Mid gods of Greece and warriors of romance, The new-found roll of old Mæonides; .* 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, *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 STROPHE, UNPERISHING youth! Thou leapest from forth The cell of thy hidden nativity; Never mortal saw The cradle of the strong one; The gathering of his voices; The deep-murmur'd charm of the son of the rock, 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, 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 AN ALLEGORIC ROMANCE. LIKE a lone Arab, old and blind, 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, I watch'd the sickly calm with aimless scope, Drest as a bridesmaid, but all pale and cold, And then came Love, a sylph in bridal trim, 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 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, Of Education,-Patience, Love, and Hope. O part them never! If Hope prostrate lie, * 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." |