leaves, THE STRATEGY OF DEATII. 57 And oft the quiet scattered hamlets scare, Came by the place, and saw him sitting there, a “Ha ! what art thou?” with sudden start they cried ; “Stand up, and tell us what dost here abide With that foul visage, like a corbel head Fixed in a church, that seems to watch the dead, Why livest on, all stony thus and cold 3’” Full in their faces look'd the beadsman old, Full in their faces, on a winter night, As a keen planet, with its steady light, Far Saturn, that on shrews doth sorrow cast, Looked the old man, and thus he spoke at last— “What if I said, because, although I went, Staff-borne and slow, to Ardennes or to Ghent, By fair or forest none would change with me His youth, and age my portion yet must be, And lonely now along the world to roam, And muse what Death may be when he shall come, And call me whither wander or repose Kin, children, friends, and all that memory knows:– What if I said, my hovel dark and small Beats back my heart's blood with its chilly wall, And fain I’d see the sun ; but fainer far Rest 'neath the turf where yonder lilies are. I 58 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. Ill suits such counsel with the Gascon grape, And wit that sits in mocking mouths agape ; Speed ye, fair sirs.” “And thinkest thus to fly, Thou false old villain with a goblin eye Watchest for Death ? Aye, thou art his espy. There moves no life-blood in thy felon face, That scowls like Judas at our kindly race; Long are thine arms, and devilish they seem, I saw thee yester-even in a dream. But now thy guile shall have a fitting end, And his own slave betray thy master fiend. He sits in ambush with his venomed bow, But thou the spot, old double traitor, show ; For we revenge our brothers he hath slain.” “Nay, sirs,” the old man calm replied again, “If Death ye seek, dwells he not every where, As present and as common as the air : But who from his all compassing abode Would call him, as the lightning from the cloud, And with him in his shadow battle wage? Marry the world grows valiant in its age The Egyptian sorcerers than this did less, And Endor's king-subduing prophetess, They called the dead, that came not at their call, THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. 59 Save the dread shape that froze the veins of Saul, Ye Death himself, the victor over all. Rnow ye whence comes and whither goes the wind In the black forest, howling deep behind, Say can ye see it, when the crashing trees Fall down, and scatter from their combs the bees, And on it goes, at evening hovering round, Old towers and gates, with lamentable sound? They say that ghosts walk then, sad multitude And he compels them where they laughed and wooed, And built, but viewless doth he hurry past, - And frights the living with the moaning blast. Yet seek, he shall appear. In yonder grove, . Who dare the challenge there may find his glove. God speed the right ! Messires, fare as ye may, I go in peace, self-bidden ye to fray.” Calm as a shadow on his lonely path He went ; but they, as who a devil hath, Shouted and leapt ; and ever as they ran, Fenced at the thin air, that with gentle fan Curled the long rye-grass on the banks, and made A soft low murmur in each dusky glade, 60 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. And mingled with the booming of the sea, That on the grey Dunes’ dark and heavily Came rolling, and the solitary sands, Where watching for a sail the pilot stands. The place behold it was a thorny wood, Close by a moor, where sullen waters stood: There lurked the boar unheeded through the year, Nor dwelling rose nor church-bell sounded near, Nor woodman wandered in the paths, nor piled His charcoal hearths, long blackening in the wild; Grim looked the shatter'd trees with damp defiled. E’en as that king, condemn’d seven years to crawl And gaze with beasts at Babel's lofty wall, Who scorned the world might fitly there converse With baser things, pride's everlasting curse ; And with dark shadows all encompass'd sit, And feed with dreams his melancholy wit, Still rooted like a mandrake in the place, Till witches might believe him of the race Of Hecate, watching with malignant mien Her favourite bounds, and, save by them, unseen. # The line of low broken Sandhills on the Flemish coast is so called. THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. 6] But there was nothing then save trees and fern, And wavering shades that restless beasts discern, And start and tremble, and towards the plain Scour with swift feet, and stand and gaze again, As if their blood, long since at altars shed, Still feared by kind some spirit of the dead, And shrunk before the thirsty Manes dread. There went a murmur through the dreary wood, As 'twere the spirit of its solitude, All Sad and sudden to their ears it flew, And sprung to meet them as they nearer drew; But there are now in groves no auguries, All idly whisper on the shivering trees. And long they pierced the deepening gloom in vain, And wearied Echo gave their shouts again; Scared like a fawn, she leapt from side to side, And mid the many stems their voices multiplied. Why sinks the clamour, on a sudden mute? Why glare their eyes on each arrested foot Is Death turned serpent, that his yellow fold, Coil upon coil in massive order rolled, His ruby gleaming eyes, his scales of fiery gold : 'Twas gold, 'twas ruby, many an Eastern gem, 62 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. The crows might see it shining, but to them The sticks around were better worth, and they Had left it there, unheeded as it lay; High circling in the air they wheeled above, And flapped her heavy wings the startled dove; The owl looked out from his ancestral yew, Clear as a topaz shone his great eyes through, Why for that heap, thought he, so much ado? But, gold, thou knowest o'er the human heart Thy sway to keep, and playest well thy part ; Thou art the merchant, and the world thy mart. And there thou buyest love and ancient ties; Like evening shadows pale and wan they rise, And dull oblivion's night assumes the skies. Lo through its depths with ever-changing face Looks Mammon down, and rules the worldly race; All crowd his form to interpret and to see, And pass the science of the old Chaldee. To some all glorious as the stars he seems, Pomp swells their hearts and pride inspires their dreams; Some mark his sticks and dog, and clouted shoon, And love that frugal old man of the moon; Some with inventive mind see other signs, And each his fortune curiously divines. THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. 