Nor less remuneration waits on him
Who having left the Cemetery stands
In the Tower's shadow, of decline and fall
Admonished not without some sense of fear,
Fear that soon vanishes before the sight
Of splendor unextinguished, pomp unscathed,
And beauty unimpaired. Grand in itself,
And for itself, the assemblage, grand and fair
To view, and for the mind's consenting eye
A type of age in man, upon its front
Bearing the world-acknowledged evidence
Of past exploits, nor fondly after more
Struggling against the stream of destiny,
But with its peaceful majesty content.

Oh what a spectacle at every turn

The place unfolds, from pavement skinned with moss,
Or grass-grown spaces, where the heaviest foot
Provokes no echoes but must softly tread;
Where Solitude with Silence paired stops short
Of Desolation, and to Ruin's scythe
Decay submits not.

But where'er my steps
Shall wander, chiefly let me cull with care
Those images of genial beauty, oft
Too lovely to be pensive in themselves
But by reflexion made so, which do best
And fitliest serve to crown witn fragrant wreatns
Life's cup when almost filled with years, like mine.
-How lovely robed in forenoon light and shade,
Each ministering to each, didst thou appear
Savona, Queen of territory fair

As aught that marvellous coast through all its length Yields to the Stranger's eye. Remembrance holds As a selected treasure thy one cliff,

That, while it wore for melancholy crest

A shattered Convent, yet rose proud to have
Clinging to its steep sides a thousand herbs

Mural or level with the trodden floor,
In church or chapel, if my curious quest
Missed not the truth, retains a single name
Of young or old, warrior, of saint, or sage,
To whose dear memories is sepulchral verse
Paid simple tribute, such as might have flowed
From the clear spring of a plain English heart,
Say rather, one in native fellowship
With all who want not skill to couple grief
With praise, as genuine admiration prompts.
The grief, the praise, are severed from their dust,
Yet in his page the records of that worth
Survive, uninjured; - glory then to words,
Honour to word-preserving arts, and hail
Ye kindred local influences that still,
If Hope's familiar whispers merit faith,
Await my steps when they the breezy height
Shall range of philosophic Tusculum;
Or Sabine vales explored inspire a wish
To meet the shade of Horace by the side
Of his Bandusian fount; or I invoke
His presence to point out the spot where once
He sate, and eulogized with earnest pen
Peace, leisure, freedom, moderate desires;
And all the immunities of rural life
Extolled, behind Vacuna's crumbling fane.
Or let me loiter, soothed with what is given
Nor asking more on that delicious Bay,
Parthenope's Domain - Virgilian haunt,
Illustrated with never-dying verse,

And, by the Poet's laurel-shaded tomb,
Age after age to Pilgrim's from all lands
Endeared.

And who- if not a man as cold
In heart as dull in brain - while pacing ground

Out of her early struggles well inspired

To that mild breeze with motion and with voice
Softly responsive; and, attuned to all

Those vernal charms of sight and sound, appeared
Smooth space of turf which from the guardian fort
Sloped seaward, turf whose tender April green,
In coolest climes too fugitive, might even here
Plead with the sovereign Sun for longer stay
Than his unmitigated beams allow,
Nor plead in vain, if beauty could preserve,
From mortal change, aught that is born on earth
Or doth on time depend.

While on the brink
Of that high Convent-crested cliff I stood,
Modest Savona! over all did brood

A pure poetic spirit — as the breeze,

To localize heroic acts- could look
Upon the spots with undelighted eye,
Though even to their last syllable the lays
And very names of those who gave them birth
Have perished? - Verily to her utmost depth.
Imagination feels what Reason fears not
To recognise, the lasting virtue lodged
In those bold fictions that, by deeds assigned
To the Valerian, Fabian, Curian Race,
And others like in fame, created Powers
With attributes from History derived,
By Poesy irradiate, and yet graced,
Through marvellous felicity of skill,
With something more propitious to high aims

Than either, pent within her separate sphere,
Can oft with justice claim.

And not disdaining
Union with those primeval energies

To virtue consecrate, stoop ye from your height
Christian Traditions! at my Spirit's call
Descend, and on the brow of ancient Rome
As she survives in ruin, manifest

Your glories mingled with the brightest hues
Of her memorial halo, fading, fading,
But never to be extinct while Earth endures.
O come, if undishonoured by the prayer
From all her Sanctuaries! - Open for my feet
Ye Catacombs, give to mine eyes a glimpse
Of the Devout, as, mid your glooms convened
For safety, they of yore enclasped the Cross
On knees that ceased from trembling, or intoned
Their orisons with voices half-suppressed,
But sometimes heard, or fancied to be heard,
Even at this hour.

