Some hearts a boding fear might own,
Had Fate to them thy portion given,
Since many an eye by tears alone

Is taught to gaze on Heaven!

And there are virtues oft concealed,
Till roused by anguish from repose,
As odorous trees no balm will yield
Till from their wounds it flows.

But fear not thou the lesson fraught

With Sorrow's chastening power to know; Thou needest not thus be sternly taught,

"To melt at others' woe.'

Then still, with heart as blest, as warm,
Rejoice thou in thy lot on earth :
Ah! why should virtue dread the storm,
If sunbeams prove her worth?

WRITTEN IN THE FIRST LEAF OF THE ALBUM
OF THE SAME.

WHAT first should consecrate as thine,
The volume, destined to be fraught
With many a sweet and playful line,
With many a pure and pious thought?

It should be, what a loftier strain
Perchance less meetly would impart ;
What never yet was poured in vain,—
The blessing of a grateful heart-

For kindness, which hath soothed the hour
Of anxious grief, of weary pain,
And oft, with its beguiling power,
Taught languid Hope to smile again.

Long shall that fervent blessing rest

On thee and thine, and heavenwards borne,

Call down such peace to soothe thy breast,
As thou wouldst bear to all that mourn.

TO THE SAME,

ON THE DEATH OF HER MOTHER.

SAY not 'tis fruitless, nature's holy tear,
Shed by affection o'er a parent's bier!

By earthly sorrow strengthened for the skies,
Till the sad heart, whose pangs exalt its love,
With its lost treasure, seeks a home-above.

But grief will claim her hour,—and He, whose eye
Looks pitying down on nature's agony,

He, in whose love the righteous calmly sleep,
Who bids us hope, forbids us not to weep!
He, too, hath wept-and sacred be the woes

Once borne by Him, their inmost source who knows,
Searches each wound, and bids His Spirit bring
Celestial healing on its dove-like wing!

And who but He shall soothe, when one dread stroke,
Ties, that were fibres of the soul, hath broke?
Oh! well may those, yet lingering here, deplore
The vanished light, that cheers their path no more!
The Almighty hand, which many a blessing dealt,
Sends its keen arrows not to be unfelt!

By fire and storm Heaven tries the Christian's worth,
And joy departs, to wean us from the earth,
Where still too long, with beings born to die,
Time hath dominion o'er Eternity.

Yet not the less, o'er all the heart hath lost,

Shall Faith rejoice when Nature grieves the most;

Then comes her triumph! through the shadowy gloom,

Her star in glory rises from the tomb,

Mounts to the day-spring, leaves the cloud below,
And gilds the tears that cease not yet to flow!
Yes, all is o'er! fear, doubt, suspense are fled,
Let brighter thoughts be with the virtuous dead!
The final ordeal of the soul is past,

And the pale brow is sealed to Heaven at last!1
And thou, loved spirit! for the skies mature,
Steadfast in faith, in meek devotion pure;
Thou that didst make the home thy presence blest,
Bright with the sunshine of thy gentle breast,
Where peace a holy dwelling-place had found,
Whence beamed her smile benignantly around;
Thou, that to bosoms widowed and bereft
Dear, precious records of thy worth hast left,
The treasured gem of sorrowing hearts to be,
Till Heaven recall surviving love to thee!

O cherished and revered! fond memory well
On thee, with sacred, sad delight, may dwell!
So pure, so blest thy life, that death alone
Could make more perfect happiness thine own;
More blest than dew on Hermon's brow that falls,
Each drop to life some latent virtue calls;
Awakes some purer hope, ordained to rise,

"Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”—Rev. vii. 3.

He came-
e-thy cup of joy, serenely bright,
Full to the last, still flowed in cloudless light;
He came an angel, bearing from on high
The all it wanted-Immortality!

A DIRGE.

WEEP for the early lost!-

How many flowers were mingled in the crown
Thus, with the lovely, to the grave gone down,
E'en when life promised most,

How many hopes have withered-they that bow
To Heaven's dread will, feel all its mysteries now.

Did the young mother's eye,
Behold her child, and close upon the day,
Ere from its glance the awakening spirit's ray
In sunshine could reply?—

Then look for clouds to dim the fairest morn!
Oh! strong is faith, if woe like this be borne.