63 So stood, of Death forgetful, all the three, And watched the heap in silent reverie; Their heads were dizzy and their hearts were full, It was so mighty and so beautiful, Till one began:-" Wake up, and dream no more! Play out the play; 'tis time when that is o'er, Then may ye sit on dais or in hall, And bid the Bishop to your festival, Or hear sweet voices in a silken bower, Or in the council speak against the hour, And men shall cry out, “Well said, worthy peer— “False knave, art mutt'ring? and his lordship here ! “Who saith this noble was a dicer base?” Aye, but between us and such gentle grace Stands Fortune with a veil, and points afar To the pale east, and waits her coming star. O sovereignºlady in the stilly night, When malice snores, and law's unresting spite Dreams, be it, so in sleep, of trap and gin To snare thy votaries, doth thine hour begin. Then may we bear the treasure safe away And live like imps of thine each coming day. But now the sun, broad and inquisitive, Glows o'er the paths, and buzzing insects live 64 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. That sting into the quick. The debtors cling To prison bars, in sunshine gathering, And bailiffs watch like shepherds o'er the fold. Short shrift betides us, if they see the gold. Then here we'll wait, and to the pale moonshine Pour the rich flood, as saith the book, of wine. This is thy court, and revel we will keep, Till toil's hard-handed fools are fast asleep.” Then quick the hemlocks round a goblin ring * They cut for lots, and drew who wine should bring. Firm seemed their fellowship, nor like to part, But each had other counsel in his heart, And for his brother's wheat the tare forecast. The reeds were hid. Who drew the longest was the last. “Ave Maria, l’ quoth he as he went, “Had I those florins, how I might repent Now to the devil's service I am sold, To buy his fetters I have spent my gold, And still must pay his usury with sin: Foul bond but then anew I might begin, And I for thee a stately shrine could build, And the tall columns of the altar gild, * The green sour ringlets Whereof the Ewe not bites. TEMPEST, Act 5th. THE STRATEGY OF DEATII, 65 And hire a holy man to shrive my soul. Why share with yonder thieves, when I can have the whole?” “No need of discord and uncivil strife,” (For he was downward looking at his knife,) The fiend, who lured him, as with mantle red Men lure the adder, softly whispering said— “They brawl in taverns, and for fortune's son 'Twere well the manner and the place to shun, For wine, good store, or Rhenish be’t or Clary, There is none better than the Apothecary.” So went he, dwelling in a museful vein On wine and sins, and shrift and sudden gain ; And then as sudden found him at the town, And cleared his looks and drew his mantle down. And as he passed a reliquary kissed, And in a cloister found the sage of whom he wist. Hard was his look, and sad and saturnine, As if beyond his power he would divine, And pushed insatiate his searching art Through nature's mazes with an iron heart. Of crystal made, a visor oft he wore, When he upon his crucibles would pore, IC 66 THE STRATEGY OF DEATHL. So quick the fumes flew off of poisonous evil, And rose invisibly, as doth the devil, Smooth and impenetrable as that he was, But ready still with all who came to glose. He could predict, they said, and fortunes tell, But they knew best who tried it if 'twere well. Yet sold he wine that gladdens every heart, And drops balsamic for the dagger's smart, And juice of herbs medicinally good, And leaves distilled, the simples of the wood; And rats he could for friends' and neighbours' bane, He said not how, they never came again. Strife waged he none, and with the notary Kept league, that still 'twixt learned men should be. But these between, while sped the cunning speech, That told how red the wine should be and rich, And coldly smiled that serviceable man As down the flask the precious liquor ran, There was another plot within the wood— Invisible was Death, but near he stood ; And he smiled too, it went so lovingly, As the red sunset glinted through the tree, THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. 67 There lay the heap, with shadow overspread, There sat its keepers, each with bending head, And with a smooth assent heard what the other said. But time tries concord, as in winter weather Jar the crack'd bells, and chime no more together: Wrath looks the burgomaster at the clock, And thinks his worship it doth basely mock, But still with harsh and hollow clang it calls, And crones bode evil to the echoing walls. 'Twas evil then, for back the poisoner came, And they to meet him as in friendly game Sprung up: “Than never better late,” they cried, And with it dealt the stroke, and straight he died. Right out his soul that stunning fiery blow Sent forth to realms obscure, where spirits go. And they the bottles caught and wasted not, A blood-red stain their wicker case had got, And then all reckless to their revel past; Deeply they drank and many a main they cast: Of their last day the minutes fleeted fast. Trear through the shades the cold brook bubbled on, The wind swept hoarsely o'er the darkened lawn, They strove to rise, but all their power was gone. 68 THE STRATEGY OF DEATH. Rise up ! thy mistress doth expect thee now, Bear off the gold; why linger 'neath the bough Dull falls the rain;–is this a gallant's trim ; With mouth distorted, leaden eyes and grim; Ye sought for Death,--what! have ye met with him? What I did he rise before your troubled sight, Like vengeful ghost that comethin the night, Or Ghoul, that murder scents afar, and stands By fresh-made hillocks in Arabian lands? They knew not ; pain and fear, that sudden sprung Like the cold wind, and parched each shivering tongue, And, every thought with visions dread confused, * Slow dragged their souls away, and limbs unloosed. Pale with their heads to earth, as if to shun Some phantom shape they lay, and all was done. And they who came the rusty daggers found And aconite fresh springing on the ground, And left them there to mingle with the clay, Death long had gone from them some other way. GIPSIES. —º-- WHEN the snow falls On the old yew tree, And the brook brawls Like a river free, And the cock calls Ere the ploughmen see, Then come the wandering gipsies to the door, And the dogs bark, for they look wild and poor. But the merry owls laugh In the cold moonshine, When the Zingari quaff The knight's red wine; And the churl brings chaff, "Stead of corn to his kine; So doth the world its changes ever keep— Laugh on, old owl, while Care lies fast asleep ! TO A SPRING THAT WAS DRIED UP NEAR HANMER. — — DID then the dog-star look Too long on thy fainting streams, Till their naïad could not brook His swart Egyptian beams, And shrunk to the caves below, Leaving her bright bed dry 3– Again, sweet fountain, flow ! For Autumn's rains are nigh, And the west wind sweeps down through the cloud-curtain'd sky. TO THE RIVER, DEE. By the Elbe and through the Rheinland, I’ve wandered far and wide, And by the Save with silver tones, proud Danube's queenly bride ; By Arno's vales, and Tiber's shore, but never did I see A river I would match with thine, old Druid haunted Dee I’ve stood where Sorga gushes forth Walchiusa's marble C3, Vé As bright as when to deathless verse its name Petrarca gave In fair Verona’s palaces—the towers of Avignon But Adige was not like to thee, nor blue and sunny Rhone. 