The heart is true. Forgive! forget! And if the pang of hope deferred I pray you, then, renew for me With him for whose loved sake, I swear Strange and unheard of as they are. Torquato Tasso. Tr. Richard Henry Wilde. TO SCIPIO GONZAGA. URE Pity, Scipio, on earth has fled SURE From royal breasts to seek abode in heaven; For if she were not banished, scorned, or dead, Would not some ear to my complaints be given ? Is noble faith at pleasure to be riven, Though freely pledged that I had naught to dread, And I by endless outrage to be driven To worse than death, the deathlike life I've led ? For this is of the quick a grave; and here Am I, a living, breathing corpse interred, Torquato Tasso. Tr. Richard Henry Wilde. Fiesole. THE FIG-TREES OF GHERARDESCA. YE brave old fig-trees! worthy pair! Beneath whose shade I often lay To breathe awhile a cooler air, And shield me from the dusts of day. Strangers have visited the spot, Led thither by my parting song; Alas! the stranger found you not, And curst the poet's lying tongue. Vanished each venerable head, Nor bough nor leaf could tell them where To look for you, alive or dead; Unheeded was my distant prayer. I might have hoped (if hope had ever Been mine) that time or storm alone Your firm alliance would dissever, Hath mortal hand your strength o'erthrown? Before an axe had bitten through The bleeding bark, some tender thought, On younger bosoms might have wrought. Age after age your honeyed fruit From boys unseen through foliage fell The girlish glee! Old friends, farewell! Walter Savage Landor. Florence. FLORENCE IN THE OLDEN TIME. FLORENCE, within the ancient boundary From which she taketh still her tierce and nones, No golden chain she had, nor coronal, Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed With leather and with bone, and from the mirror His dame depart without a painted face; And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio, Contented with their simple suits of buff, And with the spindle and the flax their dames. O fortunate women! and each one was certain Of her own burial-place, and none as yet For sake of France was in her bed deserted. One o'er the cradle kept her studious watch, And in her lullaby the language used That first delights the fathers and the mothers; Another, drawing tresses from her distaff, Told o'er among her family the tales As great a marvel then would have been held As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now. Dante Alighieri. Tr. H. W. Longfellow. FLORENCE. ERIVED from thee, O Florence, and thy son, DERIVE Be toucht, dear land, a little for thy child! Seem to his woes compassionate and mild, Since in thy arms his life was first begun And cherisht. From our birth our fate must run Assigned; as to the bird his wood-notes wild, And flight! but of whatever hopes beguiled, In this one instance my request be done: That not in death, as in my griefs, alone, However long estranged from thee I rove, Thee in my ashes I may call my own, By whom so high thy fame and worth have flown. Grant this sole boon, whatever thou remove. Piero de' Medici. Tr. Capel Lofft. LINES WRITTEN ON APPROACHING FLORENCE. FLORENCE! the name sounds sweetly to my ear, Familiar and yet strange; on dear home lips 'Tis music, and from Tuscan tongue it slips Like dropping honey, syllabled and clear. My name, yet not my name! Myself forgot, The air those great ones breathed, whom I, though weak, May follow worshipping, attaining not! What is there homelike in the flower-girt place? Oft have I mused on the old glorious time, When painters drew with pencils dipped in flame; When genius reigned, and tyrants writhed in shame 'Neath Dante's twisted scourge of threefold rhyme. And, meditating thus, while reverence grew |