If the land, and the air, and the sea,
Rejoice not when spring approaches,
We did not rejoice in thee,
Ginevra!

She is still, she is cold

On the bridal couch.

One step to the white death-bed,

And one to the bier,

And one to the charnel-and one, oh where?
The dark arrow fled

In the noon.

Ere the sun through heaven once more has rolled, The rats in her heart

Will have made their nest,

And the worms be alive in her golden hair;

While the spirit that guides the sun

Sits throned in his flaming chair,
She shall sleep.

EVENING.

PONTE A MARE, PISA.

THE sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep;

And evening's breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.

There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,

Nor damp within the shadow of the trees; The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;

And in the inconstant motion of the breeze The dust and straws are driven up and down, And whirled about the pavement of the town.

Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,

Immovably unquiet, and for ever

It trembles, but it never fades away;

You, being changed, will find it then as now.

The chasm in which the sun has sunk, is shut
By darkest barriers of enormous cloud,

Like mountain over mountain huddled-but

Growing and moving upwards in a crowd, And over it a space of watery blue,

Which the keen evening star is shining through.

THE BOAT,

ON THE SERCHIO.

OUR boat is asleep on Serchio's stream,
Its sails are folded like thoughts in a dream,
The helm sways idly, hither and thither;
Dominic, the boatman, has brought the mast,
And the oars, and the sails; but 'tis sleeping fast,
Like a beast, unconscious of its tether.

The stars burnt out in the pale blue air,
And the thin white moon lay withering there,
To tower, and cavern, and rift, and tree,
The owl and the bat fled drowsily.

Day had kindled the dewy woods

And the rocks above and the stream below,
And the vapours in their multitudes,

And the Apennines' shroud of summer snow,
And clothed with light of aery gold
The mists in their eastern caves uprolled.

Day had awakened all things that be,

The lark and the thrush and the swallow free;

And the milkmaid's song and mower's scythe,
And the matin-bell and the mountain bee:
Fire-flies were quenched on the dewy corn,
Glow-worms went out on the river's brim,
Like lamps which a student forgets to trim:
The beetle forgot to wind his horn,

The crickets were still in the meadow and hill:
Like a flock of rooks at a farmer's gun,
Night's dreams and terrors, every one,
Fled from the brains which are their prey,
From the lamp's death to the morning ray.

All rose to do the task He set to each,
Who shaped us to his ends and not our own;
The million rose to learn, and one to teach
What none yet ever knew or can be known.

And many rose

Whose woe was such that fear became desire ;-
Melchior and Lionel were not among those;
They from the throng of men had stepped aside,
And made their home under the green hill side.
It was that hill, whose intervening brow
Screens Lucca from the Pisan's envious eye,
Which the circumfluous plain waving below,
Like a wide lake of green fertility,

With streams and fields and marshes bare,
Divides from the far Apennines-which lie
Islanded in the immeasurable air.

"What think you, as she lies in her green cove, Our little sleeping boat is dreaming of?

If morning dreams are true, why I should guess That she was dreaming of our idleness,

And of the miles of watery way

We should have led her by this time of day."

"Never mind," said Lionel,

"Give care to the winds, they can bear it well About yon poplar tops; and see!

The white clouds are driving merrily,

And the stars we miss this morn will light
More willingly our return to-night.-

List, my dear fellow, the breeze blows fair;
How it scatters Dominic's long black hair!
Singing of us, and our lazy motions,
If I can guess a boat's emotions."-

The chain is loosed, the sails are spread,
The living breath is fresh behind,

As, with dews and sunrise fed,

Comes the laughing morning wind ;-
The sails are full, the boat makes head
Against the Serchio's torrent fierce,
Then flags with intermitting course,

And hangs upon the wave,

Which fervid from its mountain source
Shallow, smooth, and strong, doth come,—
Swift as fire, tempestuously

It sweeps into the affrighted sea;