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 That mouldering wall too spoke of brave defence. Shades of departed heroes, rise again! 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 hear the rush of Tiber's yellow flood, 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 As other things inanimate. Thou art The cherished mistress of my youth; forgot Thou never canst be while I have a heart. Launched on those waters, wild with storm and wind, I know not, ask not, what may be my lot; For, torn from thee, no fear can touch my mind, Brooding in gloom on that one bitter thought." 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,— The doom of all things wrought of clay,-And withered my life's leaf like thine, Wild rose of Alloway? 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, His monument-that tells to Heaven The homage of earth's proudest isle 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,- Than that which binds his hair. 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; |