72 TO THE RIVER, DEE, I’ve heard great Danube roaring far, and sailed upon his breast, And seen beneath his sea like wave the sun sink down to rest ; And by the Po, which Virgil loved—and by his Mantuan stream, And Iser hailed of poets now, bright with Art's favourite beam. But though beside thy waters wild no Munich e'er will rise Far sweeter is their liquid voice, and it hath dearer ties, And liv'st thou not in song my Dee, when of Milton thou canst claim A portion of the awful love, and the everlasting name. By the Moorish towers of Andernach, beneath a wal- nut's shade & Thus speed my faithful thoughts to thee, though a little Rhenish maid Has twined a wreath of water-flowers, round a flask of Wurtzberg wine And bad me give of streams the palm to their old Fader Rhein. / THE HERMIT. AFTER A PICTURE IN THE SPANISH GALLERY AT THE LOUVRE. —6– I SAw a hermit in his evening walk, With keen fixed look, attenuate like a hawk, Tall was he once, but lowly then he bent, With stripes and penance painfully he went, His eyes shone like the light within a well, He seemed to hear the tolling of a bell, His hands and feet as for the Cross were bored, And ever on a skull intent he pored, Behind him was a valley strewed with stones As thick as in Jehosaphat the bones, And on the hill a little lonely fane, 'Twas in thy land oh melancholy Spain. CHISSY. THERE is a little village in the hills Of Burgundy, obscure perchance its name, Since there the slopes no mantling vineyard fills, But I, the day when I to Chissy came And saw its dark old towers beside the bridge, And quiet homes, and children at their game, Have marked with a white stone, for there the ridge Is past that northward from the south divides, The snows are melting on the mountain's edge— They flow into the sea unvext by tides, Yon gushing river hath in Rhone its mouth, Oh welcome first fair stream that seekst the south. Feb. 17th, 1838. DEATH OF THE WENETIAN JEW. ON the sands of the Lido, when wild waves are rolling 'Gainst the lone beach, and the thunder-bell tolling *, Deep through the midnight from yonder proud city, That the heavens may have mercy on those who’ve no pity; Oh, bury the outcast, the proud Christian spurneth To rest with the Jew, when to dust he returneth; With those of my nation my weary bones cover, But far, far from Venice, my spirit shall hover. severºº * The bells of Catholic churches on the continent are always tolled during a thunder Storm:— “And storm-bell tolling to beguile The cloud-born thunder passing near.” CAMPBELL. 76 DEATH OF THE VENETIAN JEW. °, From the land where our masters no longer can task us, I shall watch the grey olive-tree wave o'er Damascus; From the peaks of high Lebanon, sacred and hoary, I shall look o'er my country, and think of its glory. Ye hate us, proud nobles, perchance we repay ye, When we walk in your palaces masters, how say ye? Then in vain ye may spell o'er each Visigoth letter In your old titles, the usurer's better. And when o'er your islands again grows the willow, And the mud of their ruins shall stain the white billow, The race ye have trampled, once more like the cedar, Shall flourish in glory, with heaven to lead her. TO A COCK OF THE WOODS, IN A POULTERER'S SHOP, LONDON. -º- WHILE thou didst speed, oh bird, over Norwegian walds, And thy shrill crow was heard, where the Runemen, and the Skalds, Their mystic signs have hidden in the shade of birch and pine : Hence was thy far fate bidden, that an Alderman might dine. Oh luxury thy hunger o’erleaps the northern waves; Not famine's prayer is stronger for the crust that misery CraveS ; As the mist flits o'er the forest, and down the deepest dell, Wild bird, where'er thou soarest, thou art followed by her spell. PROMETHEUS. -Ö--- DARK in the moonlight by his shape of clay Still watched Iapetus' high-reaching son, But when the light winds flew before the day He seized Aurora, with exulting tone Crying, “Up bear me thou who with Tithon •) Makest thy yellow couch; ” and suddenly On came the whirling chariot of the Sun, And he his torch hath lighted craftily ; “Ha!” shouted the great Titan, “I have won Equality with the Usurper, hence shall be Many a strong spirit, nor on earth alone, Hell shall they pierce, and Hades, and the sea, And with the gods wage war and love divine, Making sweet songs to me from many a famous shrine.” CHIMEs of ANTwPRP. —º--~~~~ ONE, two, and three, with measured stroke and numbers on they go, For Ghentish Charles 'twas thus they woke, for blood-stained Alva so, And still from out their airy cage of wreathed and trelliced stone They tell us of our pilgrimage another hour has flown. They float above the Place de Mer, and o'er thy roofs and towers, Fair Antwerp, with thy solemn air and antique Flemish bowers; And sweet and stately is the sound, and melancholy too, As it should be where Memory the fabler dwells with you. One, two, and three, with measured stroke and numbers on theygo: 'Twas thus on Rubens' ear at eve their sounds were wont to flow ; And still o'er his best monument *, with monumental tone, They tell us of our pilgrimage another hour has flown. * The Descent from the Cross. T) IANA. ~$–— “Why then you may leave a casement of the great chamber window open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.” Midsummer Night’s Dream. WHERE thy fane, time-riven, Crowns the marble hill, And sailing up the heaven, Thy crescent decks it still: Though the Asian timbrel, And the bounding foot, And song, and Lesbian cymbal, That hailed thee once, be mute; A stranger of old days dreaming, Alone at midnight hour, When mystic stars are gleaming, Diana hails thy power. DIANA, 81 What though the mighty mother Of all the gods denied To thee the gift another Had, and in virgin pride Bade thee spurn the myrtle, Chaste, and cold, and true, (Oh, in his nest the turtle Wreaths cypress branches too)*. Yet the shining river, And the waving tree, Fresh and fair for ever, Oh, gave she not to thee ? Still amid the wild wood Let thy horn rebound, As in dreaming childhood I’ve heard its silver sound, Stealing far and faintly, O'er wakened wold and wave, While echo answered quaintly, From out her star-lit cave. * Ah! why With cypress branches hast thou wreathed thy bowers ? I}07. Juár, THRASIMENE. How bright the peaceful sun upon the lake, How rich the plain, with corn, and wine, and oil, That with scared echoes heard the war-cry wake, When fell Rome's lion in the Moorish toil; Scarce knows the peasant of that battle day, Save that it fell in ages far away. Yet though no Carthaginian now await, With legions swift, and terrible, and strong, And elephants, whose force might break the gate Of high Cortona; boast not, lest ere long Your visions of security be fled, And captive you by Doganieri led. THRASIMENE. 