The lady and her lover, left alone,

The rosy flood of twilight's sky admired; —

Ave Maria! o'er the earth and sea,

That heavenliest hour of Heaven is worthiest thee!

THE TWILIGHT HOUR

CII

Ave Maria! blessèd be the hour!

The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft
Have felt that moment in its fullest power
Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft,
While swung the deep bell in the distant tower
Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft,
And not a breath crept through the rosy air,
And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with

CIII

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of prayer!

Ave Maria! 't is the hour of love!

Ave Maria! may our spirits dare

Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh that face so fair!

prayer.

Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty doveWhat though 't is but a pictured image ? — strike · That painting is no idol, — 't is too like.

CIV

Some kinder casuists are pleased to say,

In nameless print that I have no devotion;

But set those persons down with me to pray,

And you shall see who has the properest notion

Of getting into heaven the shortest way;

My altars are the mountains and the ocean,

Earth, air, stars,—all that springs from the great Whole, Who hath produced, and will receive the soul.

CV

Sweet hour of twilight! — in the solitude

Of the pine forest, and the silent shore
Which bounds Ravenna's immemorial wood,
Rooted where once the Adrian wave flow'd o'er,
To where the last Cæsarean fortress stood,
Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore

And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me,
How have I loved the twilight hour and thee!

CVI

The shrill cicalas, people of the pine,

Making their summer lives one ceaseless song,
Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine,
And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along;
The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line,

His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng
Which learn'd from this example not to fly
From a true lover,- shadow'd my mind's eye.

CVII

Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things —
Home to the weary, to the hungry cheer,

To the young bird the parent's brooding wings,
The welcome stall to the o'erlabour'd steer;

Whate'er of peace about our hearthstone clings,
Whate'er our household gods protect of dear,
Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest;
Thou bring'st the child, too, to the mother's breast.

CVIII

Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart;
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way
As the far bell of vesper makes him start,
Seeming to weep the dying day's decay;
Is this a fancy which our reason scorns?
Ah! surely nothing dies but something mourns!

CIX

When Nero perish'd by the justest doom
Which ever the destroyer yet destroy'd,
Amidst the roar of liberated Rome,

Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd,
Some hands unseen strew'd flowers upon his tomb :
Perhaps the weakness of a heart not void

Of feeling for some kindness done, when power
Had left the wretch an uncorrupted hour.

FROM "DON JUAN," CANTO IV

HAIDÉE AND JUAN

I

NOTHING SO difficult as a beginning

In poesy, unless perhaps the end;

For oftentimes when Pegasus seems winning

The race, he sprains a wing, and down we tend, Like Lucifer when hurl'd from heaven for sinning; Our sin the same, and hard as his to mend, Being pride, which leads the mind to soar too far, Till our own weakness shows us what we are.

II

But Time, which brings all beings to their level,
And sharp Adversity, will teach at last

Man, and, as we would hope, perhaps the devil,

That neither of their intellects are vast:

While youth's hot wishes in our red veins revel,

We know not this the blood flows on too fast

But as the torrent widens towards the ocean,
We ponder deeply on each past emotion.

III

As boy, I thought myself a clever fellow,

And wish'd that others held the same opinion; They took it up when my days grew more mellow, And other minds acknowledged my dominion : Now my sere fancy "falls into the yellow Leaf," and Imagination droops her pinion,

t;

And the sad truth which hovers o'er my desk
Turns what was once romantic to burlesque.

IV

And if I laugh at any mortal thing,

"T is that I may not weep; and if I weep, "T is that our nature cannot always bring Itself to apathy, for we must steep

Our hearts first in the depths of Lethe's spring,
Ere what we least wish to behold will sleep:
Thetis baptized her mortal son in Styx;

A mortal mother would on Lethe fix.

V

Some have accused me of a strange design
Against the creed and morals of the land,
And trace it in this poem every line:

I don't pretend that I quite understand
My own meaning when I would be very fine;
But the fact is that I have nothing plann'd,
Unless it were to be a moment merry,
A novel word in my vocabulary.

VI

To the kind reader of our sober clime

This way of writing will appear exotic;

Pulci was sire of the half-serious rhyme,

Who sang when chivalry was more Quixotic,

And revell'd in the fancies of the time,

True knights, chaste dames, huge giants, kings des

potic;