A cheerless void, a chill as of the grave, A languor and a lethargy of soul, Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death Comes to release thee. Ah, what now to thee, What now to thee the treasure of thy Youth? As nothing! But thou canst not yet reflect Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, THE FIRE-FLY. THERE is an Insect, that, when Evening comes, Unsheaths his wings and thro' the woods and glades Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn, Soaring, descending. In the mother's lap Well may the child put forth his little hands, Oft have I met This shining race, when in the TUSCULAN groves Through the green leaves, a ray serene and clear * The glow-worm. FOREIGN TRAVEL. It was in a splenetic humour that I sat me down to my scanty fare at TERRACINA; and how long I should have contemplated the lean thrushes in array before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, that drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst from the green and leafy boughs on the hearth-stone. "Why,' I exclaimed, starting up from the table, 'why did I leave my own chimney-corner? - But am I not on the road to BRUNDUSIUM? And are not these the very calamities that befel HORACE and VIRGIL, and MECENAS, and PLOTIUS, and VARIUS? HORACE laughed at them- Then why should not I? HORACE resolved to turn them to account; and VIRGIL cannot we hear him observing, that to remember them will, by and by, be a pleasure?' My soliloquy reconciled me at once to my fate; and when for the twentieth time I had looked through the window on a sea sparkling with innumerable brilliants, a sea on which the heroes of the Odyssey and the Eneid had sailed, I sat down as to a splendid banquet. My thrushes had the flavour of ortolans; and I ate with an appetite I had not known before. Who,' I cried, as I poured out my last glass of Falernian,* (for Falernian it was said to be, and in my eyes it ran bright and clear as a topaz-stone) Who would remain at home, could he do otherwise? Who would submit to tread that dull, but daily round; his hours forgotten as soon 6 * We were now within a few hours of the Campania Felix. On the colour and flavour of Falerian, consult Galen and Dioscorides. |