STROPHE III.

Since Rouse desires thee, and complains
That, though by promise his,

Thou yet appear'st not in thy place

Among the literary noble stores

Given to his care,

But, absent, leavest his numbers incomplete.
He, therefore, guardian vigilant
Of that unperishing wealth,

Calls thee to the interior shrine, his charge,
Where he intends a richer treasure far

That Iön kept (Iön, Erectheus son
Illustrious, of the fair Creüsa born)
In the resplendent temple of his god,
Tripods of gold, and Delphic gifts divine.

ANTISTROPHE.

Haste, then, to the pleasant groves,
The muses' favorite haunt;
Resume thy station in Apollo's dome,
Dearer to him

Than Delos, or the fork'd Parnassian hill!
Exulting go,

Since now a splendid lot is also thine,
And thou art sought by my propitious friend;
For there thou shalt be read

With authors of exalted note,

The ancient glorious lights of Greece and Rome.

EPODE.

Ye, then, my works, no longer vain,

And worthless deem'd by me!

Whate'er this sterile genius has produced,
Expect, at last, the rage of envy spent,
An unmolested happy home,

Gift of kind Hermes, and my watchful friend,
Where never flippant tongue profane
Shall entrance find,

And whence the coarse unletter'd multitude
Shall babble far remote.

Perhaps some future distant age,
Less tinged with prejudice, and better taught,
Shall furnish minds of power

To judge more equally.

Then, malice silenced in the tomb,
Cooler heads and sounder hearts,

Thanks to Rouse, if aught of praise
I merit, shall with candor weigh the claim.

TRANSLATIONS OF THE ITALIAN POEMS.

SONNET.

FAIR Lady! whose harmonious name the Rhine, Through all his grassy vale, delights to hear, Base were indeed the wretch who could forbear To love a spirit elegant as thine,

That manifests a sweetness all divine,

Nor knows a thousand winning acts to spare, And graces, which Love's bow and arrows are, Tempering thy virtues to a softer shine. When gracefully thou speak'st, or singest gay

Such strains as might the senseless forest move, Ah then-turn each his eyes and ears away, Who feels himself unworthy of thy love! Grace can alone preserve him ere the dart Of fond desire yet reach his inmost heart.

SONNET.

As on a hill-top rude, when closing day
Imbrowns the scene, some pastoral maiden fair
Waters a lovely foreign plant with care,
Borne from its native genial airs away,
That scarcely can its tender bud display,

So, on my tongue these accents, new and rare, Are flowers exotic, which Love waters there. While thus, O sweetly scornful! I essay

Thy praise in verse to British ears unknown, And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain; So love has will'd, and ofttimes Love has shown,

That what he wills, he never wills in vainOh that this hard and sterile breast might be To Him, who plants from heaven, a soil as free!

CANZONE.

THEY mock my toil-the nymphs and amorous swains

And whence this fond attempt to write, they cry,
Love-songs in language that thou little know'st?
How darest thou risk to sing these foreign
strains?

Say truly. Find'st not oft thy purpose cross'd,
And that thy fairest flowers here fade and die?
Then with pretence of admiration high-
Thee other shores expect, and other tides,

Rivers, on whose grassy sides

Her deathless laurel leaf, with which to bind
Thy flowing locks already Fame provides;
Why then this burden, better far declin'd?
Speak, muse! for me-the fair one said, who
guides

VOL. II.

23

My willing heart, and all my fancy's flights, “This is the language in which Love delights.”

SONNET, TO CHARLES DEODATI.

CHARLES-and I say it wondering-thou must know

That I, who once assumed a scornful air And scoff'd at Love, am fallen in his snare, (Full many an upright man has fallen so:) Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow Of golden locks, or damask cheek; more rare The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair; A mien majestic, with dark brows that show The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind; Words exquisite, of idioms more than one, And song whose fascinating power might bind, And from her sphere draw down the laboring

moon;

With such fire-darting eyes that, should I fill My ears with wax, she would enchant me still.

SONNET.

LADY! It cannot be but that thine eyes

Must be my sun, such radiance they display, And strike me e'en as Phœbus him whose way Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies. Meantime, on that side steamy vapors rise

Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they, New as to me they are, I cannot say, But deem them, in the lover's language-sighs. Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals, Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend

To soften thine, thy coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,

Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drown'd,

Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound,

SONNET.

ENAMOR'D, artless, young, on foreign ground,
Uncertain whither from myself to fly;

To thee, dear Lady with an humble sigh
Let me devote my heart, which I have found
By certain proofs, not few, intrepid, sound,
Good, and addicted to conceptions high: [sky,
When tempests shake the world, and fire the
It rests in adamant self-wrapt around,
As safe from envy as from outrage rude,
From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse,
As fond of genius, and fix'd fortitude,
Of the resounding lyre and every muse.
Weak you will find it in one only part,
Now pierced by love's immedicable dart.

SIMILE IN PARADISE LOST.

'So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds Ascending,' &c.

QUALES aërii montis de vertice nubes

Cum surgunt, et jam Boreæ tumida ora quiêrunt,
Cœlum hilares abdit, spissâ caligine, vultus:

Tum, si jucundo tandem sol prodeat ore,
Et croceo montes et pascua lumine tingat,
Gaudent omnia, aves mulcent concentibus agros
Balatuque ovium colles vallesque resultant.