Not skies serene, with glittering stars inlaid,
Nor gallant ships o'er tranquil ocean dancing,
Nor gay careering knights in arms advancing,
Nor wild herds bounding through the forest glade,
Nor tidings new of happiness delayed,
Nor poesie, Love's witchery enchanting,
Nor lady's song beside clear fountain glancing,
In beauty's pride, with chastity arrayed;
Nor aught of lovely, aught of gay in show,
Shall touch my heart, now cold within her tomb
Who was erewhile my life and light below!
So heavy-tedious-sad-my days unblest,
That I, with strong desire, invoke Death's gloom,
Her to behold, whom ne'er to have seen were blest!
WITH THE FOREGOING TRANSLATIONS.
THE brook, soft rippling on its pebbled way,
With many a winding fondly lingers long
In valleys low, stealing wild weeds among,
And pendent boughs that o'er its surface play;
Its humble pride still to reflect the gay
And varied flowers that round its mirror throng;
So I, erewhile, lone warbled my rude song,
Echoing Valclusa's sad melodious lay:
And as, lured forth along the unsheltered plain,
The little stream at length, with bolder course,
Bears tributary waters to the main ;
I, too, though late, to thee my offering bear,
Adventurous, won by Friendship's gentle force
From covert shades, the broader light to dare.
O I am not of this countrie,
And much my heart is wrung,
To wander in a foreign land,
And beg in foreign tongue.
'Tis all to gain a little sum
To bear me o'er the sea;
And hither slowly I am come
To ask your charity.
My home is in the Valteline,
Far inland from the main ;
And every day I wish and pine
To see it once again.
I cannot mend this little store;
My wishing is in vain;
And I shall ne'er behold it more,
Ah never, ne'er again!
If you have ever been abroad,
Bestow an alms on me!
And think you speed me on my road
My native land to see.
My cot still rises to my view,
And will not let me stay;
But I am old, and alms are few,
And sad is the delay!
And must I ever thus deplore
My labour spent in vain?
And shall I ne'er behold it more?
Ah never, ne'er again!
Your country is a pleasant land,
But oh, it is not mine!
I have not here a kindred band
As in the Valteline.
When on my native hills I played,
I breathed not English air;
I did not love an English maid,
When love was all my care.
But I must die on England's strand,
A prisoner on the main!
And ne'er behold my native land,
Ah never, ne'er again!
PLEASURES of Memory!-oh! supremely blest,
And justly proud beyond a poet's praise,
If the pure confines of thy tranquil breast
Contain, indeed, the subject of thy lays!
By me how envied! for to me,
The herald still of misery,
Memory makes her influence known
By sighs and tears, and grief alone:
I greet her as the fiend to whom belong
The vulture's ravening beak, the raven's funeral song.
Alone, at midnight's haunted hour,
When nature woos repose in vain,
Remembrance wastes her penal power,
The tyrant of the burning brain :
She tells of time misspent, of comfort lost,
Of fair occasions gone for ever by ;
Of hope too fondly nursed, too rudely crossed,
Of many a cause to wish, yet fear to die;
For what, except the instinctive fear
Lest she survive, detains me here,
When "all the life of life" is fled?-
What, but the deep inherent dread,
Lest she beyond the grave resume her reign,
And realize the hell that priests and beldames feign.
ROSA! 't was one of those autumnal eves
When Heaven vouchsafes to Earth her loveliest looks The still wood's sun-touched wilderness of leaves, And cloud, and mountain-scalp, and castle took Their colour from the west-bright gold! the brook Rippled in gold;-the great oak, branching o'er, Was golden barked;-'t was gold the cygnet shook From her white wing;-and Strangford's blue lake wore A belt of quivering gold from shore to placid shore.
Yet-yet the broad sun loitered on the gaze
Dilated-slanting, ever as he went,
Intenser glory from his throne of rays,
Till, like some warrior-king, he won his tent,-
A purple cloud that wrapped the Occident.
Earth faded now, though heaven still was bright
With hues that blushed until the young moon bent
Her pointed crescent on the brow of night,
Which wore a dusky smile beneath that chrysolite.
Such was the scene, sweet girl! we gazed upon,
While thou recountedst o'er that tale of woe
Which oft, in other lands, a setting sun
Hath summoned like a talisman; — although
Gone hope, and griefs that bade the heart o'erflow,
Be since forgot, and tears that fell in vain ;-
And with it rose thine image, like the bow
That bathes its colours in the summer-rain,
Thou Iris of my heart, whose smiles wake hope again!
At length, one bright eve in a foreign bower,
I snatched my lute that on a laurel tree
Had idly hung-for, O! I knew the power
Of slighted song was hovering over me,
And felt its pulse in every artery!
I snatched my lute, and to its preluding
Unrolled the pictured scroll of Memory;
And found, 'mid many a far and favorite thing,
That unforgotten tale of love and sorrowing.
A spell was on me!-No! I could not choose
But weave that simple story into song!
And if its wild and plaintive beauty lose
Much of the grace it borrowed from thy tongue,—
And if sometimes a careless hand be flung
Where passion listened for her holiest tone-
Star of my path! forgive, forgive the wrong!
Whatever is of beauty is thine own:
Thy fair hand culled the flowers-I twined the wreath alone. Literary Souvenir.
THE LAUNCH OF THE NAUTILUS.
Up with thy thin transparent sail,
Thou tiny mariner !—The gale
Comes gently from the land, and brings
The odour of all lovely things
That Zephyr, in his wanton play,
Scatters in Spring's triumphant way;—
Of primrose pale, and violet,
And young anemone, beset
By thousand spikes of every hue,
Purple and scarlet, white and blue :
And every breeze that sweeps the earth
Brings the sweet sounds of love and mirth;
The shrilly pipe of things unseen
That pitter in the meadows green;
The linnet's love-sick melody,
The laverock's carol loud and high;
And mellowed, as from distance borne,
The music of the shepherd's horn.
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