THE

MINSTREL'S TALE.

Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori,
Le cortesie, l'audace imprese io canto.

ARIOSTO.

THE

MINSTREL'S TALE.

I.

*

WHERE heaves the billow on thy rocky shore,

66

Delightful Baiæ,"* joyous in its roar,

I wend my way, and bid thy presence greet The age when Romans sought thy blest retreat. Nursed by the mildness of thy laughing clime, A senate wooed thee to beguile the time : Sweetly relax'd— along thy sands they stray,

Their might forgotten, and their lore away;

“Nullus in orbe sinus Baiis prælucet amœnis.” — HORACE.

Their Forum now the broad and restless flood

Meet emblem of their sway and chafing mood;
But meek as infancy those souls now bend
To glee
to childishness their moments lend:
Those mighty minds - creations of the past!
Whose gilded fetter crush'd themselves at last.

When earth's bright sunshine gave a dungeon's ray

To all who fell beneath one tyrant's sway

One tyrant of a prostrate

-of a prostrate-wide domain,

Which girt the earth, and bondsmen wept in vain;

For where they fly

where'er their steps they trace,

They find the world - the Despot's dwelling-place! But 'tis not here the Imperial badge hath wound

The limb which shrunk convulsive at its sound

It binds no fears on hearts as fresh and fair

As if their old Republic sought them there.

Oh, fatal luxury- thy soft

thy soft repose,

First ray of that which gleamed upon their woes,
Gave to earth's choicest growth a hopeless chain,
To wind with hands that Freedom should sustain.
Awake from this, thy sweet voluptuous sleep-
If thou art silent all the world shall weep!