While your leaves I behold and the brooks

they will strew,

throne,

In just esteem, it rivals; though no style Be there of decoration to beguile

Even so, and unblamed, we rejoice as we may

In Forms that must perish, frail objects of

sense;

Unblamed-if the Soul be intent on the day When the Being of Beings shall summon her hence.

For he and he only with wisdom is blest Who, gathering true pleasures wherever they grow,

Looks up in all places, for joy or for rest, To the Fountain whence Time and Eternity flow.

XIX

AT FLORENCE

Upon what evidence the belief rests that this stone was a favourite seat of Dante, I do not know; but a man would little consult his own interest as a traveller, if he should busy himself with doubts as to the fact. The readiness with which traditions of this character are received, and the fidelity with which they are preserved from generation to generation, are an evidence of feelings honourable to our nature. I remember how, during one of my rambles in the course of a college vacation, I was pleased on being shown a seat near a kind of rocky cell at the source of the river, on which it was said that Congreve wrote his "Old Bachelor." One can scarcely

hit on any performance less in harmony with the scene; but it was a local tribute paid to intellect by those who had not troubled themselves to estimate the moral worth of that author's comedies; and why should they? He was a man distinguished in his day; and the sequestered neighbourhood in which he often resided was perhaps as proud of him as Florence of her Dante: it is the same feeling, though proceeding from persons one cannot bring together in this way without offering some apology to the Shade of the great Visionary.

UNDER the shadow of a stately Pile,
The dome of Florence, pensive and alone,
Nor giving heed to aught that passed the

while,

I stood, and gazed upon a marble stone,

ness flown.

It was very hot weather during the week we stayed at Florence; and, never having been there before, I went through much hard service, and am not therefore ashamed to confess I fell asleep before this picture and sitting with my back towards the Venus de Medicis. Buonaparte-in answer to one who had spoken of his being in a sound sleep up to the moment when one of his great battles was to be fought, as a proof of the calmness of his mind and command over anxious thoughts-said frankly, that he slept because from bodily exhaustion he could not help it. In like manner it is noticed that criminals on the night previous to their execution seldom awake before they are called, a proof that the body is the master of us far more than we need be willing to allow. Should this note by any possible chance be seen by any of my countrymen who might have been in the gallery at the time (and several persons were there) and witnessed such an indecorum, I hope he will give up the opinion which he might naturally have formed to my prejudice. THE Baptist might have been ordained to Forth from the towers of that huge Pile, cry

wherein

His Father served Jehovah; but how win Due audience, how for aught but scorn

defy

The obstinate pride and wanton revelry
Of the Jerusalem below, her sin

And folly, if they with united din
Drown not at once mandate and prophecy?

Therefore the Voice spake from the Desert,

thence

To Her, as to her opposite in peace,
Silence, and holiness, and innocence,
To Her and to all Lands its warning sent,
Crying with earnestness that might not

cease,

"Make straight a highway for the Lordrepent!"

ΧΧΙ

AT FLORENCE-FROM MICHAEL ANGELO

However at first these two sonnets from Michael Angelo may seem in their spirit somewhat inconsistent with each other, I have not scrupled to place them side by side as characteristic of their great author, and others with whom he lived. I feel nevertheless a wish to know at what periods of his life they were respectively composed. The latter, as it expresses, was written in his advanced years when it was natural that the Platonism that pervades the one should give way to the Christian feeling that inspired the other: between both there is more than poetic affinity.

RAPT above earth by power of one fair face,

Hers in whose sway alone my heart delights,

I mingle with the blest on those pure heights

Where Man, yet mortal, rarely finds a place.

With Him who made the Work that Work accords

So well, that by its help and through his grace

I raise my thoughts, inform my deeds and words,

Clasping her beauty in my soul's embrace.

Thus, if from two fair eyes mine cannot

turn,

I feel how in their presence doth abide Light which to God is both the way and guide;

And, kindling at their lustre, if I burn,
My noble fire emits the joyful ray
That through the realms of glory shines for

aye.

XXII

AT FLORENCE-FROM M. ANGELO

ETERNAL Lord! eased of a cumbrous

load,

And loosened from the world, I turn to Thee;

Shun, like a shattered bark, the storm, and flee

To thy protection for a safe abode.
The crown of thorns, hands pierced upon
the tree,

The meek, benign, and lacerated face,
To a sincere repentance promise grace,
To the sad soul give hope of pardon free.
With justice mark not Thou, O Light
divine,

My fault, nor hear it with thy sacred ear;
Neither put forth that way thy arm severe;
Wash with thy blood my sins; thereto in-
cline

More readily the more my years require
Help, and forgiveness speedy and entire.

XXIII

AMONG THE RUINS OF A CONVENT IN THE APENNINES

The political revolutions of our time have multiplied, on the Continent, objects that unavoidably call forth reflections such as are expressed in these verses, but the Ruins in those countries are too recent to exhibit, in anything like an equal degree, the beauty with which time and nature have invested the remains of our Convents and Abbeys. These verses it will be observed take up the beauty long before it is matured, as one cannot but wish it may be among some of the desolations of Italy, France, and Germany.

YE Trees! whose slender roots entwine
Altars that piety neglects;

Whose infant arms enclasp the shrine
Which no devotion now respects;
If not a straggler from the herd
Here ruminate, nor shrouded bird,
Chanting her low-voiced hymn, take pride
In aught that ye would grace or hide-
How sadly is your love misplaced,
Fair Trees, your bounty run to waste!

