And, as a nun, in homeliest guise she knelt, That faint but fatherly smile, that smile of love Like a dream the whole is fled; Death-like, and gathering more and more, till Death 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, '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. o the black pall, the requiem. All in turn Revisit thee, and round thy lowly bed Hover, uncalled. Thy young and innocent heart, 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, Thousands as bright as he, from dusk till dawn, 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 For, in that upper clime, effulgence comes Of gladness."-CARY'S Dante. 3 There is a song to the lucciola in every dialect of Italy; as for instance in the Genoese. By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid Wreathing her golden hair, well may she cry, "Come hither;" and the shepherds, gathering round, Shall say, "Floretta emulates the Night, Spangling her head with stars." Oft have I met This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves Him, who rejoiced me in those walks at eve,2 Through the green leaves, a ray serene and clear 1 "I did not tell you that just below the first fall, on the side of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, are little ruins which they show you for Horace's house, a curious situation to observe the Præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda GRAY'S Letters. 2 The glow-worm. FOREIGN TRAVEL. T 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 rray before me, I cannot say, if a cloud of smoke, hat drew the tears into my eyes, had not burst rom the green and leafy boughs on the hearthtone. "Why," I exclaimed, starting up from he table, "why did I leave my own chimneycorner ?-But am I not on the road to Brundusium? And are not these the very calamities that befel Horace and Virgil, and Mæcenas, 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,1 (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 46 'We were now within a few hours of the Campania Felix. On the colour and flavour of Falernian consult Galen and Dioscorides. By brook or fountain-side, in many a braid Shall say, "Floretta emulates the Night, Oft have I met This shining race, when in the Tusculan groves "I did not tell you that just below the first fall, on the side of the rock, and hanging over that torrent, are little ruins which they show you for Horace's house, a curious situation to observe the 'Præceps Anio, et Tiburni lucus, et uda GRAY'S Letters. 2 The glow-worm. |