II.

I am no trumpet, but a reed,-
A broken reed, the wind indeed
Left flat upon a dismal shore:
Yet if a little maid, or child,
Should sigh within it, earnest-mild,
This reed will answer evermore.

III.

I am no trumpet, but a reed:
Go, tell the fishers, as they spread
Their nets along the river's edge,

I will not tear their nets at all,
Nor pierce their hands if they should fall:
Then let them leave me in the sedge.

CASA GUIDI WINDOWS.

[THIS Poem contains the impressions of the writer upon events in Tuscany of which she was a witness. "From a window," the critic may demur. She bows to the objection in the very title of her work. No continuous narrative, nor exposition of political philosophy, is attempted by her. It is a simple story of personal impressions, whose only value is in the intensity with which they were received, as proving her warm affection for a beautiful and unfortunate country; and the sincerity with which they are related, as indicating her own good faith and freedom from all partizanship.

Of the two parts of this Poem, the first was written nearly three years ago, while the second resumes the actual situation of 1851. The discrepancy between the two parts is a sufficient guarantee to the public of the truthfulness of the writer, who, though she certainly escaped the epidemic "falling sickness" of enthusiasm for Pio Nono, takes shame upon herself that she believed, like a woman, some royal oaths, and lost sight of the probable consequences of some obvious popular defects. If the discrepancy should be painful to the reader, let him understand that to the writer it has been more so. But such discrepancy we are called upon to accept at every hour by the conditions of our nature... the discrepancy between aspiration and performance, between faith and disillusion, between hope and fact.

"Oh trusted, broken prophecy,

Oh richest fortune sourly crost,

Born for the future, to the future lost!"

Nay, not lost to the future in this case. The future of Italy shall not be disinherited.-FLOK ENCE, 1851.]