83 Wile caitiffs, who in wait for travellers lie, And make them have recourse to magic spell That lurks in dollars, from their searching eye To hide at Rome, what might not do to tell Had passed the frontier of that sacred land; That feels St. Peter's keys, like burning brand. THE leaf that scarce had burst its bud Where Hartz’ wild mountains rise, Nor waved in beauty till the flood Of ancient Elbe had met my eyes, Now hangs all withered on the spray, By Vallombrosa's cloister grey; And mellow autumn once again Hath tinted hill, and wood, and plain, From old Ravenna's gloomy pine, To the chestnut covered Apennine. Oct. 27th. THE CARDINAL. ONWARD thou sweepest, haughty cardinal, Pomp in thy train, dominion in thine eye, As if thou dreamedst Rome imperial Still ruled the world, as in the days gone by ; Onward thou sweepest, and the crowd adore Thy footsteps, and thy blessings still implore. Doth, as a prisoned eagle's, chafe thy spirit In secret 'neath that bearing calm and high, When he sees the wide heaven he should inherit, And his clipt wings, to soar that vain would try : Or art thou soothed with purple majesty, The shadow, though the substance may not be 86 THE CARDINAL. E’en as upon the great first Caesar's throne, With orb and diadem Augustulus Sat, trembling when from northern Elbe or Rhone Came sounds of Gothic warriors, to us Dost thou seem successor of those who trod On nations, who now teach thee how they're shod. Yet, oh think not so scornfully, but rather Say, Rome is likest Julius, in her fall, When dying in the capitol, the father Of empire caught his mantle for a pall, Shrouding himself with robes of royal state, That fitly the world's lord might sink to fate. Rome, Nov. 1. Giorno d'ogn? Santi. WRITTEN AFTER SEEING THE PICTURE, BY F. SOLIMEME, OF THE MESSENGER OF SYPHAX CONVEYING POISON TO SOPHONISBA. LADY, 'twas for a king but now You decked that proud and regal brow, And sat a conqueror to wait, Amid these gauds of idle state, But purple clouds of closing day At night's rough coming fade away, And whelmed alike are flower and tree When quail the rocks before the sea. Scarce shall the bark outlive the gale With rudder lost and shivered sail, And gilded prow must find a grave With broken hull beneath the wave. 88 MESSENGER OF SYPHAX. With glistening eye and beating heart You watched our chivalry depart, Yet 'twas not woman's fear that bid The tear-drop gem that silken lid, Or woke that snowy bosom's bound Like Arab steed's at trumpet sound, But the high spirit of your race That flashed like lightning o'er your face, And deemed the passing ranks of war But presage of the victor's car. For where the arm would quail in fight, When love and glory both unite : Who bide the onset, urged along By woman's smile, and minstrel's song : Lady, awake, the dream is past, Of that proud host, the first, the last, That thou shalt look upon, is here With vanished crest and broken spear. Demandst thou why? thy lord, through me, From battle field thus pledges thee:— There dwells within this cup of gold A surer fence than castled hold ; He bids thee drink, and sleep to wake, Where foes thy rest shall never break; MESSENGER OF SYPHAX. 89 He bids thee drink, to meet again Afar from yon ensanguined plain. Beneath the hills has sunk the sun, Drink, lady, drink, my task is done. When first I bore for thee this token, The opal morn had scarcely broken, And ghastly relics of the fray In silence round about me lay; Ere dew the sands again hath drenched, Whose mid-day thirst their life-blood quenched, Another, brighter shall have come To share their everlasting home : A home where thy proud sires shall greet, The queen who death would rather meet, Than stain her far-descended name With captive's tears and captive's shame. > LIN E S. — Q--— THE owl he loves the ivy tod, the dove the myrtle tree,_ Which bird hath the better taste § come tell, my muse, to me. With ivy Bacchus wreathes his brows, and merrily shouts he, But Venus blessed the myrtle boughs, as she rose from out the Sea ; 'Tis gladsome in the festive hall when goblets flow with wine, When hearts are brimming o'er with love, the joy is more divine; Ha, ha!—for me the maddening wreath shall wild Bacchante twine, But let her mix some myrtle buds, and then it shall be mine. PESCARA. HASTE mother, haste smoke blackens the blue sky, Pescara comes, oh, whither shall we fly I see his band beyond those olive trees, I hear his trumpets braying in the breeze; There are none here beside but you and I– Haste mother, haste 1 oh, whither shall we fly Fear not, my daughter, 'tis our land to save From foreign tyrants, that his banners wave; To chase the French, that o'er our counties ride, And sweep their lilies from our river's side : They'll harm you not, and once you loved a lance, And the gay greeting of a soldier's glance. 92 PESCAR.A. Yes, but that lance ne'er rode in Spanish ranks, 'Tis all alike, while o'er our valley pranks Frenchman or Spaniard, and our native lords Whet for a stranger's vassalage their swords. I'll to the mountain, for he watches there, Let these avengers follow, if they dare. PINE OF HERTZGOVITZ. > LOFTY pine of Hertzgovitz, rooted in the riven stone, "Neath thy shade a maiden sits, on the wild rock all alone ; Softly to herself she singeth, and her accents blend with thine, What the burden that she bringeth, to thy songs oh dreamy pine? Mourns she that her youth is over, soon its bloom the Sunbeam draws; Mourns she for an absent lover, captive in the Turkish WarS ; Of thyrout, oh red Kossova, sings she, and the olden day, Or the dreary swamps * that cover Lewis and his lost array ? * Lewis the Second, who, being defeated by the Turks at Mohacs A. D. 1526, met the fate in the marshes round that place, which befell Prince Poniatowski in the Elster, after the battle of Leipsic— “ Rex ipse ubiaciem suam inclinare widit, verso in fugam equo ad paludes delatus, cum in ripam eluctari conatur ab equo resupino in coenum depressus suffocatur.” ROSENICH. Hist. Hungaria. 