And thou Mamertine prison,
Into that vault receive me from whose depth
Issues, revealed in no presumptuous vision,
Albeit lifting human to divine,

A Saint, the Church's Rock, the mystic Keys
Grasped in his hand; and lo! with upright sword
Prefiguring his own impendent doom,
The Apostle of the Gentiles; both prepared
To suffer pains with heathen scorn and hate
Inflicted; - blessed Men, for so to Heaven
They follow their dear Lord.

Time flows-nor winds,
Nor stagnates, nor precipitates his course,
But many a benefit borne upon his breast
For human-kind sinks out of sight, is gone,
No one knows how; nor seldom is put forth
An angry arm that snatches good away,
Never perhaps to reappear. The Stream
Has to our generation brought and brings
Innumerable gains; yet we, who now
Walk in the light of day, pertain full surely
To a chilled age, most pitiably shut out
From that which is and actuates, by forms,
Abstractions, and by lifeless fact to fact
Minutely linked with diligence uninspired,
Unrectified, unguided, unsustained,

By godlike insight. To this fate is doomed
Science, wide-spread and spreading still as be
Her conquests, in the world of sense made known.
So with the internal mind it fares; and so
With morals, trusting in contempt or fear
Of vital principle's controlling law,
To her purblind guide Expediency; and so
Suffers religious faith. Elate with view
Of what is won, we overlook or scorn

The best that should keep pace with it, and must,
Else more and more the general mind will droop,
Even as if bent on perishing. There lives
No faculty within us which the Soul

Can spare, and humblest earthly Weal demands,
For dignity not placed beyond her reach,
Zealous co-operation of all means

Given or acquired, to raise us from the mire
And liberate our hearts from low pursuits.
By gross utilities enslaved we need
More of ennobling impulse from the past,
If to the future aught of good must come
Sounder and therefore holier than the ends
Which, in the giddiness of self-applause,
We covet as supreme. O grant the crown
That Wisdom wears, or take his treacherous staff
From Knowledge!-If the Muse, whom I have served
This day, be mistress of a single pearl

Fit to be placed in that pure diadem;
Then, not in vain, under these chesnut boughs
Reclined, shall I have yielded up my soul

To transports from the secondary founts
Flowing of time and place, and paid to both
Due homage; nor shall fruitlessly have striven,
By love of beauty moved, to enshrine in verse
Accordant meditations, which in times
Vexed and disordered, as our own, may shed
Influence, at least among a scattered few,
To soberness of mind and peace of heart
Friendly; as here to my repose hath been

A

This flowering broom's dear neighbourhood, the light
And murmur issuing from yon pendent flood,
And all the varied landscape. Let us now
Rise, and to-morrow greet magnificent Rome.*

THE PINE OF MONTE MARIO AT ROME.

I SAW far off the dark top of a Pine
Look like a cloud - a slender stem the tie
That bound it to its native earth- poised high
'Mid evening hues, along the horizon line,
Striving in peace each other to outshine.
But when I learned the Tree was living there,
Saved from the sordid axe by Beaumont's care,
Oh, what a gush of tenderness was mine!
The rescued Pine-tree, with its sky so bright
And cloud-like beauty, rich in thoughts of home,
Death-parted friends, and days too swift in flight,
Supplanted the whole majesty of Rome
(Then first apparent from the Pincian Height)
Crowned with St. Peter's everlasting Dome.t

OTHER MODERN HISTORIANS.

THOSE old credulities, to nature dear,

Shall they no longer bloom upon the stock
Of History, stript naked as a rock
'Mid a dry desert? What is it we hear?
The glory of Infant Rome must disappear,
Her morning splendors vanish, and their place
Know them no more. If Truth, who veiled her face
With those bright beams yet hid it not, must steer
Henceforth a humbler course perplexed and slow;
One solace yet remains for us who came
Into this world in days when story lacked
Severe research, that in our hearts we know
How, for exciting youth's heroic flame,
Assent is power, belief the soul of fact.

CONTINUED.

