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Now that the farewell tear is dried,
Heaven prosper thee, be hope thy guide!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
Whether for London bound-to trill
Thy mountain notes with simple skill;
Or on thy head to poise a show
Of images in seemly row;
The graceful form of milk-white steed,
Or bird that soared with Ganymede;
Or through our hamlets thou wilt bear
The sightless Milton, with his hair
Around his placid temples curled ;
And Shakspeare at his side-a freight,
If clay could think and mind were weight,
For him who bore the world!
Hope be thy guide, adventurous boy;
The wages of thy travel, joy!
But thou, perhaps, (alert and free
Though serving sage philosophy)
Wilt ramble over hill and dale,
A vendor of the well-wrought scale
Whose sentient tube instructs to time
A purpose to a fickle clime;
Whether thou choose this useful part,
Or minister to finer art,
Though robbed of many a cherished dream,
And crossed by many a shattered scheme,
What stirring wonders wilt thou see
In the proud isle of liberty!
Yet will the wanderer sometimes pine
With thoughts which no delights can chase,
Recal a sister's last embrace,
His mother's neck entwine;
[boy!
Nor shall forget the maiden coy
That would have loved the bright-haired
My song, encouraged by the grace
That beams from his ingenuous face,
For this adventurer scruples not
To prophesy a golden lot;
Due recompence, and safe return
To Como's steeps-his happy bourne !
Where he, aloft in garden glade,
Shall tend, with his own dark-eyed maid,
The towering maize, and prop the twig
That ill supports the luscious fig;
Or feed his eye in paths sun-proof
With purple of the trellis-roof,
That through the jealous leaves escapes
From Cadenabbia's pendant grapes.
Oh, might he tempt that goatherd-child
To share his wanderings! him whose look
Even yet my heart can scarcely brook,
So touchingly he smiled,
As with a rapture caught from heaven,
For unasked alms in pity given.
WITH nodding plumes, and lightly drest
Like foresters in leaf-green vest,
The Helvetian mountaineers, on ground
For Tell's dread archery renowned,
Before the target stood-to claim
The guerdon of the steadiest aim.
Loud was the rifle-gun's report,
A startling thunder quick and short!
But, flying through the heights around,
Echo prolonged a tell-tale sound
Of hearts and hands alike "prepared
The treasures they enjoy to guard?"
And, if there be a favoured hour
When heroes are allowed to quit
The tomb, and on the clouds to sit
With tutelary power,
On their descendants shedding grace,
This was the hour, and that the place.
But truth inspired the bards of old
When of an iron age they told,
Which to unequal laws gave birth,
That drove Astræa from the earth.
A gentle boy (perchance with blood
As noble as the best endued,
But seemingly a thing despised,
Even by the sun and air unprized;
For not a tinge or flowery streak
Appeared upon his tender cheek)
Heart-deaf to those rebounding notes,
Of pleasure, by his silent goats,
Sate far apart in forest shed,
Pale, ragged, bare his feet and head,
Mute as the snow upon the hill,
And, as the saint he prays to, still.
Ah, what avails heroic deed?
What liberty? if no defence
Pe won for feeble innocence-
Father of all! though wilful manhood read
His punishment in soul-distress, [ness!
Grant to the morn of life its natural blessed-
THE LAST SUPPER, BY LEONARDO DA
VINCI, IN THE REFECTORY OF THE
CONVENT OF MARIA DELLA GRAZIA,
MILAN.
THOUGH searching damps and many an
envious flaw
[grace,
Have marred this work,* the calm ethereal
The love deep-seated in the Saviour's face,
The mercy, goodness, have not failed to
The elements; as they do melt and thaw
The heart of the beholder-and erase
(At least for one rapt moment) every trace
Of disobedience to the primal law.
The annunciation of the dreadful truth
Made to the twelve, survives: lip, fore-
head, cheek,
And hand reposing on the board in ruth
Of what it utters.f while the unguilty seek
Unquestionable meanings, still bespeak
A labour worthy of eternal youth!
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Afloat beneath Italian skies,
Through regions fair as Paradise
We gaily passed, -till nature wrought
A silent and unlooked-for change,
That checked the desultory range
Of joy and sprightly thought.
Where'er was dipped the toiling oar,
The waves danced round us as before,
As lightly, though of altered hue;
Mid recent coolness, such as falls
At noon-tide from umbrageous walls
That screen the morning dew.