94 PINE OF HERTZGOVITZ. Sombre are the forest shadows streaked with light that round her move, Floating o'er the narrow meadows far beneath, where white herds rove, As the wind, the shade, the sunset, wild and sombre thus should be Songs of love or battle's onset, 'neath thy boughs, oh whispering tree. WRITTEN AFTER, READING FIORACE WALPOLE'S ACCOUNT OF CASTLE HENNINGHAM. •=-Q–- DARK looks the Jew at the noble's hall Blithely the peasant walks over the lea, He knows nothing of towers that fall Rent by the ivy so fair to see. Joy to the violet smelling so sweet Under the hedges his steps to greet. Ivy and Violet what do ye here, With blossom and shoot in the warm spring weather? Hiding the arms of Monchenci and Were On the lonely gate ye are met together. 'Tis an old tale of the days gone by With the wind in the 'nettles for symphony. TO AN EAGLE. WILD bird, they say that who like thee Would soar, must single-minded be, Nor love life's light variety; Over seas and mountains blue Ever with the sun in view, If it shine not in the sky, Seeing still with inner eye; And so in famous story Shall they have after glory. But the supple snake below, With his winding courses slow, Uttereth in his heart, “Ho, Ho! TO AN EAGLE, %. 97 For one spirit of the air There are thousands of the earth; Cautiously with me they fare, Through the depths I lead them forth : And so in famous story Have they the surer glory.” The while comes Winter with his frosts behind And stayeth either course, and killeth all the kind. WRITTEN UNDER THE PINE IN THE COLONNA GARDEN, ROME. —4– un pino Fra l'herba verde, elbel monte vicino Onde si scende poetando. PETRARCA. GLORIOUS Colonna, whom Petrarca served With poet-love, and saw in thee the name Of Italy upheld, and his own fame Blended with that so long by thee deserved, Until whate'er men knew of worth and honour Was measured by the standard of Colonna: Here spreads a loftier pine, than by the curved Valchiusa sprung to greet him: shadowing Thine empty halls, thy temple ivy-curled. Alas! it is the old age of the world, But to thy memories I make offering: For ever in my heart, where’er I go, I bear those brave words of old Stephano— Him to my thought did Rome's first aspect bring. FRAGMENTS. A RUINED VENETIAN SPEAKING OF HIS PICTURES. —-C- they were The gods of my idolatry;-'twas heaven, When silence reigned in the noon-heated air That sparkled o'er the quiet city, even As a lone statue in a Theban cave Shut from the world without, and the dull throng Of fools, or those hard spoilers who have riven Them all away, to hear the rippling wave Beneath the lattice, with its summer song, And gaze upon the forms that Titian drew, And the deep dells that wild Salvator knew ; 100 FRAGMENTS. And bid again the inspiration wake That woke their being, for the gazer's sake : There Venus her Adonis did pursue, And I pursued intent, with glittering eyes, The fancies that sweet vision bade arise; But there he lay upon the blood-stained dew Of the unharboured boar, sad sacrifice— Oh, soul delighting tales of Grecian story There were ye all;-and by whom torn away! The concentrated light of all your glory Ne'er pierced their dull hearts with one single ray % % º: # 3% % $ THE beech let faithful Hobbima portray With branching arms, and bark of silver grey, And the tall spire at airy distance seen O'er Flemish meads, their tapering stems between, But Cuyp shall paint the waters' oozy bride, The willow pale, by marshy meadow's side, And dappled herds beneath the shade reclined, And wild geese high above, far streaming down the wind; FRAGMENTS, 10] The tawny oakwoods in their summer glow, See Rubens gird with heaven's unfailing bow, Light o'er their shaggy foreheads seems to sail The shade, companion of the showery gale, And peasants hurry round the loaded wain, To house the haycocks ere the coming rain. * % 2% # 3% % % % 102 FRAGMENTS. [FROM ENNIUS.] THE ANSWER OF PYRREIUS TO FABRICIUS. BID me no price, and proffer me no gold, 'Tis war we wage, and it can not be sold, Gaged are our lives, and iron must decide Your reign or mine, and let what fate betide We'll try by prowess. But take here my word, Whose heart the fortune of the fight hath spared, As surely will I spare his freedom too, With the great Gods to aid I give him back to you. “Nec mi aurum posco, nec mi pretium dederitis; Nec cauponantes bellum, sod belligerantes; Ferro, non auro, vitam cernamus utrique, Vosne velit, an me regnare Hera ; quidve ferat Sors Virtute experiannur et hoc simol accipe dictum : Quorum virtutei belli Fortuna pepercit, Horumdem me libertatei parcere certum est: Dono ducite, doque volentibus cum magneis Dis.” FRAGMENTS. 103 FROM A FRAGMENT OF GALLUS. THou com’st to me by morn my love, and thou art brighter far, Than the new light, and if by night than Hesper's rising star. “Occurris quum mane mihi; ni purior ipsa. Luce nova exoreris, Lux mea I dispeream : Quodsinocte venis (jam verö ignoscite divi!) Talis ob occiduis Hesperus exit aquis.” 104 FRAGMENTS. FROM OVID'S EPISTLE OF SAPPHO TO PHAON. TAKE the lyre and quiver, And like Apollo be, He, Daphne loves for ever, Oh could she sing like me, The cold nymph scorned his love, but she is still his tree. Bid thy spirit's glory Beam through thy golden hair, 'Tis said in poets' story Such horns doth Bacchus wear, He loved a museless maid, but Sappho must despair. “Sume fidem et pharetram ; fies manifestus Apollo, Accedant capiti cornua Bacchus eris”. Et Phoebus Daphnen, et Gnosida Bacchus amavit, Nec norat Lyricosilla velilla modos.” * I have been assured by a great sculptor at Rome that there is neither gem, statue, bronze, or any other antique representation of Bacchus, known, which agrees with this line. FRAGMENTS. 105 PROTEU.S. WRITTEN IN ITALY, DURING THE WINTER OF 1830—31. —C– “You have learned, like Sir Proteus, to wreathe your arms like a malcontent.” Two Gentlemen of Verona, Of all the gods whom superstition's sway From clime to clime hath made the world obey, That cunning ruler, in whose teeming shrine Each human passion found a power divine, A heavenly patron, from the immortal sphere To shield and guard its lowlier follower here; Though passed their rites, and dwindled to a tale The names that awed each old Ionian vale; Yet still shall one, of all mankind pursued, Their changeful passions as of old delude; Aye still shall Proteus his old shapes assume, And cheat that world, which Reason's rays illume: P 106 PROTEUS, Now robed like freedom, bid the nations rise, Now start Napoleon to their humbled eyes, Then change again, and as they dash away That brazen idol with the feet of clay, Another still they find, and still shall he, Whate'er his mask, their cunning mocker be. So like the changes of their various will, Some thought that Reason was but Proteus still. As erst the god, so sings the Mantuan sire, Now seemed a faggot—now a flame of fire ; So now he filled that intellectual blaze That flashes glory on these later days; And bids us, nobly daring, to despise Whate'er our fathers counted to be wise. They err; from far, mysterious Reason shines, With meaning fraught, which many a seer divines, And cries Eureka—till a cloud between With envious shade reverses all the scene ; 'Tis he, ’tis Proteus, from her presence dread To vex the dreams of gazing nations sped; And every neck with adoration bowed, Still hails that changing semblance of a cloud. PROTEUS. 