I have no charm to renovate the youth

Of old authentic dictates of the heart,—
To wash the wrinkles from the face of Truth,
And out of Nature form creative Art.

Divinest Poesy!-'tis thine to make

Age young-youth old-to baffle tyrant Time, From antique strains the hoary dust to shake, And with familiar grace to crown new rhyme.

Long have I loved thee-long have loved in vain,
Yet large the debt my spirit owes to thee,
Thou wreath'd'st my first hours in a rosy chain,
Rocking the cradle of my infancy.

The lovely images of earth and sky

From thee I learn'd within my soul to treasure; And the strong magic of thy minstrelsy

Charms the world's tempest to a sweet, sad measure.

Nor Fortune's spite-nor hopes that once have been-
Hopes which no power of Fate can give again,-
Not the sad sentence-that my life must wean
From dear domestic joys-nor all the train

Of pregnant ills-and penitential harms

That dog the rear of youth unwisely wasted,
Can dim the lustre of thy stainless charms,
Or sour the sweetness that in thee I tasted.

R

FROM PETRARCH.

Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde.

THE birds piped mournfully; the dark green leaves
Moved, sweetly trembling, to the summer breeze,-
And deep and low, the lucid rill, that weaves
Its murmuring mazes in the flowery leas,

Warbled along its old monotonies :

Such blended sounds my reckless ear received,
And hearing, heard not,-while my spirit grieved,
Loving its grief, and feeding its disease.

A mournful strain I conn'd-when she for whom
I vext my soul, because she was conceal'd,

Shone forth on high, to wondering sense reveal'd:

66

Why ever thus," said she, "thy days consume?

Dying, I live,—and when I closed my eyes

They open'd to the light of Paradise."

REGENERATION.

I NEED a cleansing change within-
My life must once again begin—
New hope I need, and youth renew'd,
And more than human fortitude,-
New faith, new love, and strength to cast
Away the fetters of the past.

Ah! why did fabling Poets tell
That Lethe only flows in Hell?
As if, in truth, there was no river,
Whereby the leper may be clean,
But that which flows, and flows for ever,
And crawls along, unheard, unseen,

Whence brutish spirits, in contagious shoals,
Quaff the dull drench of apathetic souls.

Ah, no! but Lethe flows aloft
With lulling murmur, kind and soft
As voice which sinners send to heaven
When first they feel their sins forgiven :
Its every drop as bright and clear
As if indeed it were a tear,
Shed by the lovely Magdalen

For him that was despised of men.

It is the only fount of bliss

In all the human wilderness-
It is the true Bethesda-solely
Endued with healing might, and holy
Not once a year, but evermore-
Not one, but all men to restore.

O Fons Blandusią, splendidior vitro,
Dulci digne mero, non sine floribus,
Cras donaberis hædo.

BLANDUSIAN Spring, more gaily bright,
In thy never-ceasing birth,
Than gem compact of solar light,

That, fetter'd long in darksome earth, Leaps forth to greet a kindred rayThou art worth a Poet's lay.

Flowers-them we will not give,—
Thou hast plenty of thy own;

Little lambkins ;-let them live,

Thou wert loath to hear them moan:

Let them frisk upon thy bourn,

And in thee view the budding horn.

Well I know, an ancient Poet

Promised thee a kid to-morrow-
I, a Christian Bard, well know it,-
If he paid it, 'twas thy sorrow :-
But he never did the thing
Which he was constrain'd to sing.