No vapour stretched its wings; no cloud
Cast far or near a murky shroud;
The sky an azure field displayed;
"Twas sunlight sheathed and gently
charmed,
Of all its sparkling rays disarmed,
And as in slumber laid:-
Or something night and day between,
Like moonshine, but the hue was green;
Still moonshine, without shadow, spread
On jutting rock, and curvèd shore.
Where gazed the peasant from his door,
And on the mountain's head.
It tinged the Julian steeps-it lay,
Lugano! on thy ample bay;
The solemnizing vejl was drawn
O'er villas, terraces, and towers,
To Albogasio's olive bowers
Porlezza's verdant lawn.
But fancy, with the speed of fire,
Hath fled to Milan's loftiest spire,
And there alights 'mid that aërial host
Of figures human and divine,
White as the snows of Apennine
Indurated by frost.
The statues ranged round the spire and along the roof of the cathedral of Milan, have been found fault with by persons whose exclusive taste is unfortunate for themselves. true that the same expense and labour, judiciously directed to purposes more strictly architectural, might have much heightened the general effect of the building: for, seen from the ground, the statues appear diminutive. But the coup d'ail, from the best point of view, which is half way up the spire, must strike an unprejudiced person with admiration and surely the selection and arrangement of the figures is exquisitely fitted to support the religion of the country in the imaginations and feelings of the spectator. It was with great pleasure that I saw, during the two ascents which we made, several children, of different ages, tripping up
The uplifted palms, the silent marble lips,
The starry zone of sovereign height,
All steeped in this portentous light!
All suffering dim eclipse!
Thus after man had fallen, (if aught
These perishable spheres have wrought
May with that issue be compared)
Throngs of celestial visages,
Darkening like water in the breeze,
A holy sadness shared.
Lo! while I speak, the labouring sun
His glad deliverance has begun :
The cypress waves its sombre plume
More cheerily; and town and tower,
The vineyard and the olive bower,
Their lustre re-assume!
O ye, who guard and grace my home
While in far-distant lands we roam,
Was such a vision given to you?
Or, while we looked with favoured eyes,
Did sullen mist hide lake and skies
And mountains from your view?
I ask in vain-and know far 'ess
If sickness, sorrow, or distress
Have spared my dwelling to this hour:
Sad blindness, but ordained to prove
Our faith in Heaven's unfailing love
And all-controlling power.
THE THREE COTTAGE GIRLS.
How blest the maid whose heart-yet free From love's uneasy sovereignty,
and down the slender spire, and pausing to look around them, with feelings much more animated than could have been derived from these, or the finest works of art if placed within easy reach. Remember also that you have the Alps on one side, and on the other the Apennines, with the Plain of Lombardy between!
Above the highest circle of figures is a zone of metallic stars.
Beats with a fancy running high
Her simple cares to magnify.
Whom labour, never urged to toil,
Hath cherished on a healthful soil,
Who knows not pomp, who heeds not
Whose heaviest sin it is to look
Askance upon her pretty self
Reflected in some crystal brook;
Whom grief hath spared-who sheds no
But in sweet pity; and can hear [tear
Another's praise from envy clear.
Such, (but, O lavish nature! why
That dark unfathomable eye,
Where lurks a spirit that replies
To stillest mood of softest skies,
Yet hints at peace to be o erthrown,
Another's first, and then her own?)
Such, haply, yon Italian maid,
Our lady's laggard votaress,
Halting beneath the chestnut shade
To accomplish there her loveliness:
Nice aid maternal fingers lend;
A sister serves with slacker hand;
Then, glittering like a star, she joins the
festal band.
How blest (if truth may entertain
Coy fancy with a bolder strain)
The Helvetian girl-who daily braves,
In her light skiff, the tossing waves,
And quits the bosom of the deep
Only to climb the rugged steep?
Say whence that modulated shout?
From wood-nymph of Diana's throng?
Or does the greeting to a rout
Of giddy bacchanals belong?
Jubilant outcry !-rock and glade
Resounded-but the voice obeyed
The breath of an Helvetian maid.
Her beauty dazzles the thick wood;
Her courage animates the flood;
Her step the elastic green-sward meets
Returning unreluctant sweets;
The mountains (as ye heard) rejoice
Aloud, saluted by her voice!
Blithe paragon of Alpine grace,
Be as thou art-for through thy veins
The blood of heroes runs its race!
And nobly wilt thou brook the chains
That, for the virtuous, life prepares ;
The fetters which the matron wears;
The patriot mother's weight of anxious
"Sweet Highland girl! a very shower t Of beauty was thy earthly dower,"
+ See Address to a Highland Girl, p. 147.
