see

Is on

Thou vainly curious mind which wouldest While the meek blest sit smiling ; if guess

Despair Whence thou didst come, and whither And Hate, the rapid bloodhounds with thou must go,

which Terror And all that never yet was known Hunts through the world the homeless would know

steps of Error, Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye Are the true secrets of the commonweal press,

To make men wise and just ; With such swift feet life's green and And not the sophisms of revenge and pleasant path,

fear, Seeking, alike from happiness and woe, Bloodier than is revenge . A refuge in the cavern of gray death? Then send the priests to every hearth O heart, and mind, and thoughts, what

and home thing do you

To preach the burning wrath which is to Hope to inherit in the grave below ?

come, In words like Makes of sulphur, such as

thaw LINES TO A REVIEWER

The frozen tears Alas, good friend, what profit can you

If Satire's scourge could wake the slum

bering hounds In hating such a hateless thing as me ?

Of Conscience, or erase the deeper There is no sport in hate when all the

wounds,

The leprous scars of callous infamy; rage one side: in vain would you

If it could make the present not to

be, assuage Your srowns upon an unresisting smile,

Or charm the dark past never to have In which not even contempt lurks to

been, beguile

Or turn regret to hope; who that has Your heart, by some faint sympathy of hate.

What Southey is and was, would not Oh! conquer what you cannot satiate ;

exclaim, Lash on!

be the keen verse For to your passion I am far more coy Than ever yet was coldest maid or boy

dipped in flame; In winter noon. Of your antipathy,

Follow his flight with winged words, and If I am the Narcissus, you are free

urge

The strokes of the inexorable scourge To pine into a sound with hating me.

Until the heart be naked, till his soul

See the contagion's spots FRAGMENT OF A SATIRE ON And from the mirror of Truth's sunlike SATIRE

shield,

From which his Parthian arrow ... IF gibbets, axes, confiscations, chains, Flash on bis sight the spectres of the And racks of subtle torture, if the pains

past, Of shame, of fiery Hell's tempestuous Until his mind's eye paint thereon -wave,

Let scorn like

yawn below, Seen through the caverns of the shadowy And rain on him like flakes of fiery

grave, Hurling the damned into the murky | This cannot be, it ought not, evil air

seen

foul;

II

Suffering makes suffering, ill must follow

BUONA NOTTE ill.

1 Rough words beget sad thoughts, and, beside,

“BUONA notte, buona notte!”—Come Men take a sullen and a stupid pride

mai In being all they hate in others' La notte sarà buona senza te? shame,

Non dirmi buona notte, -chè tu sai, By a perverse antipathy of fame.

La notte så star buona da per sè. 'Tis not worth while to prove, as I

could, how From the sweet fountains of our Nature Solinga, scura, cupa, senza speme, flow

La notte quando Lilla m'abbandona; These bitter waters; I will only say,

Pei cuori chi si batton insieme If any friend would take Southey some

Ogni notte, senza dirla, sarà buona. day,

III And tell him, in a country walk alone,

Come male buona notte si suona Softening harsh words with friendship’s

Con sospiri e parole interrotte!gentle tone,

Il modo di aver la notte buona How incorrect his public conduct is,

E mai non di dir la buona notte. And what men think of it, 'twere not amiss.

ORPHEUS Far better than to make innocent ink

A. Not far from hence. From

yonder pointed hill, Crowned with a ring of oaks, you may

behold GOOD NIGHT

A dark and barren field, through which

there flows,

Sluggish and black, a deep but narrow Good night ? ah ! no; the hour is ill

stream, Which severs those it should unite;

Which the wind ripples not, and the fair
Let us remain together still,
Then it will be good night.

Gazes in vain, and finds no mirror there.
Follow the herbless banks of that strange

brook

Until you pause beside a darksome pond, How can I call the lone night good, The fountain of this rivulet, whose gush Though thy sweet wishes wing its Cannot be seen, hid by a rayless night flight?

That lives beneath the overhanging rock Be it not said, thought, understood- That shades the poolman endless spring Then it will be-good night.

of gloom, Upon whose edge hovers the tender

light,

Tremblingtomingle with its paramour, To hearts which near each other move But, as Syrinx fled Pan, so night flies

From evening close to morning light, day, The night is good; because, my love, Or, with most sullen and regardless They never say good night.

hate,

1

moon

III

press on

Refuses stern her heaven-born embrace. Upon the startled sense.
On one side of this jagged and shapeless Chorus.

Does he still sing? hill

Methought he rashly cast away his harp There is a cave, from which there eddies When he had lost Eurydice. up

A.

Ah no! A pale mist, like aërial gossamer, Awhile he paused. As a poor hunted Whose breath destroys all life-awhile

stag it veils

A moment shudders on the fearful brink The rock—then, scattered by the wind, Of a swift stream—the cruel hounds

it flies Along the stream, or lingers on the With deafening yell, the arrows glance clefts,

and wound, Killing the sleepy worms, if aught bide He plunges in: so Orpheus, seized and there.

torn Upon the beetling edge of that dark By the sharp fangs of an insatiate grief, rock

Mænad-like waved his lyre in the bright There stands a group of cypresses ; not

air, such

And wildly shrieked “Where she is, it As, with a graceful spire and stirring is dark !” life,

And then he struck from forth the strings Pierce the pure heaven of your native a sound vale,

Of deep and fearful melody. Alas! Whose branches the air plays among, In times long past, when fair Eurydice but not