COMPLACENT Fictions were they, yet the same
Involved a history of no doubtful sense,
History that proves by inward evidence
From what a precious source of truth it came.
Ne'er could the boldest eulogist have dared
Such deeds to paint, such characters to frame,
But for coeval sympathy prepared

To greet with instant faith their loftiest claim.
None but a noble people could have loved
Flattery in Ancient Rome's pure-minded style:
Not in like sort the Runic Scald was moved;
He, nursed 'mid savage passions that defile
Humanity, sang feats that well might call

For the blood-thirsty mead of Odin's riotous Hall.

PLEA FOR THE HISTORIAN. FORBEAR to deem the Chronicler unwise, Ungentle, or untouched by seemly ruth, Who, gathering up all that Time's envious tooth Has spared of sound and grave realities, Firmly rejects those dazzling flatteries, Dear as they are to unsuspecting youth,

That might have drawn down Clio from the skies To vindicate the majesty of truth.

NEAR ROME, IN SIGHT OF ST. PETER'S. LONG has the dew been dried on tree and lawn; O'er man and beast a not unwelcome boon Is shed, the languor of approaching noon; To shady rest withdrawing or withdrawn Mute are all creatures, as this couchant fawn, Save insect-swarms that hum in air afloat, Save that the Cock is crowing, a shrill note, Startling and shrill as that which roused the dawn. -Heard in that hour, or when, as now, the nerve Shrinks from the note as from a mis-timed thing, Oft for a holy warning may it serve, Charged with remembrance of his sudden sting, His bitter tears, whose name the Papal Chair And yon resplendent Church are proud to bear.

Fulfilment; but, we trust, her upward track Stops not at this low point, nor wants the lure Of flowers the Virgin without fear may own, For by her Son's blest hand the seed was sown.

NEAR Anio's stream, I spied a gentle Dove
Perched on an olive branch, and heard her cooing
'Mid new-born blossoms that soft airs were wooing,
While all things present told of joy and love.
But restless Fancy left that olive grove
To hail the exploratory Bird renewing
Hope for the few, who, at the world's undoing,
On the great flood were spared to live and move.
O bounteous Heaven! signs true as dove and bough
Brought to the ark are coming evermore,

Given though we seek them not, but, while we plough
This sea of life without a visible shore,
Do neither promise ask nor grace implore
In what alone is ours, the living Now.

FROM THE ALBAN HILLS LOOKING TOWARDS ROME

FORGIVE, illustrious Country! these deep sighs,
Heaved less for thy bright plains and hills bestrown
With monuments decayed or overthrown,

For all that tottering stands or prostrate lies,
Than for like scenes in moral vision shown,

Ruin perceived for keener sympathies;

Faith crushed, yet proud of weeds, her gaudy crown; Virtues laid low, and mouldering energies.

THE CUCKOO AT LAVERNA.
MAY 25TH, 1837.

LIST't was the Cuckoo.- O with what delight
Heard I that voice! and catch it now, though faint,
Far off and faint, and melting into air,

Yet not to be mistaken. Hark again:

Those louder cries give notice that the Bird,
Although invisible as Echo's self,

Is wheeling hitherward. Thanks, happy Creature,
For this unthought-of greeting!

While allured

Thy fortunes, twice exalted, might provoke
Verse to glad notes prophetic of the hour
When thou, uprisen, shalt break thy double yoke,
And enter, with prompt aid from the Most High,
On the third stage of thy great destiny.

NEAR THE LAKE OF THRASYMENE. WHEN here with Carthage Rome to conflict came, An earthquake, mingling with the battle's shock, Checked not its rage; unfelt the ground did rock, Sword dropped not, javelin kept its deadly aim.— Now all is sun-bright peace. Of that day's shame, Or glory, not a vestige seems to endure,

Save in this rill that took from blood the name *
Which yet it bears, sweet Stream! as crystal pure.
So may all trace and signs of deeds aloof
From the true guidance of humanity,
Thro' Time and Nature's influence, purify
Their spirit; or, unless they for reproof

Or warning serve, thus let them all, on ground
That gave them being, vanish to a sound.

*Sanguinetto.

where Spring

With aspects novel to my sight; but still
Most fair, most welcome, when they drank the dew
In a sweet fellowship with kinds beloved,
For old remembrance sake. And oft
Display'd her richest blossoms among files
Of orange-trees bedecked with glowing fruit
Ripe for the hand, or under a thick shade
Of Ilex, or, if better suited to the hour,
The lightsome Olive's twinkling canopy
Oft have I heard the Nightingale and Thrush
Blending as in a common English grove
Their love-songs; but, where'er my feet might roam,
Whate'er assemblages of new and old,
Strange and familiar, might beguile the way,
A gratulation from that vagrant voice
Was wanting; and most happily till now."

