And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt,
Distinguished only by the crown she wore,
Her crown of lilies as the spouse of Christ,
Well might her strength forsake her, and her knees
Fail in that hour! Well might the holy man,
He, at whose feet she knelt, give as by stealth
('Twas in her utmost need; nor, while she lives,1
Will it go from her, fleeting as it was)

That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love
And pity!

Like a dream the whole is fled;
And they, that came in idleness to gaze
Upon the victim dressed for sacrifice,
Are mingling in the world; thou in thy cell
Forgot, Teresa. Yet, among them all,
None were so formed to love and to be loved,
None to delight, adorn; and on thee now
A curtain, blacker than the night, is dropped
For ever! In thy gentle bosom sleep
Feelings, affections, destined now to die,
To wither like the blossom in the bud,
Those of a wife, a mother; leaving there
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
Calmly; so many things, strange and perverse,
That meet, recoil, and go but to return,
The monstrous birth of one eventful day,
Troubling thy spirit-from the first at dawn,
The rich arraying for the nuptial feast,

1 Her back was at that time turned to the people; but in his countenance might be read all that was passing. The Cardinal, who officiated, was a venerable old man, evidently unused to the service and much affected by it.

To the black pall, the requiem. All in turn
Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed

Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, How is it beating? Has it no regrets? Discoverest thou no weakness lurking there? But thine exhausted frame has sunk to rest. Peace to thy slumbers!

康

THE FIRE-FLY.

HERE is an Insect, that, when Evening

comes,

Small though he be and scarce distinguishable,

Like Evening clad in soberest livery,

1

Unsheathes his wings and through the woods

and glades

Scatters a marvellous splendour.

On he wheels,

Blazing by fits as from excess of joy,2

Each gush of light a gush of ecstasy ;
Nor unaccompanied; thousands that fling
A radiance all their own, not of the day,

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, Singing the nursery song he learnt so soon; And the young nymph, preparing for the dance

1 He is of the beetle-tribe.

2

"For, in that upper clime, effulgence comes

Of gladness."-CARY'S Dante.

3

3 There is a song to the lucciola in every dialect of Italy; as for

instance in the Genoese.

"Cabela, vegni a baso;
Ti dajo un cuge de lette."

The Roman is in a higher strain.

"Bella regina," &c.

nation, when compared to others that have passed away? Unfortunately it is too much the practice of governments to nurse and keep alive in the governed their national prejudices. It withdraws their attention from what is passing at home, and makes them better tools in the hands of Ambition. Hence next-door neighbours are held up to us from our childhood as natural enemies; and we are urged on like curs to worry each other.'

In like manner we should learn to be just to individuals. Who can say, "In such circumstances I should have done otherwise?" Who, did he but-reflect by what slow gradations, often by how many strange concurrences, we are led astray; with how much reluctance, how much agony, how many efforts to escape, how many self-accusations, how many sighs, how many tears—Who, did he but reflect for a moment, would have the heart cast a stone? Happily these things are known to Him, from whom no secrets are hidden; and let us rest in the assurance that His judgments are not as ours are.2

1 Candour, generosity and justice, how rare are they in the world; and how much is to be deplored the want of them! When a minister in our parliament consents at last to a measure, which, for many reasons perhaps existing no longer, he had before refused to adopt, there should be no exultation as over the fallen, no taunt, no jeer. How often may the resistance be continued lest an enemy should triumph, and the result of conviction be received as a symptom of fear.

2 Are we not also unjust to ourselves; and are not the best among us the most so? Many a good deed is done by us and forgotten. Our benevolent feelings are indulged, and we think no more of it. But is it so when we err? And when we wrong another and cannot redress the wrong, where are we then?-Yet so it is and so no doubt it should be, to urge us on without ceasing. in this place of trial and discipline, "From good to better and to better still."

THE CAMPAGNA OF ROME.

AVE none appeared as tillers of the ground,

None since They went-as though it still were theirs,

And they might come and claim their own again ? Was the last plough a Roman's ?

From this Seat,1
Sacred for ages, whence, as Virgil sings,
The Queen of Heaven, alighting from the sky,
Looked down and saw the armies in array,2
Let us contemplate; and, where dreams from Jove
Descended on the sleeper, where perhaps
Some inspirations may be lingering still,
Some glimmerings of the future or the past,
Let us await their influence; silently
Revolving, as we rest on the green turf,

The changes from that hour when He from Troy
Came up the Tiber; when refulgent shields,
No strangers to the iron-hail of war,

Streamed far and wide, and dashing oars were heard
Among those woods where Silvia's stag was lying,
His antlers gay with flowers; among those woods
Where by the Moon, that saw and yet withdrew not,
Two were so soon to wander and be slain,3

Two lovely in their lives, nor in their death
Divided.

1 Mons Albanus, now called Monte Cavo. On the summit stood for many centuries the temple of Jupiter Latiaris. "Tuque ex tuo edito monte Latiaris, sancte Jupiter," &c.-CICERO.

Eneid, xii. 134.

3 Nisus and Euryalus. "La scène des six derniers livres de Virgile ne comprend qu'une lieue de terrain."-BONSTETTEN.

Then, and hence to be discerned,

How many realms, pastoral and warlike, lay
Along this plain, each with its schemes of power,
Its little rivalships! 1 What various turns
Of fortune there; what moving accidents
From ambuscade and open violence!

Mingling, the sounds came up; and hence how oft
We might have caught among the trees below,
Glittering with helm and shield, the men of Tibur;2
Or in Greek vesture, Greek their origin,
Some embassy, ascending to Præneste; 3
How oft descried, without thy gates, Aricia,1
Entering the solemn grove for sacrifice,
Senate and People!-Each a busy hive,
Glowing with life!

In one.

But all ere long are lost We look, and where the river rolls Southward its shining labyrinth, in her strength. A City, girt with battlements and towers, On seven small hills is rising. Round about, At rural work, the Citizens are seen,

None unemployed; the noblest of them all Binding their sheaves or on their threshing-floors, As though they had not conquered. Every where Some trace of valour or heroic toil!

Here is the sacred field of the Horatii.5

There are the Quintian meadows.6 Here the Hill 7
How holy, where a generous people, twice,
Twice going forth, in terrible anger sate

Armed; and, their wrongs redressed, at once gave

way,

Helmet and shield, and sword and

down,

spear thrown

And every hand uplifted, every heart

Forty-seven, according to Dionys. Halicar. I. i. 2 Tivoli. 3 Palestrina. 5" Horatiorum quà viret sacer campus."-MART. 6"Quæ prata Quintia vocantur."--LIVY.

4 La Riccia,

7 Mons Sacer.