107 No more he watches by the ebbing sea, Though fair and false, inconstant still as he ; sº No more he drives across the mountain's brow His “ancient herds, far others serve him now ; But still strange portents on his coming wait, When Reason bids him blind her slaves elate: Thus when (pale arbitress of wits and tides,) O'er heaven the moon in fullest radiance rides, Then elves and fays, her airy tribes arrayed In shapes fantastic, flutter o'er the glade, And cheat the wandering clown, and "lated village maid. Thus she commands, and well obeys the sprite The hests imperious of her mystic might: From Gaul's green vineyards, from the Belgic plains, Now calls the many to cast off their chains: Now helps some prophet, whom they think the true, By force or fraud to forge them all anew. Once for religion blood obscured the sun, But now the wise are liberal, or for none; ******* * “Terruit gentes, grave ne rediret Saeculum Pyrrhae nova monstra questa"; Omne cum Proteus pecus egit altos Wisere montes.” 108 PROTEUS. Alike run mad for this, or t'other cause, As Proteus changes rush the world to wars. What, though the peasant, doomed afar to roam, Weep his burnt field, and desecrated home; The ruined merchant mourn his useless store, Locked up by strife, with famine at the door; The silent palace, with its nobles fled, The herbless earth, the black and smouldering shed, The extinguished hearth, by rapine lonely made, Despair, suspicion of itself afraid, That sits a cloud in childhood's thoughtful eye, And watches ever, lest a foot be nigh, And every form of death, and every woe That fate can bring, or frenzy can bestow ; Oh what are these to philosophic mind, To rule the world, and reconstruct designed ? Light in that lofty reasoner's scale are they, “To-morrow's sun will smile them all away,” But with that morrow, still another storm, To some of ruin tells, and some, reform. Hard, then, their fate whom evil fame pursues, As tyrants branded by the partial Muse, That as her scribes indite the reader sways; Hard Borgia's lot in Machiavelli's praise. PROTEUS. 109 He laid deep plots for conquest, and to keep That he had won, and lull his foes to sleep, From which, perchance, they woke not; death might wait, Disguised as welcome, Smiling at his gate, And gathering hosts for him might trample o'er The prostrate city—drench the earth with gore; Yet let the eagle bear the palm away From baser vultures, and the prating jay : To strife if empire's Roman game allure, Vain-glorious sophist, are thy hands more pure ? The world would gaze on Reason face to face, Then burns like Semele in Jove's embrace : And still as years emerge from their abyss Shows many a Paris 'gainst Persepolis: Patriot, or tyrant come, for judgment stand; This loves persuasion, loftier this command, The sword's their last appeal, and ever near at hand. And well may one in Tuscan vales reclined, To thoughts like these direct a willing mind. Here from each land where late my steps have trod, Which slept as yet, nor dreamt it felt the rod, New tidings, still the same, while rumour brings, And shakes o'er thrones her venom-dropping wings ; 110 PROTEUS. While the gay city of the Seine displays Her last new trophies of the “Immortal days;” And guarded well with citizens’ bright blades, Her fresh reared banner greets the barricades; While some remodel, some support the state, And this would act, and that deliberate ; And by the stern dark column of The Man *, His scars of Wagram shows the veteran, And gazes upward, with a kindling eye, As if Napoleon's spirit from the sky, A moment hovered o'er the pedestal Whence once his image, not his memory, fell: While booms the cannon through thy squares, Bruxelles, And Diebitsch leaves unreached the Dardanelles, To front by Warsaw's serried wall afar, Storms that may veil his fame's ascending star; Light of the world, whose love to thee is more Than all Olympus ever knew before, (Thy kindred gods, who left their power to thee, Oblivion quaffing of their deity In AEthiop's cavern, deep beneath the sea;) Light of the world and leader I still appear As there thy strife, its dinted footsteps here, * In the Place-Vendôme. PROTEUS. I 11 As there the war, the agony, the grief, Here the same traces, but with time's relief. But ye who shrink repugnant from the strife, The restless winds that plough the seas of life, And seek but peace, wherein to shape your way To future mansions of eternal day, Lo, Wallombrosa rears her grey retreat, Her solemn walls for contemplation meet ; Her smooth-mown lawns, where studious feet may roam, And pore at ease o'er many an antique tome; Above, around, in long fantastic line, Sweeps with his woods the circling Apennine. And glad the sights the musing friar sees, The far smoke rising mid the chestnut trees, The sparkling ether o'er the distant plain, Blue as the bosom of the summer main, The milk-white ox, slow winding up the steep, The laughing peasant, and his vintage heap ; Till lengthening shadows of the westward sun, Spread their veil round him as the day glides on. Then may his steps, untired with the scene, Seek the trim garden's cypress-covered screen, And trace at leisure on the virgin page, The virtuous precept, or example sage: 112 PROTEUS. \ Or fates of kingdoms, which of yore befell. 'Twas thus grew many a famous chronicle, With silver clasps, and gilded letters quaint; The pictured lives of martyr, or of saint, Or gests of valorous knight, his arms who bore To smite the Turk, on Jordan's sacred shore. Perchance with terror riding on his spear, Flew as the eagle's his unchecked career; Perchance left singly, scorning yet to yield, He sunk to rest beneath his broken shield: Then turned his comrades, maddening at the thought, And dear the trophy from the field they brought. High in some old cathedral's gothic aisle In storied pomp his monument they pile ; Around his tomb the priest may masses sing, Where banners wave, and odorous censers swing, And the stained oriel sheds its colours bright, In uncouth tracery telling of the fight: But ages roll, and soon before their blast Must all we see be mingled with the past; No more that roof its pinnacles shall raise, A few grey stones, a tale of other days, That tells of splendour, ere the foemen came, And smote its shrines, and gave its towers to flame, PROTEUS. | 13 And bade destruction in one ruin whelm The shepherd's rude-carved crook, the warrior's helm ; A few green walls shall rise its site along; Where now the tomb that should