XCVII.

I know that what our neighbours call "longueurs," (We've not so good a word, but have the thing In that complete perfection which ensures

An epic from Bob Southey every spring-) Form not the true temptation which allures

The reader; but 't would not be hard to bring Some fine examples of the epopée,

To prove its grand ingredient is ennui.

XCVIII.

We learn from Horace, Homer sometimes sleeps ;

We feel without him: Wordsworth sometimes wakes,

To show with what complacency he creeps,

With his dear "Waggoners," around his lakes;

He wishes for "a boat" to sail the deeps

Of ocean?-No, of air; and then he makes

Another outcry for "a little boat,

And drivels seas to set it well afloat.

XCIX.

If he must fain sweep o'er the etherial plain,
And Pegasus runs restive in his "waggon,"
Could he not beg the loan of Charles's Wain?
Or pray Medea for a single dragon?
Or if too classic for his vulgar brain,

He fear'd his neck to venture such a nag on,
And he must needs mount nearer to the moon,
Could not the blockhead ask for a balloon?

C.

"Pedlars," and "boats," and "waggons!" Oh! ye

shades

Of Pope and Dryden, are we come to this? That trash of such sort not alone evades

Contempt, but from the bathos' vast abyss Floats scumlike uppermost, and these Jack Cades Of sense and song above your graves may hiss

The "little boatman" and his "Peter Bell"
Can sneer at him who drew "Achitophel!"

CI.

T'our tale.-The feast was over, the slaves gone, The dwarfs and dancing girls had all retired; The Arab lore and poet's song were done,

And every sound of revelry expired;

The lady and her lover, left alone,

The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired;—

Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,

That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

CII.

Ave Maria! blessed be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,

While swung the deep bell in the distant tower,
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer.

CIII.

Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer!
Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love!

Ave Maria! may our spirits dare

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above!

Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty dove— What though 'tis but a pictured image strike—

That painting is no idol, 'tis too like.

CIV.

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,

In nameless print—that I have no devotion; But set those

persons

down with me to pray,

And you shall see who has the properest notion

Of getting into Heaven the shortest way;

My altars are the mountains and the ocean,

Earth, air, stars,—all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.

CV.

Sweet hour of twilight!-in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,

Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er, To where the last Cesarean fortress stood,

Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore

And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

CVI.

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echos, savé my steed's and mine, And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng, Which learn'd from this example not to fly From a true lover, shadow'd my mind's eye.