The yellow harvest loads the scarce tilled plain, Spontaneous shoots the vine, in rich festoon From tree to tree depending, and the flowers Wreathe with their chaplets, sweet though fading soon, E'en fallen columns, and decaying towers. Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair, Would that thou wert more strong, at least less fair, And now with passionate throbs that spurn control. Would that thou wert less fair, at least more strong, Yon broken arch once spoke of triumph, then Italians, rise, and thrust the oppressors hence Oh, Italy! my country, fare thee well! For art thou not my country, at whose breast Were nurtured those whose thoughts within me dwell, The fathers of my mind! whose fame imprest, E'en on my infant fancy, bade it rest With patriot fondness on thy hills and streams, Ere yet thou didst receive me as a guest, Lovelier than I had seen thee in my dreams? Then fare thee well, my country, loved and lost : And see again Parthenope's loved bay, And Pæstum's shrines, and Baia's classic shore, And mount the bark, and listen to the lay That floats by night through Venice--never more? Far off I seem to hear the Atlantic roar It washes not our feet, that envious sea, But waits, with outstretched arms, to waft me o'er To other lands, far, far, alas, from thee. Fare, fare thee well once more. I love thee not The cherished mistress of my youth; forgot I know not, ask not, what may be my lot; BURNS. BY F. G. HALLECK. To a rose, brought from near Alloway Kirk, in Ayrshire, in the Autumn of 1822. WILD rose of Alloway! my thanks— Thou mindst me of that autumn noon, Like thine, beneath the thorn-tree's bough, And will not thy death-doom be mine,~~ Not so his memory, for whose sake The memory of Burns—a name That calls, when brimmed her festal cup, A nation's glory, and her shame, In silent sadness up. A nation's glory-be the rest Forgot-she's canonized his mind, And it is joy to speak the best I've stood beside the cottage bed Where the Bard-peasant first drew breath, A straw-thatched roof above his head, A straw-wrought couch beneath." And I have stood beside the pile, Bid thy thoughts hover o'er that spot, The pride that lifted Burns from earth, And if despondency weigh down There have been loftier themes than his, And lays lit up with Poesy's Purer and holier fires. Yet read the names that know not death,- His is that language of the heart, In which the answering heart would speak, Thought, word, that bids the warm tear start, Or the smile light the cheek; |