A EGREGIE Cose il forte animo accendono
L'urne de' forti, o Pindemonte; e bella
E santa fanno al peregrin la terra
Che le ricetta. Io quando il monumento
Vidi ove posa il corpo di quel grande,*
Che temprando lo scettro a' regnatori,
Gli allor ne sfronda, ed alle genti svela
Di che lagrime grondi e di che sangue;
E l'aria di colui + che nuovo Olimpo
Alzò in Roma a' celesti; e di chi vide ‡
Sotto l'etereo padiglion rotarsi
Più mondi, e il sole irradiarli immoto,
Onde all' Anglo che tauta ala vi stese
Sgombrò primo le vie del firmamento;
Te beata, gridai, per le felici

Aure pregne di vita, e pe' lavacri

Che da' suoi gioghi a te versa Apennino!
Lieta dell aer tuo veste la luna

Di luce limpidissima i tuoi colli
Per vendemmia festanti; e le convalli
Popolate di case e d'oliveti

Mille di fiori al ciel mandano incensi;

E tu prima, Firenze, udivi il carme
Che allegrò l'ira al Ghibellin fuggiasco,§

E tu i cari parenti e l'idioma

Desti a quel dolce di Calliope labbro ||

Che Amore, in Grecia nudo, e nudo in Roma,

D'un velo candidissimo adornando,

Rendea nel grembo a Venere celeste :
Ma più beata, che in un tempio accolte
Serbi l' Itale glorie, uniche forse
Da che le mal vietate Alpi e l' alterna
Onnipotenza delle umane sorti

*Macchiavelli.

Galileo Galilei.

1 Petrarca.

+ Michel Angelo Buonarotti. Dante Alghieri.

Armi e sontanze t' invadeano ed are
E patria, e tranne la memoria, tutto;
Chè ove speme di gloria agli animosi
Intelletti rifulga ed all' Italia,

Quindi trarrem gli auspicj.-Ea questi marmi
Venne spesso Vittorio ad espirarsi:

Irato a' parti numi, errava muto

Ove Arno è più deserto, i campi e il cielo
Desioso mirando; e poi che nullo
Vivente aspetto gli molcea la cura,
Qui posava l'austero, e avea sul volto
Il pallor della morte e la speranza.
Con questi grandi abita eterno: e l'ossa
Fremono amor di patria. Ah, si da quella
Religiosa pace un nume parla:

E nutria contro a' Persi in Maratona,
Ove Atene sacrò tombe a' suo prodi,
La virtu Greca e l'ira. Il navigante
Che veleggiò quel mar sotto l' Eubèa,
Vedea per l'ampia oscurità scintille
Balenar d'elmi e di cozzanti brandi,
Fumar le pire igneo vapor, corrusche
D'armi feree vedea larve guerriere
Cercar la pugna; e all orror de' notturni
Silenzi si spandea lungo ne' campi
Di falangi un tumulto e un suon di tube
E un incalza di cavalli accorrenti,

Scalpitanti su gli elmi a' moribondi,

E pianto ed inni, e delle Parche il canto.

TRANSLATION.

ON THE TOMBS OF ILLUSTRIOUS MEN IN THE CHURCH OF

S. CROCE, IN FLORENCE.

IN yon pale urns, O Pindemonte, lies

All of the good and glorious dead that dies:
Still their cold ashes fire the noble breast,
And e'en the spot looks lovely where they rest.
When silent first before mine eyes arose
The monumental marbles that enclose
The dust rever'd of that great man + who sway'd
Kings by his regal spirit, and display'd
The deep wrongs of the wretched, and reveal'd
To men their wounds unpitied and unheal'd;-
Or him whose soaring genius bid arise
In Rome, a new Olympus to the skies;
Or his who saw beneath th' etherial dome
Worlds without number in their courses roam,
Illumin'd all by the sun's stedfast light ;-

* Alfieri

+ Macchiavel. + Michel Angelo Buonarotti.

Galileo Galilei.

Whence first the Briton learnt so bold a flight,
And scal'd the firmament from height to height.
Then, Blest art thou, I cried, O Florence fair!
By the pure life that in thy smiling air
Breathes ever on thee;-by the streams that flow
Down thy tall mountains to the vales below.
O blythly too the moonlight of thy clime
Lights up the hills in merry vintage-time;
While from thy peopled vales and olive bowers
The mingled incense of a thousand flowers

Breathes up to heaven. Sweet Florence! it was thine
Earliest to hear the wand'ring Ghibelline

Entranced utter that harmonious spell

Which calm'd th' indignant heart nought else could quell.
To thee lov'd parentage and speech he + ow'd,
Whose lips were sweet and thence such music flow'd

As hers-the Muse he worshipp'd-who array'd

Love, who of old through Greece and Rome had stray'd

With limbs ungarmented, in robe so fair,

That beauty's breast took back the wanderer, where
Once more he reigns, pure, worshipful, divine,

A god more worthy of so sweet a shrine.

