At length arrived, and with a shrug that pleads.

""Tis my necessity!" he stops and speaks,

Screwing a smile into his dinnerless face.

"I am a Poet, Signor:-give me leave

To bid you welcome. Tho' you shrink from notice,

The splendour of your name has gone before you; And ITALY from sea to sea rejoices,

As well indeed she may! But I transgress.

I too have known the weight of Praise, and ought

To spare another."

Saying so, he laid

His sonnet, an impromptu, on my table,

(If his, then Petrarch must have stolen it from him)

And bowed and left me; in his hollow hand

Receiving my small tribute, a zecchino,

Unconsciously, as doctors do their fees.

My omelet, and a flagon of hill-wine,

"The very best in BERGAMO!" had long Fled from all eyes; or, like the young Gil Blas

De Santillane, I had perhaps been seen

IX.

AM I in ITALY? Is this the Mincius?

Are those the ancient turrets of Verona?

And shall I sup where Juliet at the Masque

Saw her loved Montague, and now sleeps by him?

Such questions hourly do I ask myself;

And not a finger-post by the road-side

"To Mantua". "To Ferrara"-but excites

Surprise, and doubt, and self-congratulation.

O ITALY, how beautiful thou art!

Yet I could weep-for thou art lying, alas,

Low in the dust; and they who come, admire thee

As we admire the beautiful in death.

Thine was a dangerous gift, the gift of Beauty.

Would thou hadst less, or wert as once thou wast, Inspiring awe in those who now enslave thee!

-But why despair? Twice hast thou lived already;

Twice shone among the nations of the world,

As the sun shines among the lesser lights

Of heaven; and shalt again. The hour shall come,

When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit,

Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey,

Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again

If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess

Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame

Bursts forth where once it burnt so gloriously,

And, dying, left a splendour like the day,

That like the day diffused itself, and still

Blesses the earth-the light of genius, virtue,

Greatness in thought and act, contempt of death, God-like example. Echoes that have slept

Since ATHENS, LACEDÆMON, were Themselves,

They of that sacred shore, have heard the call,

And thro' the ranks, from wing to wing, are seen

Moving as once they were-instead of rage

Breathing deliberate valour.