For there is hushed on earth

A voice of gladness-there is veiled a face,
Whose parting leaves a dark and silent place,
By the once-joyous hearth.

A smile hath passed, which filled its home with light,
A soul, whose beauty made that smile so bright!

But there is power with faith!

Power, e'en though nature o'er the untimely grave
Must weep, when God resumes the gem He gave ;
For sorrow comes of Death,

And with a yearning heart we linger on,

When they, whose glance unlocked its founts, are gone!

But glory from the dust,

And praise to Him, the merciful, for those
On whose bright memory love may still repose,
With an immortal trust!

Praise for the dead, who leave us, when they part,
Such hope as she hath left-"the pure in heart."

S

THE MAREMMA.

["NELLO DELLA PIETRA had espoused a lady of noble family at Sienna, named Madonna Pia. Her beauty was the admiration of Tuscany, and excited in the heart of her husband a jealousy, which, exasperated by false reports and groundless suspicions, at length drove him to the desperate resolution of Othello. It is difficult to decide whether the lady was quite innocent, but so Dante represents her. Her husband brought her into the Maremma, which, then as now, was a district destructive of health. He never told his unfortunate wife the reason of her banishment to so dangerous a country. He did not deign to utter complaint or accusation. He lived with her alone, in cold silence, without answering her questions, or listening to her remonstrances. He patiently waited till the pestilential air should destroy the health of this young lady. In a few months she died. Some chronicles, indeed, tell us that Nello used the dagger to hasten her death. It is certain that he survived her, plunged in sadness and perpetual silence. Dante had, in this incident, all the materials of an ample and very poetical narrative. But he bestows on it only four verses. He meets in Purgatory three spirits; one was a captain who fell fighting on the same side with him in the battle of Campaldino; the second, a gentleman assassinated by the treachery of the House of Este; the third was a woman unknown to the poet, and who, after the others had spoken, turned towards him with these words :

"Mais elle etait du monde, ou les plus belles choses,

THERE are bright scenes beneath Italian skies,
Where glowing suns their purest light diffuse,
Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise,
And nature lavishes her warmest hues ;
But trust thou not her smile, her balmy breath,
Away! her charms are but the pomp of Death!

He, in the vine-clad bowers, unseen is dwelling,
Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throws,
His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling;
With glentlest whisper lures thee to repose:
And the soft sounds that through the foliage sigh,
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.

Mysterious danger lurks, a syren, there,
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,
But stealing o'er thee in the scented air,

And veiled in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb;
How may we deem, amidst their deep array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?

Sunshine, and bloom, and verdure!

Can it be,

That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature, if in thee
Danger is masked in beauty-death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,

Where she, the sun's bright daughter, dwelt of yore!

There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain,
O'er fairy bowers and palaces of state,
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.

And pillared halls, whose airy colonnades
Were formed to echo music's choral tone,
Are silent now, amidst deserted shades,1
Peopled by sculpture's graceful forms alone;
And fountains dash unheard, by lone alcoves,
Neglected temples and forsaken groves.

And there, where marble nymphs, in beauty gleaming,
'Midst the deep shades of plane and cypress rise,
By wave or grot might Fancy linger, dreaming
Of old Arcadia's woodland deities,--

Wild visions!-there no sylvan powers convene,—
Death reigns the genius of the Elysian scene.

Ye, too, illustrious hills of Rome! that bear
Traces of mightier beings on your brow,
O'er you that subtle spirit of the air
Extends the desert of his empire now;

Broods o'er the wrecks of altar, fane, and dome,
And makes the Cæsar's ruined halls his home.

Youth, valour, beauty, oft have felt his power,
His crowned and chosen victims: o'er their lot
Hath fond affection wept each blighted flower
In turn was loved and mourned, and is forgot.
But one who perished, left a tale of woe,
Meet for as deep a sigh as pity can bestow.

A voice of music, from Sienna's walls,
Is floating joyous on the summer air,

1 See Madame de Staël's fine description, in her Corinne, of the Villa Borghese, deserted on account of malaria.