When thou didst pass before my eyes,
Gay vision under suilen skies,
While hope and love around thee played,
Near the rough Falls of Inversnaid!
Time cannot thin thy flowing hair,
Nor take one ray of light from thee;
For in my fancy thou dost share
The gift of immortality;
And there shall bloom, with thee allied,
The votaress by Lugano's side;
And that intrepid nymph, on Uri's
steep, descried!
THE COLUMN, INTENDED BY BONA-
PARTE FOR A TRIUMPHAL EDIFICE
IN MILAN, NOW LYING BY THE
WAY-SIDE IN THE SIMPLON PASS.
AMBITION, following down this far-famed
slope
Her pioneer, the snow-dissolving sun,
While clarions prate of kingdoms to be
Perchance in future ages here may stop;
Taught to mistrust her flattering horoscope
By admonition from this prostrate stone;
Memento uninscribed of pride o'erthrown,
Vanity's hieroglyphic; a choice trope
In fortune's rhetoric. Daughter of the rock,
Rest where thy course was stayed by power
divine!
[thine,
The soul transported sees, from hint of
Crimes which the great Avenger's hand
provoke,
[guined heath;
Hears combats whistling o'er the ensan-
What groans! what shrieks! what quietness
in death!
STANZAS COMPOSED IN THE SIMPLON
VALLOMBROSA! I longed in thy shadiest
wood
[floor,
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered
To listen to Anio's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened
[to muse
To range through the temples of Pæstum,
In Pompeii, preserved by her burial in
earth:
[their hues;
On pictures to gaze, where they drank in
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of
The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of
Rome,
With a hope (and no more) for a season to
come,
[debt!
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent
Thou fortunate region! whose greatness
inurned,
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified-fields! if in sadness I turned
From your infinite marvels, the sadness
was just.
Now, risen ere the light-footed chamois
retires
[guarded with snow,
From dew-sprinkled grass to heights
Toward the mists that hang over the land
of my sires,
From the climate of myrtles contented I go.
My thoughts become bright like yon edging
of pines,
How black was its hue in the region of air!
But, touched from behind by the sun, it
now shines
(silver hair.
With threads that seem part of his own
Though the burthen of toil with dear friends
we divide,
[fanned
Though by the same zephyr our temples are
As we rest in the cool orange-bower side by
side,
[withstand :
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ECHO UPON THE GEMMI.
WHAT beast of chase hath broken from the
cover?
Stern Gemmi listens to as full a cry,
As multitudinous a harmony,
As e'er did ring the heights of Latmos over,
When, from the soft couch of her sleeping
lover,
[tain-dew
Up-starting, Cynthia skimmed the moun-
In keen pursuit-and gave, where'er she
flew,
Impetuous motion to the stars above her.
A solitary wolf-dog, ranging on
Through the bleak concave, wakes this
wondrous chime
Of aëry voices locked in unison, —
Faint-far off-near-deep-solemn and
sublime!
So, from the body of one guilty deed,
[regret? A thousand ghostly fears, and haunting
thoughts, proceed!
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to
PROCESSIONS. SUGGESTED ON A SABBATH Even such, this day, came wafted on the
MORNING IN THE VALE OF CHAMOUNY.
breeze From a long train-in hooded vestments
To appease the gods; or public thanks to Enwrapt-and winding, between Alpine yield,
Or to solicit knowledge of events,
Which in her breast futurity concealed;
And that the past might have its true intents
Feelingly told by living monuments;
Mankind of yore were prompted to devise
Rites such as yet Persepolis presents
Graven on her cankered walls,-solemnities
That moved in long array before admiring
[prayer Spiry and dark, around their house of Below the icy bed of bright Argentiere.
Still, in the vivid freshness of a dream,
The pageant haunts me as it met our eyes!
Still, with those white-robed shapes-a
living stream,
The glacier pillars join in solemn guise.*
For the same service by mysterious ties;
Numbers exceeding credible account
Of number, pure and silent votaries
Issuing or issued from a wintry fount;
The impenetrable heart of that exalted
mount!
* This procession is a part of the sacramental In the valley service performed once a month. of Engelberg we had the good fortune to be present at the grand festival of the virgin-but the procession on that day, though consisting of upwards of 1000 persons, assembled from all the branches of the sequestered valley, was much less striking (notwithstanding the sublimity of the surrounding scenery) it wanted both the simplicity of the other, and the accompaniment of the glacier columns, whose sisterly resemblance to the moving figures gave it a most beautiful and solemn peculiarity.
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