But holier blessings, purer praise be thine,
Who thus within one temple did'st enshrine
Italia's pride, her all perhaps,—the last
Faint beams yet ling'ring of her grandeur past;
Since fickle Fortune seeks some happier shore,
Our barrier Alps protect the land no more,
And the arm'd foeman proudly tramples o'er
Our hearths and altars desolate, bereft,
Till nought save memory to her sons is left.
But oh! if ever in some bosom free,
One hope, Italia, should awake for thee-
Hence shall thy warriors as they onward press
To victory draw their omens of success.

Frowning on fate, here too Vittorio § came
To catch the patriot's and the poet's flame;
Or silent near deserted Arno stray'd;
And thence, as oft with transport he survey'd
The fields and skies, he, unregarded there,
Sooth'd his stern soul, relax'd the brow of care,
While o'er his face, like clouds and sunshine blended,
Bright hope with paleness, as of death, contended.

Eternity dwells with these mighty ones!
The patriots' fervour, from their very bones

Goes forth.-Ah! yes, from out this holy shrine
A Spirit speaks, all eloquent, divine!

Kindling the valor of old Greece that blaz'd
At Marathon so fiercely, and amaz'd

Dante Alighieri.

+ Petrarch.

+ Calliope.

Alfieri.

Her foes, when sacred Athens fell a prey
To the proud Persian in her evil day.

"Tis said, as erst along th' Eubean deep,
The careful mariner his course might keep;
He saw bright helms on the wide darkness glare,
And striving swords rain sparkles on the air,
And pall-like vapours,-flamy blackness spread
O'er the moist piles of the consuming dead,
And war-like ghosts seek hurriedly the fight,
While 'midst the brooding horrors of the night,
From far the wailing of the battle horn,
And heavy tumult of vast hosts was borne;
And ever and anon was heard aloof

The rush of shrieking steeds, with heedless hoof
Trampling the helm of dying warrior-then
Black silence tranc'd the skies a moment; when
Sounds as of solemn hymns were borne along,
Mid weeping, and the fatal sisters' song.

Nov. 1838.

SONNETS COMPOSED IN TRAVE L.

BY THE REV. HENRY ALFORD.

No. I.

HADDON HALL, DERBYSHIRE.

NOT fond displays of cost, nor pampered train
Of idle menials, me so much delight,

Nor mirrored halls, nor roofs with gilding bright,
Nor all the foolery of the rich and vain,

As these time-honoured walls, crowning the plain
With their grey battlements; within bedight
With ancient trophies of baronial might,

And figures dim, inwoven in the grain

Of dusky tapestry. I love to muse

In present peace, on days of pomp and strife;

The daily struggles of our human life,

Seen through Time's veil, their selfish colouring lose;

As here the glaring beams of outer day

Through ivy-shadowed oriels softened play.

FLOATING REMEMBRANCES.

BY

THE OLD SAILOR.

No. 1.

THERE'S many a cockney in the metropolis whose knowledge of the geography of his country is solely derived from seeing the mail coaches start from the General Post-office, and then the extent of his information merely amounts to this, that most of them travel different roads. I have often stood of an evening and witnessed the assembling of the royal carriages with feelings that it is impossible to describe;-there they were, the carriers of news, literature, commerce, business, joy, peace, pleasure, love, disaster, distress, misery, pain; in short all that could sweeten or embitter the cup of human life,—and often bearing the announcements of death to the bereaved, and not unfrequently conveying the warrant of execution for the living. The clock strikes eight and away they go, each towards its destination, with its varied freight of happiness or wretchedness. But what is London when compared with Paris in this particular. In the former we read upon the coach doors the names of places, which taking the metropolis as the central point radiate from it to every part of the island, but they go no further; whilst in Paris may be seen, "to Petersburg”—“ to Moscow"-" to Berlin"—" to Amsterdam"-" to Stockholmn" to the Hague"-" to Hanover"- -"to Warsaw”—“ to Vienna”—“ to Rome"-" to Madrid "-and thus the ideas which in London were confined to England-in Paris expand themselves throughout the whole of Europe, with grand and thrilling interest. But do I stop here, awarding the preference to France, because of our confined and insular position? No!-and why? Because my country stands pre-eminent in nautical fame-because I have merely mentioned land carriage with its associations in the mind-because I have only yet spoken of the British isle and Europe, whilst a wider field than both combined lies open to the view. If the departure of the mails on their several tracks is calculated to excite the musings of the moralist, what must be his sensations on visiting the numerous docks in the neighbourhood of the metropolis, or at Liverpool, and reading on the several boards exhibited in the rigging of the vessels, "To Calcutta"-" to Canton"-" to South Australia"— "to Van Dieman's Land "-" to Otaheite"-" to Lima"-" to the River Plate"-"to Rio Janeiro"-"to Bahia"-" to Maranham"-" to Demerara"

E