his fame prolong? Yet shall he live, and still each high emprize Shall fire the wanderer 'neath those eastern skies; Though gone their sculptured record, and defaced The marble pillars of that blackened waste; Still as the monk's recital opes to view, Dressed in old phrase, his memory wakes anew ; Each wreath of victory won on field or flood, By lonely mountain, or enchanted wood, The oppressor slain, the damsel’s fetters rent, And pagan caitiffs down to Hades sent. Nor scorn the themes which Ariosto sung, And ancient Chaucer Woodstock's oaks among, And hence reflected to our later day, In Scott's wild page, and Dryden's classic lay. Yet may he love through evening's silent hours To woo the Muses from Athenian bowers, Or problems deep beneath the stars to trace, Mysterious lore of Afric's swarthy race. By sacred signs sent down from sire to son, Where Thebes' wide gates saw ancient Nilus run Q l 14 PROTEUS, Past mirror'd temples, through that mighty clime, The nurse of realms long yielded since to time; The awful fount, whence young Achaia drew Her lore, and fledged her eagle ere it flew ; And shook, while hovered o'er her callow wings The ancestral grandeur of a thousand kings. Long time sequestered in the cloistered cell, War's maddening demons bade such science dwell; Slow crept the pilot yet, nor dared to brave The hidden terrors of the pathless wave; Enough for him his timid course to shape, From creek to creek, and jutting cape to cape, And wait with sails in sheltering haven furled, When the breeze freshened or the billows curled. But earth has shaken off her widow weeds; And led by peace, a bolder age succeeds. Lo, El Dorado opes her countless store— Can fancy image, avarice pant for more ? Hark to the beach, how varied nations throng, Waked by the clang of fame's resounding gong; Wild with desire, their hearts responsive leap ; Hence, cavaliers, your home is o'er the deep ! Each thirsty lance that longs for battle's din, Each squire that burns his knightly spurs to win, PROTEUS. 115 Each moon-struck bard, of golden realms, that feigns, Here is the clime where Artemisia reigns. Each sage with schemes of true perfection warm, Here last was seen Utopia's fleeting form : Haste, for the gates of darkness are unbarred, And show beyond a dusky vision, starred With wealth and peace, too soon to fade before Assembled legions on her plundered shore. Swift as the winds they spurn the Atlantic main, And fast before night's gloomy shadows wane, And bright in morning radiance to the old Spreads the new world her dower of thrones and gold. No more shall victor shun the billow's roar, And halt his legions on the curtailed shore, To shed, or gather, as his bosom swells, Tears with young Ammon, with the Roman * shells. That clime which his and Bacchus' rule confest, Must bend before her sister of the west ; And waves and whirlwinds, now a vanished fear, But serve to waft him to that glorious sphere. Sequestered shades, religion's sacred seat, Ye cloisters worn by dedicated feet, * Caligula. 1 16 PROTEUS. Cells for long years the anchorite's abode, To penance vowed, to solitude, to God, Here may the world's tired children rest at length, And mourn no longer for their wasted strength ; Youth's fading dreams, ambition's weary game, And 'vantage lost, and visionary fame ! But say, on every brother doth descend That Sainted peace, that owns but heaven its end? Hope for the future in the realms above, Good will on earth, and unaspiring love Far other thoughts, to yonder lonely boy, Each sunrise brings, night's wakeful hours employ; The last, and meanest of the convent train, By birth a peasant, none in heart or brain, His soaring fancy grasps the days to come, Thy chair, St. Peter, and the might of Rome ! The savage swine his ruder brothers tend In the deep woods, when autumn's dews descend ; Of daily hire they think, or winter wild, Nor heed the visions of the book-learned child. Oh, still unquiet spirits love to range The world with thee, thou subtle lord of change, Alike they strive for princedom, and for power, Pent in a cell, or throned in palace tower ; PROTEUS. 117 Various their means, one common end they sought When the priest plotted, and the warrior fought ; What need of sword and slaughter, when the bell, And torch, and curse, and book, will serve as well, And easy souls persuade they’re sent to hell? * * 3: -3% * * #: 118 Good friend, the world hath many sorts of men, As many sorts of trees, and herbs, and flowers, Which from the gifts that common are to all Do each draw up their several differences; And in the garden close beside the rose Springs aconite, and in the wild wood too The hemlock and the violet : some with love, And some with juice medicinal, and some With laughter, creeping poison, or quick death, Where life flies gasping out as from a blow, Speak to the heart of man, and yet they spring From the same earth, aye, even in the same day : Sunshine and winter, moonlight and the dew, Are natural to all. 119 ON TIIE PAINTſNG OF THE FATES, BY MICHAEL ANGELO. —-&--— IN the dark pile that Luca Pitti built, And now his foe's descendant o'er the plain Of Arno looks from out, and sees sun-gilt The city Time beleaguers but in vain ; Abide the Fates: call up thy soul and see With Buonarotti's eyes those sisters three. He saw them thus ; within his secret heart Hath many a man a vision of his own, Shapeless and dread, that with a sudden start He flies, a shadow 'twixt him and the moon, The pale light of his wandering phantasy ; But these are heirs of Grecian memory. 120 A WINTER SCENE. ~~~~~~ Chacun pourtant conservera son culte. DE BERANGER, IT is the Winter, sharp and suddenly His angel frost hath breathed upon the land : Tartuffe now at the Chancel door doth stand, Dispensing loaves from others charity, And round about him come a hungry band With piteous voice and asking eyes, but he A little backward sheltered from the wind, A book turns over, for the Church must be Maintained, and therein all who are behind With Easter dues are writ; 'tis poverty Moves them, but duty stern his reverence, The loaves were given The Church, with pious mind, And justly they by wanting, must be fined, Although it grieves him, till they pay their pence. 