Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance,
See! Boccace sits, unfolding on his knees

The new-found roll of old Mæonides; .*
But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart,
Peers Ovid's holy book of 'Love's sweet smart! †
O all-enjoying and all-blending sage,

Long be it mine to con thy mazy page,

Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse !

Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks,
And see in Dian's vest between the ranks
Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes
The vestal fires, of which her lover grieves,
With that sly satyr peeping through the leaves !

*Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first introduced the works of Homer to his countrymen.

I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imaginations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio, where the sage instructor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancofiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. "Incominciò Racheo a mettere il suo officio in esecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece leggere il santo libro d'Ovvidio, nel quale il sommo poeta mostra come i santi fuochi di Venere si debbano ne' freddi cuori accendere."

ON A CATARACT

FROM A CAVERN NEAR THE SUMMIT OF A
MOUNTAIN PRECIPICE.*

STROPHE,

UNPERISHING youth!

Thou leapest from forth

The cell of thy hidden nativity;

Never mortal saw

The cradle of the strong one;
Never mortal heard

The gathering of his voices;

The deep-murmur'd charm of the son of the rock,
That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless fountain.
There's a cloud at the portal, a spray-woven veil
At the shrine of his ceaseless renewing;

It embosoms the roses of dawn,

It entangles the shafts of the noon,

And into the bed of its stillness

The moonshine sinks down as in slumber,

That the son of the rock, that the nursling of heaven May be born in a holy twilight!

ANTISTROPHE.

The wild goat in awe

Looks up and beholds

Above thee the cliff inaccessible ;

* An expansion of a German poem by Count Stolberg.-ED.

Thou at once full-born

Madden'st in thy joyance,
Whirlest, shatter'st, splitt'st,
Life invulnerable.

A CHILD'S EVENING PRAYER.

RE on my bed my limbs I lay,

ERE

God grant me grace my prayers to say: O God! preserve my mother dear In strength and health for many a year ; And, O! preserve my father too, And may I pay him reverence due; And may I my best thoughts employ To be my parents' hope and joy; And O! preserve my brothers both From evil doings and from sloth, And may we always love each other Our friends, our father, and our mother : And still, O Lord, to me impart An innocent and grateful heart, That after my last sleep I may Awake to thy eternal day!

Amen.

LOVE'S APPARITION AND
EVANISHMENT.

AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE.

LIKE a lone Arab, old and blind,
Some caravan had left behind,

Who sits beside a ruin'd well,

Where the shy sand-asps bask and swell; And now he hangs his aged head aslant,

And listens for a human sound-in vain !

And now the aid, which Heaven alone can grant,
Upturns his eyeless face from Heaven to gain ;-
Even thus, in vacant mood, one sultry hour,
Resting my eye upon a drooping plant,
With brow low-bent, within my garden-bower,
I sate upon the couch of camomile ;
And-whether 'twas a transient sleep, perchance,
Flitted across the idle brain, the while

I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope,
In my own heart; or that, indeed a trance,
Turn'd my eye inward-thee, O genial Hope,
Love's elder sister! thee did I behold,

Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold,
With roseless cheek, all pale and cold and dim,
Lie lifeless at my feet!

And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim,
And stood beside my seat;

She bent, and kiss'd her sister's lips,

As she was wont to do ;

Alas! 'twas but a chilling breath

Woke just enough of life in death

To make Hope die anew.

L'ENVOY.

IN vain we supplicate the Powers above;

There is no resurrection for the Love
That, nursed in tenderest care, yet fades away
In the chill'd heart by gradual self-decay.

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN

O'ER

EDUCATION.*

'ER wayward childhood would'st thou hold firm rule,

And sun thee in the light of happy faces;

Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces,
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it ;-so
Do these upbear the little world below

Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope.
Methinks, I see them group'd in seemly show,
The straiten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow.

O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.
But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And bending o'er, with soul-transfusing eyes,
And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,
Wooes back the fleeting spirit, and half supplies ;-
Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to
Love.

* Printed in The Keepsake, 1830, with the following title :"The Poet's Answer to a Lady's Question respecting the accomplishments most desirable in an instructress of children."