With her bright eyes sat listening by Disturbs, fearing to spoil their solemn

his side, grace;

lle gently sang of high and heavenly But blasted and all wearily they stand,

themes. One to another clinging; their weak As in a brook, fretted with little waves, boughs

By the light airs of spring-each riplet Sigh as the wind buffets them, and they makes shake

A many-sided mirror for the sun, Beneath its blasts—a weatherbeaten While it flows musically through green crew!

banks, Chorus. What wondrous sound is Ceaseless and pauseless, ever clear and that, mournful and faint,

fresh, But more melodious than the murmuring So flowed his song, reflecting the deep wind

joy Which through the columns of a temple And tender love that fed those sweetest glides ?

notes, A. It is the wandering voice of The heavenly offspring of ambrosial food. Orpheus' lyre,

But that is past. Returning from drear Borne by the winds, who sigh that their Hell, rude king

He chose a lonely seat of unhewn Ilurries them fast from these air-feeding

stone, notes;

Blackened with lichens, on a herbless But in their speed they bear along with them

Then from the deep and overflowing The waning sound, scattering it like spring dew

Of his eternal ever-moving grief

plain.

race

Of poesy.

There rose to Heaven a sound of angry Or I must borrow from her perfect song.

works, 'Tis as a mighty cataract that parts To picture forth his perfect attributes. Two sister rocks with waters swift and He does no longer sit upon his throne strong,

Of rock upon a desert herbless plain, And casts itself with horrid roar and din For the evergreen and knotted ilexes, Adown a steep; from a perennial source And cypresses that seldom wave their It ever flows and falls, and breaks the boughs, air

And sea-green olives with their grateful With loud and fierce, but most harmoni- fruit, ous roar,

And elms dragging along the twisted And as it falls casts up a vaporous spray

vines, Which the sun clothes in hues of Iris Which drop their berries as they follow light.

fast Thus the tempestuous torrent of his grief | And blackthorn bushes with their infant Is clothed in sweetest sounds and vary. ing words

Of blushing rose blooms; beeches, to Unlike all human works,

lovers dear, It never slackens, and through every And weeping willow trees; all swift or change

slow, Wisdom and beauty and the power As their huge boughs or lighter dress divine

permit, Of mighty poesy together dwell, Have circled in his throne, and Earth Mingling in sweet accord. As I have

herself

Has sent from her maternal breast a A fierce south blast tear through the growth darkened sky,

Of starlike flowers and herbs of odour Driving along a rack of winged clouds,

sweet, Which may not pause, but ever hurry To pave the temple that his poesy on,

Has framed, while near his feet grim As their wild shepherd wills them, while lions couch, the stars,

And kids, fearless from love, creep near Twinkling and dim, peep from between

his lair. the plumes.

Even the blind worms seem to feel the Anon the sky is cleared, and the high

sound. dome

The birds are silent, hanging down their of serene Heaven, starred with fiery heads, flowers,

Perched on the lowest branches of the Shuts in the shaken earth ; or the still

trees;

Not even the nightingale intrudes a note Swiftly, yet gracefully, begins her walk, In rivalry, but all entranced she listens. Rising all bright behind the eastern

hills. I talk of moon, and wind, and stars,

FIORDISPINA and not Of song; but would I echo his high The season was the childhood of sweet song,

June, Nature must lend me words ne'er used Whose sunny hours from morning until

seen

moon

stem

bosom gay.

Went creeping through the day with Fiordispina said, and threw the flowers silent feet,

Which she had from the breathingEach with its load of pleasure, slow yet sweet;

-A table near of polished porphyry. Like the long years of blest Eternity They seemed to wear a beauty from the Never to be developed. Joy to thee,

eye Fiordispina and thy Cosimo,

That looked on them-a fragrance from For thou the wonders of the depth canst

the touch know

Whose warmth checked their lise ; Of this unfathomable flood of hours,

a light such Sparkling beneath the heaven which As sleepers wear, lulled by the voice embowers-

they love,

which did reprove They were two cousins, almost like to the childish pity that she felt for them, twins,

And a

remorse that from their Except that from the catalogue of sins Nature had rased their love — which she had divided such fair shapes could not be

made But by dissevering their nativity. A feeling in the which was a shade And so they grew together like two Of gentle beauty on the flowers: there lay flowers

All gems that make the earth's dark Upon one stem, which the same beams and showers

rods of myrtle-buds and lemonLull or awaken in their purple prime,

blooms, Which the same hand will gather—the And that leaf tinted lightly which

same clime Shake with decay. This fair day smiles The livery of unremembered snowto see

Violets whose eyes have drunkAll those who love---and who e'er loved like thee,

Fiordispina and her nurse are now Fiordispina ? Scarcely Cosimo, Upon the steps of the high portico; Within whose bosom and whose brain Under the withered arm of Media now glow

She flings her glowing arm
The ardours of a vision which obscure
The very idol of its portraiture.

step by step and stair by stair, He faints, dissolved into a sea of love; That withered woman, gray and white But thou art as a planet sphered above ;

and brownBut thou art Love itself — ruling the More like a trunk by lichens overgrown motion

Than anything which once could have Of his subjected spirit : such emotion

been human. Must end in sin and sorrow, if sweet And ever as she goes the palsied woman

May Had not brought forth this morn-your “ How slow and painfully you seem to wedding-day.

walk,

Poor Media! you tire yourself with Lie there; sleep awhile in your own talk.". dew,

And well it may, Ye faint-eyed children of the

Fiordispina, dearest-well-a-day!
Hours,

You are hastening to a marriage-bed;

assumes