Or charm'd my youth, that, kindled from above,
Loved ere it loved, and sought a form for love;
Or lent a lustre to the earnest scan

Of manhood, musing what and whence is man!
Wild strain of Scalds, that in the sea-worn caves
Rehearsed their war-spell to the winds and waves;
Or fateful hymn of those prophetic maids,
That call'd on Hertha in deep forest glades;
Or minstrel lay, that cheer'd the baron's feast;
Or rhyme of city pomp, of monk and priest,
Judge, mayor, and many a guild in long array,
To high-church pacing on the great saint's day.
And many a verse which to myself I sang,
That woke the tear yet stole away the pang,
Of hopes which in lamenting I renew'd.
And last, a matron now, of sober mien,
Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen,
Whom as a faery child my childhood woo'd
Even in my dawn of thought-Philosophy;
Though then unconscious of herself, pardie,
She bore no other name than Poesy;

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee,
That had but newly left a mother's knee,

Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and stone
As if with elfin playfellows well known,

And life reveal'd to innocence alone.

Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And all awake! And now in fix'd
gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer;
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop

The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there,

Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings,
And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings:

Or

pause and listen to the tinkling bells

From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest,

And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.

The brightness of the world, O thou once free, And always fair, rare land of courtesy ! O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills, And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy! Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine, The golden corn, the olive, and the vine. Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old And forests, where beside his leafy hold The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn, And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn; Palladian palace with its storied halls; Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls; Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span, And Nature makes her happy home with man; Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed With its own rill, on its own spangled bed, And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head, A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;Thine all delights, and every muse is thine; And more than all, the embrace and intertwine Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance!

'Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance,
See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees
The new-found roll of old Mæonides; *

But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart,
Peers Ovid's holy book of Love's sweet smart! †

O all-enjoying and all blending sage,
Long be it mine to con thy mazy page,

Where, half-conceal'd, the eye of fancy views

Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy

muse!

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks,

And see in Dian's vest between the ranks

Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,
With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves!

1829.

*Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first introduced the works of Homer to his countrymen.

+ I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imaginations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio: where the sage instructor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancofiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Heart of Love. "Incominciò Racheo a mettere il suo officio in esecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece leggere il santo libro d'Ovvidio, nel quale il sommo poets mostra, come i santi fuochi di Venere si debbano ne' freddi cuori accendere."

To praise men as good, and to take them for such,
Is a grace, which no soul can mete out to a tittle;—
Of which he who has not a little too much,

Will by Charity's gage surely have much too little.

ON BERKELEY AND FLORENCE COLERIDGE,
WHO DIED ON THE 16TH OF JANUARY, 1834.*

O FRAIL as sweet! twin buds, too rathe to bear
The Winter's unkind air;

O gifts beyond all price, no sooner given
Than straight required by Heaven;
Match'd jewels, vainly for a moment lent
To deck my brow, or sent

Untainted from the earth, as Christ's, to soar,
And add two spirits more

To that dread band seraphic, that doth lie
Beneath the Almighty's eye;-

Glorious the thought-yet ah! my babes, ah! still
A father's heart ye fill;

Though cold ye lie in earth-though gentle death Hath suck'd your balmy breath,

And the last kiss which your fair cheeks I gave

Is buried in yon grave.

No tears—no tears—I wish them not again;

To die for them was gain,

Ere Doubt, or Fear, or Woe, or act of Sin

Had marr'd God's light within.

*By a Friend.

IMPROVED FROM STOLBERG.

ON A CATARACT FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE.

UNPERISHING youth!

STROPHE.

Thou leapest from forth

The cell of thy hidden nativity;
Never mortal saw

The cradle of the strong one;
Never mortal heard

The gathering of his voices;

The deep-murmured charm of the son of the rock, That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain. There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing;

It embosoms the roses of dawn,

It entangles the shafts of the noon,

And into the bed of its stillness

The moonshine sinks down as in slumber,

That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!

ANTISTROPHE.

The wild goat in awe

Looks up and beholds

Above thee the cliff inaccessible;—

Thou at once full-born

Madd'nest in thy joyance,

Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st,

Life invulnerable