All your gay and glittering throng,
Honours, titles, names along,
Mortal hopes and mortal pride,
With the stillness of its tide.

Soon shall come that fatal hour
When, beneath my arm of power,
Lowly shall ye bend the knee.
Soon shall Love the palace flee,
Where he sits enthroned on high
In the lustre of your eye;
And their victor standard there
Age and chill Reserve shall rear.

Soon, like captives, shall ye learn
Ways less wild and laws more stern;
Gone shall be your smiling glances,
Hush'd your carols and your dances;
And your golden robes of pride
All too soon be laid aside,

For the vesture gray and sere,
Which my humbled captives wear.

And I now proclaim your fate,
That reflecting ere too late,
How when youthful years are gone,
Hoary ills come hasting on,
Ye may stoop your pride of soul,
Holding earth in strong control,
Deeming that the world contains
None deserving of your chains.
Bend ye then to Reason's sway,
Go where Pity points the way;
While with wing unflagging I
Keep my course eternally.

Days and nights, and years, and ye,
My swift-winged family,

Whom the All-creating Hand

Framed ere earth itself was plann'd,--
Up, and still untiring hold
Your triumphant course of old;
And still your rapid cars be driven
O'er the boundless paths of heaven.

ANONYMOUS.

ODE TO THE FOUNTAIN OF VALCHIUSA.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF PETRARCH.

YE clear and sparkling streams!
(Warm'd by the sunny beams)

Through whose transparent crystal Laura play'd;
Ye boughs, that deck the grove,

Where Spring her chaplets wove,

While Laura lay beneath the quivering shade;

Sweet herbs! and blushing flowers!

That crown yon vernal bowers,

For ever fatal, yet for ever dear;
And ye, that heard my sighs
When first she charm'd my eyes,
Soft-breathing gales! my dying accents hear.

If Heaven has fix'd my doom,
That Love must quite consume

My bursting heart, and close my eyes in death;
Ah! grant this slight request-

That here my urn may rest,

When to its mansion flies my vital breath.

This pleasing hope will smooth My anxious mind, and soothe The pangs of that inevitable hour; My spirit will not grieve

Her mortal veil to leave

In these calm shades, and this enchanting bower.

Haply the guilty maid,
Through yon accustomed glade,
To my sad tomb will take her lonely way;
Where first her beauty's light

O'erpower'd my dazzled sight,
When love on this fair border bade me stray.

There, sorrowing, shall she see
Beneath an aged tree,

Her true but hapless lover's lowly bier;
Too late her tender sighs

Shall melt the pitying skies,

And her soft veil shall hide the gushing tear.

O well remember'd day,

When on yon bank she lay,
Meek in her pride and in her rigour mild;
The young and blooming flowers,

Falling in fragrant showers,

Shone on her neck and on her bosom smiled:

Some on her mantle hung,

Some in her locks were strung,
Like orient gems in rings of flaming gold;
Some, in a spicy cloud

Descending, call'd aloud,

'Here Love and Youth the reins of empire hold.'

I view'd the heavenly maid;
And, rapt in wonder, said-

'The groves of Eden gave this angel birth;'
Her look, her voice, her smile,

That might all heaven beguile,
Wafted my soul above the realms of earth;

The star-bespangled skies

Were open'd to my eyes;

Sighing, I said, 'Whence rose this glittering scene?' Since that auspicious hour,

This bank and odorous bower

My morning couch and evening haunt have been. Well mayst thou blush, my song,

To leave the rural throng,

And fly thus artless to my Laura's ear;

But were thy poet's fire

Ardent as his desire,

Thou wert a song that Heaven might stoop to

hear.

SIR W. JONES.

CANZONET.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF FRANCESCO DEL TEGLIA.

ON A NOSEGAY OF JONQUILLES IN THE BOSOM
OF HIS MISTRESS.

FLOWERS of the sun, whose parent care
Your golden lustre has bestow'd,

O, say did Cupid place you there

To guard from harm his loved abode?

If so, watch well her gentle heart,
The approach of cold disdain repel;
Nor let soft pity e'er depart

The shrine where she delights to dwell,

Beam forth, while in that bosom worn,
The brightest gems of all the field;
Those which Aurora's brows adorn,
To your transcendent glow must yield.
Nature, when she endow'd my fair,

From each gay flower some sweetness drew; She gave to Sylvia's waving hair

Your fragrance and your golden hue.

Ah see! she smiles to view your bloom
(As heaves her snowy breast the while);
Waft grateful then your glad perfume,
Bless'd flowers! for 'tis an angel's smile.
Reviving in her balmy breath,

Sunn'd by the radiance of her eye,
There flourish long, nor fear your death-
Such death 'tis even bliss to die.

Tell her, when other charms expire,
Your orient tints remain the same;

And say, surviving life's last fire,

That thus shall live her lover's flame.

ANONYMOUS.

THE SMILE.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF CHIABRERA.

BEAUTEOUS roses, not with morn

From the thorn

Scattering sweet but transient pleasures; You whom, round the lips display'd, Love has made

Guardians of his pearly treasures!