Yet radiant still and with no earthly sheen, And, like a gift from heaven, in lifeful glee, Sit on the ground-sward, and the banquet share. From the high tower, and think that there she dwells. And breathe an air like life, that swells my chest. The brightness of the world, O thou once free, Fair cities, gallant mansions, castles old Fountains, where Love lies listening to their falls But from his mantle's fold, and near the heart, 1 Boccaccio claimed for himself the glory of having first introduced the works of Homer to his countrymen. 2 I know few more striking or more interesting proofs of the overwhelming influence which the study of the Greek and Roman classics exercised on the judgments, feelings, and imaginations of the literati of Europe at the commencement of the restoration of literature, than the passage in the Filocopo of Boccaccio: where the sage instructor, Racheo, as soon as the young prince and the beautiful girl Biancofiore had learned their letters, sets them to study the Holy Book, Ovid's Art of Love. "Incominciò Racheo a mettere il suo officio in esecuzione con intera sollecitudine. E loro, in breve tempo, insegnato a conoscer le lettere, fece leggere il santo libro d'Ov vidio, nel quale il sommo poeta nostra, come i santi fuochi di Venere si debbano ne' freddi cuori accendere." O all-enjoying and all-blending sage, Long be it mine to con thy mazy page, Where, half conceal'd, the eye of fancy views Fauns, nymphs, and winged saints, all gracious to thy muse! Still in thy garden let me watch their pranks, Of the trim vines, some maid that half believes THE VISIONARY HOPE. AD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly He fain would frame a prayer within his breast, healing, That his sick body might have ease and rest; He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest Though Nature forced; though like some captive guest, Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams, That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he wouldFor Love's despair is but Hope's pining ghost! For this one hope he makes his hourly moan, He wishes and can wish for this alone! Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its gleams (So the love-stricken visionary deems) Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower! THE BLOSSOMING OF THE SOLITARY DATE TREE. A LAMENT. I. ENEATH the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the thrones of frost, through the absence of objects to reflect the rays. "What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own." The presence of a one, The best belov'd, who loveth me the best, is for the heart, what the supporting air from within is for the hollow globe with its suspended car. Deprive it of this, and all without, that would have buoyed it aloft even to the seat of the gods, becomes a burthen and crushes it into flatness. II. The finer the sense for the beautiful and the lovely, and the fairer and lovelier the object presented to the sense; the more exquisite the individual's capacity of joy, and the more ample his means and opportunities of enjoyment, the more heavily will he feel the ache of solitariness, the more unsubstantial becomes the feast spread around him. What matters it, whether in fact the viands and the ministering graces are shadowy or real, to him who has not hand to grasp nor arms to embrace them? Imagination; honourable aims; Free commune with the choir that cannot die; IV. For never touch of gladness stirs my heart, Like a blind Arab, that from sleep doth start And wishing without hope I restlessly despair. |