As on a hill-top rude, when closing day
Imbrowns the scene, some pastoral maiden fair
Waters a lovely foreign plant with care,
Borne from its native genial airs away,
That scarcely can its tender bud display,
So, on my tongue these accents, new and rare, Are flowers exotic, which Love waters there. While thus, O sweetly scornful! I essay
Thy praise in verse to British ears unknown, And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain; So Love has will'd, and ofttimes Love has shown, That what he wills, he never wills in vainOh that this hard and sterile breast might be To Him, who plants from heaven, a soil as free!
THEY mock my toil-the nymphs and amorous
And whence this fond attempt to write, they cry, Love-songs in language that thou little know'st? How darest thou risk to sing these foreign strains? Say truly. Find'st not oft thy purpose cross'd, And that thy fairest flowers here fade and die? Then with pretence of admiration high
Thee other shores expect, and other tides,
Rivers, on whose grassy sides
Her deathless laurel leaf, with which to bind
Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides;
Why then this burden, better far declined?
Speak, muse! for me-the fair one said, who guides
My willing heart, and all my fancy's flights,
"This is the language in which Love delights."
SONNET, TO CHARLES DEODATI.
it wondering-thou must know
That I, who once assumed a scornful air
And scoff'd at Love, am fallen in his snare,
(Full many an upright man has fallen so :)
Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow
Of golden locks, or damask cheek; more rare
The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair :
A mien majestic, with dark brows that show
The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind;
Words exquisite, of idioms more than one,
And song, whose fascinating power might bind,
And from her sphere draw down the labouring moon;
With such fire-darting eyes that, should I fill
My ears with wax, she would enchant me still.
LADY! It cannot be but that thine eyes
Must be my sun, such radiance they display,
And strike me e'en as Phœbus him whose way
Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise
Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they,
New as to me they are, I cannot say,
But deem them, in the lover's language-sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend
To soften thine, thy coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,
Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drown'd,
Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound.
ENAMOUR'D, artless, young, on foreign ground,
Uncertain whither from myself to fly;
To thee, dear Lady, with an humble sigh
Let me devote my heart, which I have found
By certain proofs, not few, intrepid, sound,
Good, and addicted to conceptions high:
When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky,
It rests in adamant self-wrapt around,
As safe from envy as from outrage rude,
From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse,
As fond of genius, and fix'd fortitude,
Of the resounding lyre and every muse.
Weak will find it in one only part,
you
Now pierced by love's immedicable dart.
So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds Ascending,' &c.
Quales aërii montis de vertice nubes
Cum surgunt, et jam Boreæ tumida ora quiêrunt,
Cœlum hilares abdit, spissâ caligine, vultus:
Tum, si jucundo tandem sol prodeat ore,
Et croceo montes et pascua lumine tingat,
Gaudent omnia, aves mulcent concentibus agros
Balatuque ovium colles vallesque resultant.
TRANSLATION OF DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON MILTON.
TRES tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates
Ostentant tribus è gentibus eximios.
Græcia sublimem, cum majestate disertum
Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem.
Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est,
Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.
TRANSLATIONS FROM VINCENT
BENEATH the hedge, or near the stream,
A worm is known to stray,
That shows by night a lucid beam,
Which disappears by day.
Disputes have been, and still prevail,
From whence his rays proceed;
Some give that honour to his tail,
And others to his head.
But this is sure-the hand of night
That kindles up the skies,
Gives him a modicum of light
Proportion'd to his size.
Perhaps indulgent Nature meant,
By such a lamp bestow'd,
To bid the traveller, as he went,
Be careful where he trod :
Nor crush a worm, whose useful light
Might serve, however small,
To show a stumbling stone by night,
And save him from a fall.
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