Per la Nascita de Primogenito de Piemonte. "VIDI l'Italia col crin sparso e incolto, Cola dove la Dora in Po declina, E fiera ricomporsi al fasto usato, EUSTACHIO MANFREDI. Bolognese. "On the spot where the Douro falls into the Po, I saw the dishevelled and unkempt Italy, sitting in deep sorrow; she had in her eyes a horror of impending slavery,—not that the proud one shed a tear. Sorrow indeed was in her countenance, but it was the sorrow of a Queen; such perhaps she appeared in ancient Latium, when, bare of foot, she came forward to have her fetters put on. But I saw her in an instant rise joyful from her seat, resume her ancient state and threaten the nations on one side of her and on the other, and the Apennines shouted through their thousand echoes, Italy, Italy! thy Saviour is born." MATY says, "the author of this, Eustachio Manfredi, seems to show even here that he is of a family of mathematicians, for there is not a proposition of Euclid in which step follows step more methodically than they do in this sonnet." He adds, "I did not dare to render the 'pie disciolto,' because, however classical the idea to express slavery, the naked foot would have presented a disgusting picture to the English reader, who might have sent the dirty wench to put on her stockings.” Nella Monazzione di una sua Nipote. "Io del secol fuggii la perfid' onda, Primo del sangue nostro, e la procella, "I, sweet niece, was the first of our blood who fled from the treacherous waves and tempest of life; nor could the flattering appearance of favourable gales ever tempt me to try them again; and yet though I have escaped, still does the storm, beating on the beach, dash daily against the sides of the vessel in which I was; nor amidst so deep a night do I discover a single star whose benign ray may assist to weather the fierce storm. Make you then strongly for the shore. Innocence and Virtue will help draw to land, where we shall find comfort and the end of every ill. There, our sails and cables safe at length, and appended to the altar, I have hope that we may one day laugh together at the impotence of the tempest." "ITALIA, Italia, o tu, cui feo la sorte Dono infelice di bellezza, onde hai Funesta dote d'infiniti guai, Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte, Deli fossi tu men bella, o almen piu forte, Onde assai piu ti paventassi, o assai T'amasse men chi del tuo bello a i rai Par che si strugga, e pur ti sfida a morte Che or giu d'all' Alpi no vedrei torrenti Scender d'armati, ne di sangue tinta Bever l'onda del Po Gallici armenti; Ne te vedrei del non tuo ferro cinta Pugnar col braccio di straniere genti Per servir sempre o vincitrice, o vinta." FILICAIA. B "O Italy, Italy, gifted by fate with an unhappy gift of beauty, from whence thou hast a deadly dower of miseries, whose marks thou still bearest on thy forehead; oh, that thou wert less beautiful or more strong, that they might love thee less, or fear thee more, who pretend to be dying for thee at the time they are attempting thy life. Then should we not behold torrents of hostile squadrons roll down thy Alps, nor Gallic herds drinking by thy ensanguined Po. Then should we not see thee girt with a sword not thine own, and shooting thine arrows from a foreign bow, to be still a slave at the end of the day, whether victor or vanquished." "Dov'è, Italia, il tuo braccio? e a chi ti servi Tu dell' altrui? non è, s' io scorgo il vero, Di chi t'offende il diffensor men fero; Ambo nemici sono, ambo fur servi:— Cosi dunque l'onor, cosi conservi Gli avanzi tu del glorioso impero ? E nuda in braccio al tuo fedel t'uccida." "Italy, where is thine own right arm, and wherefore dost thou use a stranger's? If I remember me right, he who defends thee is not less a barbarian than he who attacks thee. Both are thine enemies, both have been thy slaves. Thus then it is that thou bethinkest thee of thy past illustrious story! thus thou maintainest thine honour, and this is the remembrance thou hast of thy pledged faith to the valiant genius of old Latium ! Go then, divorce thee from that honored husband-marry sloth; and amidst blood, groans, and the noise of arrows hissing round thee, sleep on and repose in greater danger than before:-vile adulteress, sleep on, till the avenging sword awake and slay thee, naked and drowsy, in the arms of thy new beloved." Epitaphs. "DRAE near my friends and have A ni www "WE were not slayne, but raysd, Here we ten are one." Henry Rogers died Aprill 17, 1641. Christchurch. Of this I heard two traditionary explanations, neither of them satisfactory, and each destroying all the authority of the other. That the ten men were killed by the falling in of the earth in a gravel pit, and dug out to be buried. This the first line contradicts; and, if true, what means the fourth? That they were ten royalists, whose bones were dug up by Cromwell. The single name then at the end is strange. "One" must mean unanimous. The last solution is possible; but I believe the honour of digging up his dead enemies was reserved for the worthy Charles II. "HERE I lie all putrefaction Waiting for the resurrection." Petition of the London Wives. "In this parliament (1428) there was one Mistris Stokes, with divers others stout women of London, of good reckoning, wellapparrelled, came openly to the upper parliament and delivered letters to the Duke of Glocester, and to the archbishops, and to the other lords there present, containing matter of rebuke and sharpe reprehension of the Duke of Glocester, because he would not deliver his wife, Jacqueline, out of her grievous imprisonment, being then helde prysoner by the Duke of Burgondy, suffering her there to remain so unkindly, and for his publike keeping by him another adultresse, contrary to the law of God, and the honourable estate of matrimony."