It is no light chance. Thou art set apart Angelic rays from thy pinions stream. Come, then, even when daylight leaves Lessons of heaven, sweet bird, in thee! ITALY. BY E. D. GRIFFIN. Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair! Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair Parent of fruits, alas! no more of men! Where springs the olive e'en from mountains bare, The yellow harvest loads the scarce tilled plain, Spontaneous shoots the vine, in rich festoon From tree to tree depending, and the flowers Wreathe with their chaplets, sweet though fading soon, E'en fallen columns, and decaying towers. Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair, Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair, And now with passionate throbs that spurn control. Would that thou wert less fair, at least more strong, Yon broken arch once spoke of triumph, then That mouldering wall too spoke of brave defence. Shades of departed heroes, rise again! Italians, rise, and thrust the oppressors hence Oh, Italy! my country, fare thee well! For art thou not my country, at whose breast Were nurtured those whose thoughts within me dwell, The fathers of my mind! whose fame imprest, E'en on my infant fancy, bade it rest With patriot fondness on thy hills and streams, Ere yet thou didst receive me as a guest, Lovelier than I had seen thee in my dreams? Then fare thee well, my country, loved and lost And see again Parthenope's loved bay, And Pæstum's shrines, and Baia's classic shore, Far off I seem to hear the Atlantic roar- But waits, with outstretched arms, to waft me o'er To other lands, far, far, alas, from thee. Fare, fare thee well once more. I love thee not As other things inanimate. Thou art Thou never canst be while I have a heart. Launched on those waters, wild with storm and wind, I know not, ask not, what may be my lot; For, torn from thee, no fear can touch my mind, Brooding in gloom on that one bitter thought. BURNS. BY F. G. HALLECK. To a rose, brought from near Alloway Kirk, in Ayrshire, in the Autumn of 1822. WILD rose of Alloway! my thanks Thou mindst me of that autumn noon, When first we met upon 'the banks Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough, And will not thy death-doom be mine,— The doom of all things wrought of clay, --And withered my life's leaf like thine, Wild rose of Alloway? Not so his memory, for whose sake The memory of Burns-a name That calls, when brimmed her festal cup A nation's glory, and her shame, In silent sadness up. A nation's glory-be the rest Forgot-she's canonized his mind, And it is joy to speak the best We may of human kind. I've stood beside the cottage bed Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath, A straw-thatched roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath. And I have stood beside the pile, His monument-that tells to Heaven The homage of earth's proudest isle |