O PEERLESS church of old Milan,
How brightly thou com'st back to me,
With all thy minarets and towers,
And sculptured marbles fair to see!
With all thy airy pinnacles
So white against the cloudless blue; With all thy richly storied panes,
And mellowed sunlight streaming through.
O lovely church of loved Milan,
Can sadness with thy brightness blend? Lo! moving down that high-arched aisle, Those mourners for an absent friend.
In every hand a lighted torch,
Above the dead a sable pall,
On every face a look that tells,
She was the best beloved of all.
And low and faint the funeral chant
Subdued the pealing organ's tone,
As past the altars of her faith
They slow and silent bear her on.
O holy church of proud Milan,
A simpler tomb enshrines for me
The one I loved, who never stood
As now I stand to gaze on thee.
Yet all I see perchance she sees,
And chides not the unbidden tear,
That flows to think how vain the wish,
My life's companion, thou wert here!
O solemn church of gay Milan
I owe that pensive hour to thee;
And oft may sacred sadness dwell
Within my soul to temper glee!
Those airy pinnaces that shine
So white against the dark blue sky, Ascend from tranquil vaults where bones Which wait the resurrection lie!
HENRY GLASSFORD BELL.
Vapor-lashes veiled the sun god's glance,
Dark as doubt and dense as ignorance.
But suddenly
Apollo shook his damp curls dewy-free.
And straight there glowed, as glows the morn,
Monte Rosa and Matterhorn,
And lo-haze curtains of saffron and rose
From Bernard and Viso and Blanc were torn.
And I thought how the mists of my morning had melted away,
When maturity looked with the eyes of the day; And I pondered what ultimate ranges the noon would disclose
That still remain shrouded in grey.
ROBERT HAVEN SCHAUffler.
MORE pleased, my foot the hidden margin roves
Of Como, bosomed deep in chestnut groves.
No meadows thrown between, the giddy steeps
Tower, bare or sylvan, from the narrow deeps.
To towns, whose shades of no rude noise complain,
From ringing team apart and grating wain,—
To flat-roofed towns, that touch the water's
bound,
Or lurk in woody sunless glens profound,
Or, from the bending rocks, obtrusive cling,
And o'er the whitened wave their shadows fling,-
The pathway leads, as round the steeps it twines;
And silence loves its purple roof of vines.
The loitering traveller hence, at evening, sees
From rock-hewn steps the sail between the trees;
Or marks, mid opening cliffs, fair dark-eyed maids
Tend the small harvest of their garden glades;
Or stops the solemn mountain-shades to view
Stretch o'er the pictured mirror broad and blue,
And track the yellow lights from steep to steep,
As up the opposing hills they slowly creep.
Aloft, here, half a village shines, arrayed
In golden light; half hides itself in shade:
While, from amid the darkened roofs, the spire,
Restlessly flashing, seems to mount like fire:
There, all unshaded, blazing forests throw
Rich golden verdure on the lake below.
Slow glides the sail along the illumined shore,
And steals into the shade the lazy oar;
Soft bosoms breathe around contagious sighs,
And amorous music on the water dies.
How blest, delicious scene! the eye that greets Thy open beauties or thy lone retreats,— Beholds the unwearied sweep of wood that scales Thy cliffs; the endless waters of thy vales; Thy lowly cots that sprinkle all the shore, Each with its household boat beside the door; Thy torrent shooting from the clear-blue sky; Thy towns, that cleave, like swallows' nests, on
That glimmer hoar in eve's last light, descried
Dim from the twilight water's shaggy side,
Whence lutes and voices down the enchanted woods
Steal, and compose the oar-forgotten floods;
Thy lake, that, streaked or dappled, blue or gray,
Mid smoking woods gleams hid from morning's
Slow-travelling down the western hills, to enfold Its green-tinged margin in a blaze of gold;
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