For see, Laverna! mark the far-famed Pile,
High on the brink of that precipitous rock,
Implanted like a Fortress, as in truth
It is, a Christian Fortress, garrisoned
In faith and hope, and dutiful obedience,
By a few Monks, a stern society,

Dead to the world and scorning earth-born joys.
Nay-though the hopes that drew, the fears that drove,

His milder Genius (thanks to the good God
That made us) over those severe restraints
Of mind, that dread heart-freezing discipline,
Doth sometimes here predominate, and works
By unsought means for gracious purposes;

Now that their snows must melt, their herbs and flowers
Revive, their obstinate winter pass away,

That awful name to Thee, thee, simple Cuckoo,
Wandering in solitude, and evermore
Foretelling and proclaiming, ere thou leave
This thy last haunt beneath Italian skies
To carry thy glad tidings over heights

earth,

Illustrated, and mutually endeared.

Rapt though He were above the power of sense, Familiarly, yet out of the cleansed heart Of that once sinful Being overflowed On sun, moon, stars, the nether elements, And every shape of creature they sustain, Divine affections; and with beast and bi (Stilled from afar - such marvel story tellsBy casual outbreak of his passionate words, And from their own pursuits in field or grove Drawn to his side by look or act of love Humane, and virtue of his innocent life) He wont to hold companionship so free, So pure, so fraught with knowledge and delight As to be likened in his followers' minds To that which our first Parents, ere the fall From their high state darkened the Earth with fear, Held with all Kinds in Eden's blissful bowers.

Then question not that, 'mid the austere Band,
Who breathe the air he breathed, tread where he trod,
Some true partakers of his loving spirit

Do still survive, and, with those gentle hearts
Consorted, others, in the power, the faith,
Of a baptized imagination, prompt

To catch from Nature's humblest monitors
Whate'er they bring of impulses sublime.

Thus sensitive must be the Monk, though pale
With fasts, with vigils worn, depressed by years,
Whom in a sunny glade I chanced to see,
Upon a pine-tree's storm uprooted trunk,
Seated alone, with forehead sky-ward raised,
Hands clasped above the crucifix he wore
Appended to his bosom, and lips closed
By the joint pressure of his musing mood
And habit of his vow. That ancient Man-
Nor haply less the brother whom I marked,
As we approached the Convent gate, aloft
Looking far forth from his aerial cell,
A young Ascetic - Poet, Hero, Sage,
He might have been, Lover belike he was—
If they received into a conscious ear

The notes whose first faint greeting startled me,
Whose sedulous iteration thrilled with joy

My heart-may have been moved like me to think,

Voice of the desert, fare-thee-well; sweet Bird! If that substantial title please thee more, Farewell!-but go thy way, no need hast thou Of a good wish sent after thee; from bower To bower as green, from sky to sky as clear, The gentle breezes waft - or airs that meet Thy course and sport around the softly fanTill Night, descending upon hill and vale, Grants to thy mission a brief term of silence, And folds thy pinions up in blest repose.

AT THE CONVENT OF CAMALDOLI. GRIEVE for the Man who hither came bereft, And seeking consolation from above; Nor grieve the less that skill to him was left To paint this picture of his lady-love: Can she, a blessed saint, the work approve? And O, good Brethren of the cowl, a thing So fair, to which with peril he must cling, Destroy in pity, or with care remove. That bloom-those eyes— can they assist to bind Thoughts that would stray from Heaven? The d...m

must cease

To be; by Faith, not sight, his soul must live; Else will the enamoured Monk too surely find How wide a space can part from inward peace The most profound repose his cell can give.

CONTINUED.

THE world forsaken, all its busy cares

And stirring interests shunned with desperate flight,
All trust abandoned in the healing might
Of virtuous action; all that courage dares,
Labour accomplishes, or patience bears —
Those helps rejected, they, whose minds perceive
How subtly works man's weakness, sighs may heave
For such a one beset with cloistral snares.
Father of Mercy! rectify his view,

If with his vows this object ill agree;
Shed over it thy grace, and thus subdue
Imperious passion in a heart set free:-
That earthly love may to herself be true,
Give him a soul that cleaveth unto thee.*

* See Note.