THE GARDEN OF BOCCACCIO.

She bore no other name than Poesy;

137

And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee,
That had but newly left a mother's knee,
Prattled and play'd with bird and flower, and

stone

As if with elfin playfellows well known,
And life reveal'd to innocence alone.
Thanks, gentle artist! now I can descry
Thy fair creation with a mastering eye,
And all awake! And now in fix'd gaze stand,
Now wander through the Eden of thy hand;
Praise the green arches, on the fountain clear
See fragment shadows of the crossing deer;
And with that serviceable nymph I stoop
The crystal from its restless pool to scoop.
I see no longer! I myself am there,
Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share.
'Tis I, that sweep that lute's love-echoing strings,
And gaze upon the maid who gazing sings:

Or

pause and listen to the tinkling bells

From the high tower, and think that there she dwells.

With old Boccaccio's soul I stand possest,
And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest.

The brightness of the world, O thou once free, And always fair, rare land of courtesy ! O Florence! with the Tuscan fields and hills, And famous Arno, fed with all their rills; Thou brightest star of star-bright Italy!

Rich, ornate, populous, all treasures thine,
The golden corn, the olive, and the vine.
Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old
And forests, where beside his leafy hold
The sullen boar hath heard the distant horn,
And whets his tusks against the gnarled thorn;
Palladian palace with its storied halls ;

Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls;
Gardens, where flings the bridge its airy span,
And Nature makes her happy home with man;
Where many a gorgeous flower is duly fed
With its own rill, on its own spangled bed,
And wreathes the marble urn, or leans its head,
A mimic mourner, that with veil withdrawn
Weeps liquid gems, the presents of the dawn;—
Thine all delights, and every muse is thine;
And more than all, the embrace and intertwine
Of all with all in gay and twinkling dance!
'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 ! †

*

*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,

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!

1829.

CHARITY IN THOUGHT.

To praise men as good, and to take them for such, Is a grace, which no soul can mete out to a

tittle;

Of which he who has not a little too much,
Will by Charity's gage surely have much too

little.

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." [But fece leggere il saltero e'l libro d' Ovidio is the original reading: ed. of Florence, 1829, vol. vii. p. 76.]

ON BERKELEY AND FLORENCE COĻE

RIDGE,

WHO DIED ON THE 16TH OF JANUARY, 1834.*

O FRAIL as sweet! twin buds, too rathe to bear
The Winter's unkind air;

O gifts beyond all price, no sooner given
Than straight required by Heaven ;
Match'd jewels, vainly for a moment lent
To deck my brow, or sent
Untainted from the earth, as Christ's, to soar,
And add two spirits more

To that dread band seraphic, that doth lie
Beneath the Almighty's eye;—

Glorious the thought-yet ah! my babes, ah! still
A father's heart ye fill;

Though cold ye lie in earth-though gentle death Hath suck'd your balmy breath,

And the last kiss which your fair cheeks I

Is buried in yon grave.

gave

No tears-no tears-I wish them not again;

To die for them was gain,

Ere Doubt, or Fear, or Woe, or act of Sin

Had marr'd God's light within.

* By a friend.

IMPROVED FROM STOLBERG.

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-murmured charm of the son of the

rock,

That is lisp'd evermore at his slumberless foun

tain.

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!