Their tyrannies, but that, in a later day, Yet first of all thy sons were they who wove Thy silken language into tales of love, And fairest far the gentle forms that shine In thy own poets' faery songs divine. o, long as lips shall smile or pitying tears Rain from the eyes of beauty, — long as fears Or doubts or hopes shall sear or soothe the heart, Or flatteries softly fall on woman's ears, Or witching words he spoke at twilight hours, Or tender songs be sung in orange bowers, Long as the stars, like ladies' looks, by night Shall shine, - more constant and almost as bright, – So long, though hidden in a foreign shroud, Shall Dante's mighty spirit speak aloud: So long the lamp of fame on Petrarch's urn Shall, like the light of learning, duly burn; And he be loved, - be with his hundred tales, As varying as the shadowy cloud that sails Upon the bosom of the April sky, And musical as when the waters run Lapsing through sylvan haunts deliciously.. Nor may that gay romancer who hath told Of knight and damsel and enchantments old, So well, be e'er forgot; nor he wlio sung Of Salem's holy city lost and won, The seer-like Tasso, who enamoured hung Bryan Waller Procter. MIGNON. KNOW NOW'ST thou the land, there where the citron blows? Know'st thou the house? On columns rests its roof; 9 Know'st thou the mount, with cloud-enveloped track ? Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Tr. Anon. THE DAISY. 0 LOVE, what hours were thine and mine In lands of palm and southern pine,In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine. What Roman strength Turbìa showed How like a gem, beneath, the city How richly down the rocky dell To meet the sun and sunny waters, Where, here and there, on sandy beaches A milky-belled amaryllis blew. How young Columbus seemed to rove, Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, Now pacing mute by ocean's rim I stayed the wheels at Cogoletto, Nor knew we well what pleased us most, Not the clipt palm of which they boast; But distant color, happy hamlet, A mouldered citadel on the coast, Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen Or olive-boary cape in ocean ; Where oleanders flushed the bed And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten We loved that hall, though white and cold, Those nichéd shapes of noble mould, A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. At Florence, too, what golden hours What drives about the fresh Cascinè, In bright vignettes, and each complete, Or palace, how the city glittered, But when we crost the Lombard plain Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain. And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Porch-pillars on the lion resting, O Milan, O the chanting quires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! A mount of marble, a hundred spires ! I climbed the roofs at break of day; I stood among the silent statues, How faintly flushed, how phantom-fair, A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys Remember how we came at last Had blown the lake beyond his limit, From Como, when the light was gray, The rich Virgilian rustic measure |