MEMORIALS OF TRAVELS IN GREECE AND ITALY. THE ELD. OH! blessed, blessèd be the Eld, The tones that from all time outswelled, Oh, glory! that we wrestle And do not alway nestle In listlessness or crime : We do not live and die Irrevocably blind, But raise our hands and sigh VOL. I. 9% B Each goodly sign and mystic letter, That angel-haunted books unfold,We cherish more,—we know them better, When we remember they are old; And friends, though fresh, and hale, and cheerly, And young, as annals hold, Yet, if we prize them very dearly, We love to call them old. Yon scented shrub,-I passed it by, The youngling of the breeze; I sat me, sad and soberly, Beneath those ancient trees, Whose branches, dight in summer pall, And in the gusts, I thought they pitied The falling of the young,— The fair, the subtle-witted, Fine limb, and honeyed tongue; As man, from birth to funeral, Were but a tragic mime,— And, they the kinsman lineal Of the good and olden prime. I saw the hoary bulk of ocean And a murmur for its roar ; In awe, by a thing that slumberèd The golden school of Eld is rife Alas! we cannot quite awake,- That hour, our heart is strong to shake For our bark is on the angle The eye's divergent beam ;- |