Is as a dream of poetry. But, hung Apart from all the rest, as if too dear For aught but solitude, was one, it was The portrait of a lovely girl; the lips Were such as Summer kisses, when he first Touches the pure and rosy mouth of Spring; A languid smile was on them, as just curled By some soft thought, which spoke too in her eyes, Dark and bewildering, with light like that Of an Italian midnight, when the clouds Send forth their summer lightning, but yet filled With woman's tenderness. Those lips, those eyes, Had been voluptuous, melting as they were, But for the pale cheek, o'er which e'en a blush Had scarcely passed, it looked so innocent; And the white brow, with its dark parted hair Shading its purity; and the clear temples, Whose blue veins were half hidden by the braids Of the thick tresses, which, unfastened, fell Over the veiled bosom. The white dress Just left the slender throat exposed, as fair, As graceful, as the cygnet's. Neither gems Nor gold, marred youth's sweet simpleness; but one Slight flower lay on her neck,--a green rosebud, Tinged with faint promise of its future bloom; And near it the young Painter leant his head, Bowed, as in bitter thought upon his hand; Over his cheek there was a burning, red, Half passionate emotion, half disease,- And the damp lay on his white brow, and hung On his thick curls of auburn hair; his eyes,
Blue as his native sky when it shines forth
Amid the pauses of an April shower,
Seemed as they drank the Moon's light, with such bright And such wild glance they turned towards her ray.
He was a stranger in fair Italy:
He sought her kingdom, for it was a home For genius and for beauty; it had been
His land of promise through the sunny dreams
Of his impassioned boyhood; he had come With a rich store of burning thoughts, of hopes Like sunrise, vivid fancies, feelings wild, High energies, all that young talent has ;. And he had nourished them amid those shades Hallowed by memories of old, and still
Kept sacred by their own green pleasantness, Amid the glorious works of glorious men,-- Pictures alive with light, and stately domes Built for eternity,-music like hope,
So very sweet,—and poetry, whose songs
Are Love's own words, until he dreamed that fame Was a reality that he might win.
He dreamed but to awake with withered heart
And wasted health, and hopes like fallen stars, Crushed and stained with the earth to which they fell.
Oh Genius! fling aside thy starry crown, Close up thy rainbow wings, and on thy head Heap dust and ashes,--for, this cold drear world Is but thy prison-house. Alas! for him Who has thy dangerous gifts, for they are like The fatal ones that evil spirits give,- Bright and bewildering, leading unto death! Oh, not amid the chill and earthly cares That waste our life, may those fine feelings live That are the Painter's or the Poet's light.
Amid the many graves, which in the shade Of Rome's dark cypresses are graved with names Of foreign sound to Italy's sweet tongue,
Was one,--an English name was on the stone ;-- There that young Painter slept :-around the sod Were planted flowers and one or two green shrubs. "Twas said that they were placed in fondness there By an Italian Girl whom he had loved! Literary Gazette,
BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.
WHEN last we parted thou wert young and fair ; How beautiful, let fond remembrance say! Alas! since then, old Time has stol'n away Full thirty years, leaving my temples bare. So hath it perished like a thing of air,
The dream of Love and Youth!--Now both are gray, Yet still remembering that delightful day,
Though Time with his cold touch hath blanched my hair, Though I have suffered many years of pain Since then; though I did never think to live To hear that voice or see those eyes again, I can a sad, but cordial greeting give,
And for thy welfare breathe as warm a prayer, Lady, as when I loved thee young and fair! Leeds Intelligencer.
MOUNTAIN,-who reignest o'er thine Alpine peers Transcendently, and from that massive crown Of arrowy brightness dartest down thy beams Upon their lesser coronets,-all hail !
Unto the souls in hallowed musing rapt, Spirits in which creation's glorious forms Do shadow forth and speak the invisible, The ethereal, the eternal, thou dost shine With emblematic brightness. Those untrod And matchless domes, though many a weary league Beyond the gazer, when the misty veil
Dies round them, start upon his dazzled sight In vastness almost tangible; thy smooth And bold convexity of silent snows
Raised on the still and dark blue firmament!
Mountain, Thou image of eternity!- Oh, let not foreign feet, inquisitive,
Swift in untrained aspirings, proudly tempt
Thy searchless waste!-What half-taught fortitude Can balance unperturbed above the clefts Of yawning and unfathomable ice
That moat thee round; or wind the giddy ledge Of thy sheer granite! Hath he won his way, That young investigator? Yes; but now, Quick pauting on superior snows, his frame Trembles in dizziness; his wandering look Drinks pale confusion; the wide scene is dim; Its all of firm or fleeting, near or far,
Deep rolling clouds beneath, and wavering mists That flit above him with their transient shades, And storm-deriding rocks, and treacherous snows, And blessed sun-light, in his dying eye
Float dubious; and 'tis midnight at his heart!
Mountain,-That firm and ardent Genevese, The enthusiast child of science, whose bold foot Bounded across thine ice rents, who disdained The frozen outworks of thy steep ravines, And through a labyrinth of crystal rocks Pressed his untired ascent, e'en he, and all His iron-band of native mountaineers, While scaling the aërial cupola
Of Nature's Temple, owned a breathless pang. Thy most attenuate element is fit
For angel roamings. True, his zealous mind Achieved its philosophic aim, and marked
And measured thee; but turned to earthly climes Full soon, and bent in gladness toward the vale.
Mountain,-The sons of science or of taste Need not essay such triumph. "Tis more wise And happier-till a fiery chariot wait,- To scan from lesser heights thy glorious whole; To climb above the deep though lofty plain That wrongs thee; pass its line of envious peaks,
And stationed at thy cross, sublime Flegere! Thence meditate the monarch's grandeur; while His host of subject hills are spread beneath; For scarce, till then, his own colossal might Seems disenthralled; and mute astonishment, Unquenched by doubt or dread, at each new step, Shall own his aspect more celestial still.
There, in some hollow nook reclining, whence The bright-eyed chamois sprang; with tufted bells Of rhododendron blushing at my feet;
The unprofaned recess of Alpine life
Were all my world that hour; and the vast mount In his lone majesty would picture heaven.
Bright mountain,-Ah! but volumed clouds enwrap Thy broad foundations, curtain all thy steeps, And, rising as the orb of day declines,
Brood on the vassal chain that flank thee round, Then thy whole self involve--save, haply, when A quick and changing vista may reveal Some spotless portion of thy front, and show Thee not unstable, like the earth-born cloud, Brilliant though hid, abiding if unseen. Then, as the vale grows darker, and the sun Deserts unnumbered hills, o'er that high zone Of gathered vapour thou dost sudden lift Thy silver brow, calm as the hour of eve, Clear as the morning, still as the midnight, More beautiful than noon; for lo! the sun Lingers to greet thee with a roseate ray, And on thy silver brow his bright farewell Is gleaming :-Mountain, Thou art half divine! Severed from earth! Irradiate from heaven!
Thus e'en the taught of heaven, with joyless eye Fixed on the sable clouds, which fear hath cast
O'er all the landscape of his destiny,
May fail to pierce them; but, though legioned shapes Of nether evil, though the deep array
Of stern adversities, and murky hosts
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