ORIGINAL POETRY.

SONNET.

A POWER is on the earth and in the air
From which the vital spirit shrinks afraid,
And shelters him, in nooks of deepest shade,
From the hot steam and from the fiery glare.
Look forth upon the earth-her thousand plants

Are smitten; even the dark sun-loving maize
Faints in the field beneath the torrid blaze:
The herd beside the shaded fountain pants;
For life is driven from all the landscape brown;

The bird has sought his tree, the snake his den;
The trout floats dead in the hot stream, and men
Drop by the sun-stroke in the populous town:
As if the Day of Fire had dawned, and sent
Its deadly breath into the firmament.

B.

TRANSLATIONS FROM THE PASTOR FIDO.*

ACT I. SCENE V.

SILVIO. LINCO.

SIL. THERE is no life, forsooth,

But that which nurture hath

From wanton and mad phantasy!

LIN. Tell me, if in this glad and beautiful tide,
That overlays with gold the new-born earth,
Thou shouldst behold, for flower-embroidered fields,
Green meadows and the leaf-invested groves,
Shorn of their tangled locks the pine and fir,

*These versions are intended to come as near metaphrase as the structure of the languages permits; and if they do not, the attempt is a failure. The measure has been exactly preserved, and the transitions from rhyme to blank verse and vice versâ in the first of these specimens correspond with those in the original.

Beech, ash, and all the woodland family,
The meadows bare, the uplands unadorned,

Wouldst thou not say, "Earth waxes sick and pale,
Nature herself decays?" Like horror, then,
Like wonder strange as thou wouldst entertain
At such unheard, portentous novelty,

Feel at thyself. Heaven to the course of years
Conforms the wants of life; to every age
Its genial usages; and even as love

Accords not with the thoughts of grey-haired men,
So youth's antipathy to gracious love

Affronts great nature and opposes heaven.—
Look then around thee, Silvio :

All in this world that 's fair and excellent

Is Love's creation: heaven is full of love;

And earth, and ocean's depths.

And that sweet star, forerunner of the dawn,

Which yonder thou mayst mark,

Glows with that flame; she too in her pure sphere

Kindles with her son's fires; the source of love

Herself enamoured shines;

And now, even now, perchance,

Dear, secret raptures and the chosen breast

Of her own love she quits.

Lo! how she sparkles and smiles radiant!

Deep in the desart woods

The monstrous creatures love; amidst the waves,

Swift gliding dolphins and the shapeless orc.

That warbler who his chant

Prolongs so sweetly, winged in wanton flight

From th' ash tree to the beech,

From the beech to myrtle spray,

Had he human wit, would say

In his articulate song, "I love! I love!"

Yet what his song doth move,

The language of his heart,

The mistress of his music understands.
And list, list, Silvio,

The mistress of his strain

Doth answer with her song, "I love again."
The kine that folded in their pastures low
Responsive ardors woo.

The lion roars in the wood
With bellowings not of ire;

Thus then does love inspire,

In fine, each living thing,
Save, Silvio, thee.

Shall Silvio be alone,

In heaven, and earth, and sea,

A soul that feels not love?

Ah! then, forsake the woods,

Fond boy, forsake the chase, and learn to love.

CHORUS IN ACT IV.

CANZONE.

BLEST golden age, when men

From milk their nurture drew;

In the young world, in woodland cradle reared;

The tender offspring then

Of the herd around them grew,

Nor sword nor mortal venom then was feared.

Nor cloudy thoughts and bleared

Veiled then the eternal light,

The sun of nature pure;

Now reason, 'mid obscure

Dim mists of sense, doth hide the heavens with night.

And hence the wandering tree

Seeks stranger lands and ploughs the troubled sea.

That pompous sound and vain,

That idle theme for all,

Blazoned by flattery, titles, empty show

Which the multitude insane

And ignorant, honor call,

Then was not tyrant of the mind below.

But pain to undergo,

For that enjoyment true

And homefelt bliss, that sprung

Their groves and herds among,

And faith to sacred laws was all they knew
By honor's name; well taught

Their lawful joys to prize, by honest thought.

'Mid meads and runnels clear,

Sly Sport and frolic Jest

In the path of honest love their torches lit;
And nymphs and swains sincere

In speech their hearts exprest;

And bonds of joy and rapture Hymen knit,
As stronger as more sweet.
For one alone, unveiled,
Love's cherished roses blew,

Close hid from furtive view

Of passion unavowed, whose inquest failed

By cavern, mere, and grove;

And it was one sole name, marriage, and love.

O guilty age! which hides

With pleasures gross and base

The soul's true beauty; and for vice secure

A formal cloak provides

Of the dissembled face;

While uncontrolled rove secret thoughts impure!

Like that extended lure,

'Mid flowers and leaves which lies,

Thou low desires dost screen

With holy, modest mien;

Virtue, thou deemest show, and life, disguise :

Nay, most thyself dost laud

For love betrayed, if secret be the fraud.

But thou inform our souls

With longings high and fair,

True honor, dowery of the noble mind!

And thou! whose power controls

Kings, to this nook repair,

Since without thee, no bliss attends mankind.

'Tis thy quick promptings bind

The tangled threads of fate;

The grovelling wish that tires,
Following thy guiding fires,

Forsakes all ancestry revered as great.

Yet, sometimes, truce from iil,

Let us expect, if hope be with us still.

Let us hope. The sun that sets is born anew,

And heaven's most sombre hue

Serene, unclouded glory oft breaks through.

THE WIDOW.

S.

"But now will canker sorrow eat my bud,

And chase the native beauty from his cheek,
And he will look as hollow as a ghost;

As dim and meagre as an ague's fit;

And so he 'll die."

SHE said she was alone within the world :—

How could she but be sad!

She whispered something of a lad,

With eyes of blue and light hair sweetly curled

But the grave had the child!

And yet his voice she heard,

When at the lattice, calm and mild,

The mother in the twilight saw the vine-leaves stirred. "Mother," it seemed to say,

"I love thee;

When thou dost by the side of thy lone pillow pray,

My spirit writes the words above thee ;

Mother, I watch o'er thee-I love thee."