Forth, to the billow and the breeze,

Their odours from the shore; Joy, when the soft air's fanning sigh Bears on the breath of Araby.

Oh! welcome are the winds that tell

A wanderer of the deep
Where, far away, the jasmines dwell,

And where the myrrh-trees weep!
Blest on the sounding surge and foam
Are tidings of the citron's home!

The sailor at the helm they meet,

And hope his bosom stirs,
Upspringing, midst the waves, to greet

The fair earth's messengers,
That woo him, from the moaning main,
Back to her glorious bowers again.

They woo him, whispering lovely tales

Of many a flowering glade,
And fount's bright gleam, in island vales

Of golden-fruited shade:
Across his lone ship’s wake they bring
A vision and a glow of spring.

And, O ye masters of the lay!

Come not even thus your songs
That meet us on life's weary way,

Amidst her toiling throngs ?
Yes! o'er the spirit thus they bear
A current of celestial air.

Their power is from the brighter clime

That in our birth hath part;
Their tones are of the world, which time

Sears not within the heart:
They tell us of the living light
In its green places ever bright.

They call us, with a voice divine,

Back to our early love,
Our vows of youth at many a shrine,

Whence far and fast we rove.
Welcome high thought and holy strain
That make us Truth's and Heaven's again!

THE DYING IMPROVISATORE.*

My heart shall be pour'd over thee-and break."

Prophecy of Dante. The spirit of my land, It visits me once more !—though I must die Far from the myrtles which thy breeze hath fann’d,

My own bright Italy!

It is, it is thy breath,
Which stirs my soul e'en yet, as wavering flame
Is shaken by the wind,—in life and death

Still trembling, yet the same!

Sestini, the Roman Improvisatore, when on his deathbed at Paris, is said to have poured forth a Farewell to Italy, in his most impassioned poetry.

Oh! that love's quenchless power Might waft my voice to fill thy summer sky, And through thy groves its dying music shower,

Italy! Italy!

The nightingale is there,
The sunbeam's glow, the citron-flower's perfume,
The south wind's whisper in the scented air-

It will not pierce the tomb!

Never, oh! never more, On thy Rome's purple heaven mine eye shall dwell, Or watch the bright waves melt along thy shore

My Italy! farewell!

Alas!-thy hills among
Had I but left a memory of my name,
Of love and grief one deep, true, fervent song,

Unto immortal fame!

a

a

But like a lute's brief tone,
Like a rose-odour on the breezes cast,
Like a swift flush of dayspring, seen and gone,

So hath my spirit pass'd

Pouring itself away As a wild bird amidst the foliage turns That which within him triumphs, beats, or burns,

Into a fleeting lay;

That swells, and floats, and dies, Leaving no echo to the summer woods

Of the rich breathings and impassion'd sighs

Which thrill’d their solitudes.

Yet, yet remember me! Friends! that upon its murmurs oft have hung, When from my bosom, joyously and free,

The fiery fountain sprung.

Under the dark rich blue Of midnight heavens, and on the star-lit sea, And when woods kindle into spring's first hue,

Sweet friends! remember me!

And in the marble halls, Where life's full glow the dreams of beauty wear, And poet-thoughts embodied light the walls, Let me be with

you there!

Fain would I bind for you,
My memory with all glorious things to dwell!
Fain bid all lovely sounds my name renew-

Sweet friends! bright land! farewell !

MUSIC OF YESTERDAY.

"0! mein Geist, ich fühle es in mir, strebt nach etwas Ueberir

dischem, das keinem Menschen gegönnt ist."--TIECK.

The chord, the harp's full chord is hushid,

The voice hath died away, Whence music, like sweet waters, gush'd

But yesterday.

Th' awakening note, the breeze-like swell,

The full o'ersweeping tone,
The sounds that sigh’d“ Farewell, farewell!”

Are gone—all gone!

The love, whose fervent spirit pass'd

With the rich measure's flow; The grief, to which it sank at last

Where are they now ?

They are with the scents by summer's breath

Borne from a rose now shed: With the words from lips long seal'd in death

For ever fled.

The sea-shell of its native deep

A moaning thrill retains ; But earth and air no record keep

Of parted strains.

And all the memories, all the dreams,

They woke in floating by;
The tender thoughts, th' Elysian gleams-

Could these too die ?

They died! As on the water's breast

The ripple melts away, When the breeze that stirr'd it sinks to rest

So perish'd they!

Mysterious in their sudden birth,

And mournful in their close,