Ye, too, wild Flowers! that no one heeds, And ye-full often spurned as weeds-

In beauty clothed, or breathing sweetness
From fractured arch and mouldering wall—
Do but more touchingly recall
Man's headstrong violence and Time's
fleetness,

Making the precincts ye adorn
Appear to sight still more forlorn.

XXIV

IN LOMBARDY

SEE, where his difficult way that Old Man wins

Bent by a load of Mulberry leaves !-most hard

Appears his lot, to the small Worm's compared,

For whom his toil with early day begins. Acknowledging no task-master, at will (As if her labour and her ease were twins) She seems to work, at pleasure to lie still;And softly sleeps within the thread she spins.

So fare they the Man serving as her Slave. Ere long their fates do each to each conform:

Both pass into new being,-but the Worm,
Transfigured, sinks into a hopeless grave;
His volant Spirit will, he trusts, ascend
To bliss unbounded, glory without end.

XXV

AFTER LEAVING ITALY

I had proof in several instances that the Carbonari, if I may still call them so, and their favourers, are opening their eyes to the necessity

of patience, and are intent upon spreading knowledge actively but quietly as they can. May they have resolution to continue in this course! for it is the only one by which they can truly benefit their country. We left Italy by the way which is called the "Nuova Strada de Allmagna," to the east of the high passes of the Alps, which take you at once from Italy into Switzerland. This road leads across several smaller heights, and winds down different vales in succession, so that it was only by the accidental sound of a few German words that I was aware we had quitted Italy, and hence the unwelcome shock alluded to in the two or three last lines of the latter sonnet.

FAIR Land! Thee all men greet with joy; how few,

True freedom where for ages they have lain Bound in a dark abominable pit,

With life's best sinews more and more unknit.

Here, there, a banded few who loathe the chain

May rise to break it; effort worse than vain
For thee, O great Italian nation, split
Into those jarring fractions.-Let thy scope
Be one fixed mind for all; thy rights

approve

To thy own conscience gradually renewed; Learn to make Time the father of wise Hope;

Then trust thy cause to the arm of Fortitude, The light of Knowledge, and the warmth of Love.

CONTINUED

II

HARD task! exclaim the undisciplined, to lean

On Patience coupled with such slow endeavour,

That long-lived servitude must last for ever. Perish the grovelling few, who, prest between

Wrongs and the terror of redress, would

wean

Millions from glorious aims. Our chains

to sever

Let us break forth in tempest now or

never!

What, is there then no space for golden

mean

And gradual progress?-Twilight leads to day,

And, even within the burning zones of earth,

The hastiest sunrise yields a temperate ray; The softest breeze to fairest flowers gives birth:

Think not that Prudence dwells in dark abodes,

She scans the future with the eye of gods.

CONCLUDED

III

As leaves are to the tree whereon they grow And wither, every human generation

Is, to the Being of a mighty nation, Locked in our world's embrace through weal and woe;

Thought that should teach the zealot to forego

Rash schemes, to abjure all selfish agitation,

And seek through noiseless pains and moderation

The unblemished good they only can bestow.

Alas! with most, who weigh futurity Against time present, passion holds the scales:

Hence equal ignorance of both prevails, And nations sink; or, struggling to be free, Are doomed to flounder on, like wounded whales

Tossed on the bosom of a stormy sea.

"WHAT IF OUR NUMBERS BARELY COULD DEFY'

WHAT if our numbers barely could defy The arithmetic of babes, must foreign hordes,

Slaves, vile as ever were befooled by words, Striking through English breasts the

anarchy

Of Terror, bear us to the ground, and tie Our hands behind our backs with felon cords?

Yields every thing to discipline of swords? Is man as good as man, none low, none high?

Nor discipline nor valour can withstand
The shock, nor quell the inevitable rout,
When in some great extremity breaks out
A people, on their own beloved Land
Risen, like one man, to combat in the sight
Of a just God for liberty and right.

1837.

A NIGHT THOUGHT These verses were thrown off extempore upon leaving Mrs. Luff's house at Fox-Ghyll, one evening. The good woman is not disposed to look at the bright side of things, and there happened to be present certain ladies who had reached the point of life where youth is ended, and who seemed to contend with each other in expressing their dislike of the country and climate. One of them had been heard to say she could not endure

COMPOSED AT RYDAL ON MAY MORNING, 1838

This and the sonnet entitled "The Pillar of Trajan," p. 652, were composed on what we call the "Far Terrace" at Rydal Mount, where I have murmured out many thousands of verses.

IF with old love of you, dear Hills! I share New love of many a rival image brought. From far, forgive the wanderings of my thought:

Nor art thou wronged, sweet May! when I compare

Thy present birth-morn with thy last, so fair,

So rich to me in favours. For my lot Then was, within the famed Egerian Grot To sit and muse, fanned by its dewy air Mingling with thy soft breath! That morning too,

Warblers I heard their joy unbosoming Amid the sunny, shadowy, Colyseum; Heard them, unchecked by aught of saddening hue,

For victories there won by flower-crowned Spring,

Chant in full choir their innocent Te Deurn;

COMPOSED ON A MAY MORNING,

1838

LIFE with yon Lambs, like day, is just begun,

Yet Nature seems to them a heavenly guide.

Does joy approach? they meet the coming tide;

And sullenness avoid, as now they shun Pale twilight's lingering glooms, -and in the sun

Couch near their dams, with quiet satisfied; Or gambol-each with his shadow at his side,

Varying its shape wherever he may run.
As they from turf yet hoar with sleepy dew
All turn, and court the shining and the

green,

Where herbs look up, and opening flowers

are seen;

Why to God's goodness cannot We be true, And so, His gifts and promises between, Feed to the last on pleasures ever new?