IMPROMPTU,

ON BEING UNABLE TO FIND THE GRAVE OF MARGARET M. DAVIDSON, IN THE BURYING-GROUND AT SARATOGA SPRINGS.

SHADE of Poesy, arise!

Tell me tell me where she lies!
Tell me if that fragile flower,
Blasted in its primal hour;

If the clay that wrapped the soul,

Whose sweet music o'er us stole

But an hour, then died away

Like a passing angel's lay,

Thus, neglected and alone,
Sleepeth here, without a stone
To tell us where that lovely form
Entertains the hungry worm.

Yonder is a gorgeous tomb,

Where the white rose is in bloom;

Here a marble column stands,

Reared and decked by kindred hands,

But among them hers is not

Genius !-oh, how sad thy lot!

DREAMS OF ITALY.

"E tanto crebbe con lo studio questa disposizione che talvolta mi si accendeva nel petto lo strano e tormentoso desiderio di vedere, e ragionare con alcuna larva degli antichi, evocandola dagli abissi della morte."-LE NOTTI ROMANE,

I.

WHY do my sad thoughts rove to thee,

And linger aye, fair Italy ?

Thy winding vales, and green-wood dells,

Of flowers the fragrant citadels;

Thy balmy groves, thy cloudless sky,

Thy mouldering tombs, and ancient halls,

Where Art has hung the storied walls

With works of immortality,

I have not seen, and yet thou art

The land that haunts my dreaming heart:

In hours of wild imagining,

I turn to thee-O mournful land !—

The home of all that's sad or bland!
As to a beauty sorrowing,

Bereft of all that life endears,

Yet smiling through her sunny tears;
The spot where death has reared his shrine
Among the things that were divine;
And oft above thy dusky bier,

In dreams, I pour a mourner's tear.
E'en as I sit and write of thee,
Though 'tween us flows the fearful sea,
I feel thy soft airs fan my brow,
And hear the breezes sighing low
Through many a blooming myrtle tree,

And citron bower beside the lea ;

I hear thy limpid fountains gush,

The streamlets down the mountains rush, The blithesome birds upon the wing,

The Improvisatrices sing,

And small feet on the moonlit strand

Tripping the graceful saraband.

II.

Yes, thou dost seem like that blest spot

To me-O hallowed Italy!

Which none have ever quite forgot

The haunts of blooming infancy,— Where Childhood laughed away its hours,

And left its smile upon the flowers.

III.

The least memento borne from thee,

The page that tells thy history;
Thy wild romance, thy thrilling story,
Thy bloody feuds, and faded glory;
The birth, the fame, the lasting wrong,

And wailing of thy sons of song;

Thy language, that is softer still

Than the low music of the rill
That wends along some fairy lea,—

All have a mystic charm for me.

IV.

When slumbers sweet my senses chain

In the mysterious spell of dreams,
I walk along thy flowing streams,

Or by the blue expanding main,
Where aloes rear their blooming heads,

And crystal streamlets onward leap

O'er golden vines and violet beds,

Soon wedding with the rolling deep; Where blossoms smile, the birds sing free,

The sun shines ever cloudlessly,
Until I reach decaying Rome;
Reclining there upon a tomb,

I raise the misty veil of time
And view her in meridian prime,
Before her era of decline,

Or she had known a CATILINE:

Her marble founts, her splendid domes,
Her monuments and gorgeous homes,
And Lupercals; her pageantry,
Her ranks of prancing cavalry;

And then behold these scenes sublime
Go drifting down the tide of time;
Unpeopled temples round me lying,

Proud statues from their bases thrown,
Midst palaces the rude winds sighing
The solemn dirge of ages flown ;

Or give an ear to the sad moan

Of those who from the spirit-land Have come to weep o'er glories goneAll that was mighty, holy, grand.

V.

With folded arms, and furrowed brow,
Stern MARIUS moves before me slow;
Then pensively among the tombs,
Wrapped in his toga, CATO comes,
Along the aisles serenely walks,
And of Rome's former splendor talks,