ANTISTROPHE α. Y.

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paan
From land to land re-echoed solemnly,

Till silence became music? From the Ææan

To the cold Alps, eternal Italy

Starts to hear thine! The Sea

Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs
In light and music; widowed Genoa wan
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,
Murmuring, where is Doria? fair Milan,
Within whose veins long ran

The viper's palsying venom, lifts her heel
To bruise his head. The signal and the seal
(If Hope and Truth and Justice can avail)
Art Thou of all these hopes.- O hail !

ANTISTROPHE B. Y.

Florence! beneath the sun,

Of cities fairest one,

Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation :

From eyes of quenchless hope

Rome tears the priestly cope,

As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,
As athlete stripped to run

From a remoter station

For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore :-
As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail,
So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail!

EPODE I. B.

Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms
Arrayed against the ever-living Gods?

The crash and darkness of a thousand storms

Bursting their inaccessible abodes

Of crags and thunder-clouds?

See ye the banners blazoned to the day,
Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride?
Dissonant threats kill Silence far away;

The serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide

With iron light is dyed;

The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions
Like Chaos o'er creation, uncreating;

An hundred tribes nourished on strange religions
And lawless slaveries, - down the aërial regions
Of the white Alps, desolating,

Famished wolves that bide no waiting,

Blotting the glowing footsteps of old glory,
Trampling our columned cities into dust,
Their dull and savage lust

On Beauty's corse to sickness satiating —

They come! The fields they tread look black and hoary With fire from their red feet the streams run gory!

EPODE II. B.

Great Spirit, deepest Love!

Which rulest, and dost move

All things which live and are, within the Italian shore;
Who spreadest heaven around it,

Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it,

Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor;

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150

Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command

155

The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison

From the Earth's bosom chill;

O bid those beams be each a blinding brand

Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poison!
Bid the Earth's plenty kill!

160

Or, with thine harmonizing ardours fill
And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire-
Be man's high hope and unextinct desire

The instrument to work thy will divine!

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Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leopards, 170 And frowns and fears from Thee,

Would not more swiftly flee

Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.

Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine

Thou yieldest or withholdest, Oh let be
This city of thy worship ever free!

August 17-25, 1820.

175

GOOD NIGHT.

I.

GOOD night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

II.

How can I call the lone night good,

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?

Be it not said, thought, understood,
Then it will be good night.

III.

To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good night.

1820.

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IO

THE WORLD'S WANDERERS.

I.

TELL me, thou star, whose wings of light
Speed thee in thy fiery flight,

In what cavern of the night

Will thy pinions close now?

II.

Tell me, moon, thou pale and gray
Pilgrim of heaven's homeless way,
In what depth of night or day
Seekest thou repose now?

III.

Weary wind, who wanderest
Like the world's rejected guest,
Hast thou still some secret nest

On the tree or billow?

1820.

TO THE MOON.

ART thou pale for weariness

Of climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,
Wandering companionless

Among the stars that have a different birth, -
And ever changing, like a joyless eye
That finds no object worth its constancy?

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5

TIME LONG PAST.

I.

LIKE the ghost of a dear friend dead
Is Time long past.

A tone which is now forever fled,

A hope which is now forever past,

A love so sweet it could not last,
Was Time long past.

II.

There were sweet dreams in the night
Of Time long past:

And, was it sadness or delight,

Each day a shadow onward cast

Which made us wish it yet might last -

That Time long past.

III.

There is regret, almost remorse,

For Time long past.

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IO

YE hasten to the grave! What seek ye there,
Ye restless thoughts and busy purposes

Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear?
O thou quick heart which pantest to possess
All that pale Expectation feigneth fair!

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