12| CASS ANDRA. •-º'- WHEN from the dinted shores of Ilium Sped Agamemnon in his bark away, Pale rose Cassandra, and the things to come Chanted with fateful rhyme, crying, “Oh stay My bearer from this desecrated land That was my father's, henceforth now to be A tale that shall to centuries expand, So much it passeth all in misery, Thou art the last that beareth love to me Whom Phoebus loved,” and with her lofty eyes She looked up to the clouded sun, “I see Thy blood-stained floor, the household perjuries In Argos.” Proudly smiled the king of men, But Clytemnestra plotted darkly then. I22 MACERATA. —— 49 – IN the deep Florentine's pages I have read Of one, who, when a youth from friends and home, Yearned through the many-languaged world to roam, With a slow smile ironically said “Go up to Macerata, and from thence Take thy full prospect of intelligence; Nought shalt thou see beneath the heaven's blue dome But winding roads to many a distant town Far leading, and the oxen on the hill, And in the city citizens’ renown, And all the world's epitome.” Oh still Wide o'er Romagna doth thy glory sway Fair city, thou'st a legate, as they say, And a great tennis-court thy thoughts to fill. 123 A WIRELAI. --~~~~ BRIGHT children of the sunny south, born neath the fairy star That fills with music every mouth from Garonne to the War, The Moon is like a lamp to night, on the sea and on the shore, She bids you wake your Wirelai, once more, once more, Ere ye sail away. For queenly Barcelona, the blue Sardinian isles, 2. Or where her own Ancona still Venus lights with smiles, For Genoa and her palaces, Ho! doth the helmsman say, Yet greet your own glad Provence, or ere ye sail away, Ere ye sail away. Where shall ye find another land as fair and bright as she, Singing her ancestral songs by her ancestral sea, With her warrior hand on Bona, her banner on Argier, From roving Moor or Tripoline her barks have nought to fear Ere they sail away. 124 A MORNING WATLK IN ROME. -º- IPAss beneath the woody Palatine, Where less comes Caesar to my thought than they” * Who to a garden turned its mount divine: Then Tiber greets me, slowly on his way The boatman glides to Ostia's reedy shore, It is a restless melancholy day, And his sail flaps unsteadily, and his oar Starts upward 'gainst the buried Roman piles; The river with a ceaseless eddy coils; And now the Aventine shadows, and once more Thy gate San Paolo—close beside there dwells A strong enchanter in his airy cells Beneath the fictile mount. But death, before Sits by the city wall, watching his spells f. * The Farnesi. # Monte Testaccio, composed of fragments of old pottery, and hollowed into cellars for the wine brought from the hills beyond Tivoli and Palestrina, is immediately opposite the burial-ground of the pyramid of Caius Cestius, 125 A VIEW IN HOLLAND. —º- THE tide comes up the black and gusty river, Slowly against it makes a boat its way, In the rough gale the bending sedges shiver, The dripping piles fling back the shattered spray; There is a church, but none who come to pray, For 'tis a week-day, and made fast the door, But onward by a willow-sheltered bay Hangs forth a sign, more tempting to the boor ; Wild sing the breezes from the northern sea Flustering the topsails on the coast's low line, Wildly sings Hans within the lattice, he Is flustered too, but 'tis with brantewein : See on the sands a wandering group appear, Mynherr Verkoop the pedlar, and his gear. 126 SALERNO. —é--— CoME out upon the terrace, there is yet An hour of light, although the sun has set, Or his pale disk has hidden in the clouds; And we can, looking down behold—no crowds On the once populous quays, but here and there Some scattered groups, or fishers who repair By the sea-side their boats, or sail, or oar; And some there are that slowly to the shore Pull a long net, whose meshes rise and fall, Still swaying with the waves; upon the wall There is a marble figure, which should be One of the Sirens, pale and silently She looks over the dim bay once her own; But we can reinstate her on her throne, And make sweet music from her lips proceed, Taking imagination for the deed; SALERNO. - 127 Or call Ulysses, or who else hath seen On this same spot the enduring stars serene, Or talk of Paestum, and the Silaro, And the old boat that doth like Charon's go, Wafting us to a new and silent land Where those three thunder-stricken temples stand, Or tell the tragic tale that Dryden feigned, “When Norman Tancred in Salerno reigned.” 128 MELANCHOLY. -O- THERE sat a maiden 'neath a regal tower Girt with a forest of great oaks and pines, It seemed a lodge of some high conquerour In the old days, and round it creeping vines Grew wildly, that no more men drank of now, And in the topmost arch there was a bell That with the wind did vibrate, vague and low Sped o'er the hills its modulated swell, Palely she sat, and at her side were things Of strange device to measure earth and stars, And a small quiet genius, with his wings Upfolded, and his eyes still fixed on hers. Men uttered not her queenly name, but she Had graved it in the dust, “Melancolie.” 129 THE ORIGIN OF MUSIC. --> --— “And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and the organ.”—Gen, c. 4. THE generations of the race of Cain, Children and sire have vanished from the earth, Yet do the arts they multiplied remain, Though the wide heavens were opened and the rain Whelmed with its flood the world's sin-wasted birth ; Oh 'twas not in the revelling house of mirth Deep music, that thy earliest strains were born, But in the wandering dwellings and forlorn Of those blood-haunted fugitives—then first Did sorrow find a loving utterance there, And hope from thronging sounds divinely burst, And thoughts rush forth that speech did never dare, E’en their dread father less supremely curst Seemed, in such accents mingling with their prayer. GENOA. ----- & - BEAUTIFUL Genoa many a strain sings thce, But I remember when through wind and wave And night that sighed above the tossing sea, We steered from Provence, how when he who gave The signals hailed thy lantern, suddenly Ceased the wild tumult like a fading dream, And looking upwards, to my startled eye Shone all thy lights with simultaneous beam, So bright, so welcome never did they seem, Softly we rested on thy sleeping bay, And watched the arrows of the sun-rise gleam O'er Doria's columns, making glad delay With all her solemn stars till evening came, Then once again we clove the waters grey. l 31 SPRING, --------> ------ YoUNG pine that like a many-plumed Cacique, Thy tufted head dost in the garden rear, 'Tis now the first rejoicing April week, Now comes the true renewing of the year ; For all before was Winter stern and drear Warming his hands, where Time (like Saturn old Devouring his own race) some woodland peer Heaped on the fire, to save him from the cold; And men beside of storms sad stories told, The shipwrecks, and the sea-salt on the panes, Now all the chesnuts their great buds unfold, And that unloving season but remains In sight, like some black hill we leave behind South steering with a fair and sunny wind. \ \, \! ~ * § \ º * § \l §N y N lº. § {} § § - ^ | CŞN sº - W. %/2- *~ § º º2. *- % º |S § ~< §§ sº LONDON : BRAp!?URY ANJ EVANs, PRINTERS TO THE QUEEN, WHI i fjº R. 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