X.

THOU next unrivalled son of Italy !a

The world's third epic bard-the scholar-sage,—
The Iris of thy own land's poesy,

The cloud-encircled day-star of thine age,

Whose splendors rolling centuries engage;-
The true refiner of thy country's tongue,
Though buffeted, and goaded into rage

By the stern tyrant whose harsh treatment wrung
Unto the core thy heart-thy soul to madness stung;

XI.

WHO midst oppression dire, and agony,

And tears, didst pour thy soul o'er Zion's fate,
And wove a wreath of immortality

While pent behind a dungeon's gloomy grate.5

Albion's sad son ! who fled'st her shores in hate,
And Sappho, Petrarch, Alfieri, Young!

Can ye not tell the sufferings that await

The children of the lyre; the scorn― -the wrong

The wo―that move the spirit's fretted strings too strong?

XII.

Look back along the misty vale of time,
And scan the woes, the chequered history
Of those whose earthly lot has been to rhyme;
In cells, in garrets, and in dungeons, see
Them cooped by Want, or cruel Tyranny;

Or writhing, withering 'neath aspersions base,
The pining toys of pampered royalty,

Breathe forth their souls in songs of simple grace,
To feed the sluggish minds of many a haughty race.

XIII.

SURVEY the tribe that up Parnassus soar,

From Judah's royal Bard of Psalmody,

To Homer, Virgil, and the Troubadour,

And downward thence, the mournful destiny

Of all the mighty sons of minstrelsy;

Among them see the poor, the maimed, the blind,

Who sing for daily bread, yet are to be

Within the heart of future worlds enshrined,

And stand on fame's proud height the wonder of mankind.

XIV.

SHELLEY and White and all the tuneful race

Behold their death-bed, their untimely doom!
In India three have found a resting-place,"

From Missolonghi one went to his tomb
How sad! Two hapless sons repose in Rome,8
Torquato fell by Este's cruel hand,

Dark Sappho sleeps beneath th' Ionian foam,

The immortal Dante in the exile's land,

And thou, fair Albion's child, midst Afric's burning sand.

XV.

UPON thy brow Genius had shed his starry beams,
And lit within thy breast his quenchless fire;

Thy young heart filled with Fancy's brightest dreams,
Whatever Hope, and Faith, and Truth inspire.

But Fate, before whose breath must all expire,

To ruin hurled thy high expectancy,

The laurel tore from thy impassioned lyre,

Extinguished love, thy soul's divinity,

And wrung thy bleeding heart till it was bliss to die.

XVI.

THOUSANDS have listened to thy plaintive lute,

And owned the power of thy song's witchery;
Thousands have worshipped reverently and mute,
While came in its sad tones their heart's own history;
Thousands have shed their silent tears for thee,
And mourned that death so soon thy lyre unstrung,

O sovereign mistress of Love's minstrelsy!

And though thy harp is on the willow hung, Lasting as time, thy songs, like Sappho's, shall be sung.

XVII.

FOR since the burning Lesbian swept her lyre,
Gave love a language-built the Sapphic rhyme,"

And listening nations owned its magic fire,

Young Phaon's heart e'en softened for a time,
Alone by its imperishable chime,

Though sad and fatal proved its witchery;

Wove the soft themes young maiden's joy to hymn,

And stamped on Lesbos immortality:

Love has no votary pure-no fervent priest like thee.

XVIII.

IN youth thy fancy feigned for thee a home 10

In

sunny

climes beyond the dark blue sea,

A spot where thou in future years mightst roam
Through bright and flowery fields of poesy;

Where sorrow, envious tongues, or misery

Would reach thee not, to break the hallowed spell :

Such is, alas! the pining fantasy

Of minds too much oppressed, and thoughts that dwell Too closely pent within the spirit's sickly cell.

XIX.

THUS Grief may pale the cheek, the bright eye dim,
Wo shroud in night the young heart's dearest dream ;

Life's fount with gall may bubble to the brim,
Yet Hope upon its dark and troubled stream

Will ever fling some fond and flickering beam,—
Catch from the Iris an ethereal ray,

And light the future with a cheering gleam,

Point to some goal where grief will end for aye, And lure us to the grave with fleeting visions gay.