-Edmund HOWES. There are many curious particulars in this man's history. I have never (that I remember) seen him quoted, or heard his name. He wrote under Elizabeth, James and Charles; and acknowledges obligations for assistance in his work, among other men more eminent in their own day, to Sir Edward Coke and Master Camden. Duty of exposing Crimes. "A DE tel forfaits celui qui détourne ses regards est un lâche, un déserteur de la justice; la véritable humanité les envisage, pour les connoître, pour les juger, pour les détester."-LE LEVITE D'EPHRAIM. This the motto for my war poems. Epitaphs. "THE year rolls on and steals away The breath that first it gave, Whate'er we do, where'er we be, We're travelling to the grave." Winnessley, Monmouthshire. "AT the ester end of this free Ch. Ch. 1691. I find by HEARNE that he published it from STOWE's papers, and that it bears STOWE'S name.-Sept. 2, 1798.-R. S. The work is thus quoted in WATT's Biblioth. Britan. "Annales; or a General Chronicle of England, began by John Stow, continued to the end of the year 1631. Lond. 1631, fol."-J. W. W. "ON SOME CHILDREN. "SLEEP soft in dust, wait the Almighty's will Then rise again and be as angels still.” "A LOVING wife, a tender mother, "I LABOUR'D hard in this world I hope my child and I will gain eternity." "A TENDER father, a mother dear, Two bosom friends lie buried here. It was pale-faced death that brought us hither. We lived in love-let us lie together. So here we lie by our dear babes YARMOUTH. "THE best of wives was call'd from me She was both meek and mild; Twas God's decree, let his will be, "HERE lies a woman By all the good esteemed Really what she seem'd." "SLEEP lovely babes, and be at rest, God calls them first, whom he loves best." Cool sound of wind-to the rain falling on the tree that shelters the summer traveller. Clinging to religion-to the volutella. "Oh! woe to thee when doubt comes on! it blows over thee like a wind from the north, and makes all thy joints to quake." From a quaint piece, in the Selections from Foreign Journals, taken from the Teutsche Museum, entitled-"That a man can do whatever he will, is something more than a mere matter of speculation;" by JOHN PETER CRAFT. Lines to S. P BURTON, September 1st. 1797. "A WEARYING thing it is to waste the day Among the biped herd; to walk alone Sophia Pemberton, afterwards married to his friend Charles Lloyd.-J. W. W. Amid the irksome solitude of crowds, form Of one she loves, to waken from the dream, think That thy meek spirit must endure all this cares employ The morn, and whither is the noon-tide walk And what the evening sports of him, who morn And noon and night fills up Affection's thoughts. I know these longings well; and I would fain Sketch the rude outline that Affection's hand As o'er the grey infinity of waves She best can tell, when at the noon-tide hour That from the water'd vale abrupt and bare Will blend her own identity with his I would tell From the damp eve retiring how we draw Around the cheerful light, but that the group Are strangers, and Sophia scarce has heard Her name, in whom my heart has centred all Its dearest feelings, all its earthly hopes, My EDITH. I am little prone to trust Expectance now, for many wrongs have wrought That wisdom in me which in earlier youth Youth-like I made my mock: and now I bear A shield from whose impervious adamant The poison'd darts of disappointment fall With feather weakness. Yet that heart admits One hope, "a rebel to its own resolves." And to its full and perfect happiness Expects from yours addition; when the song That tells of home and all its nameless joys Shall with the most intense delight pervade Sophia's heart, and fill her eye with tears, As gazing round she feels those joys her R. S. own. Hannah.1 THE COFFIN as I crossed the common lane away 1 It has been thought right to insert this here. It is the original draft of the Hannah in the English Eclogues, from which it differs considerably. See Poems in one volume, p. 152. J. W. W. With such slow wasting as had made the hour Of death most welcome. To the house of mirth We held our way, and with that idle talk That passes o'er the mind and is forgot We wore away the time. But it was eve When homewardly I went, and in the air Was that cool freshness, that discolouring shade That makes the eye turn inward; then I heard Over the vale the heavy toll of death It was a very plain and simple tale! Sailed on the seas, self-exiled from his home, She had yet one ill Heavier, neglect,-forgetfulness from him Whom she had loved so dearly. Once he wrote, But only once that drop of comfort came There was no mention of poor HANNAH there. Omitted no kind office, and she worked Most hard, and with hard working barely earned Enough to make life struggle. Thus she lay past That anguish, for she felt her hour draw on, |