Not the seer of him had sight,

Who found in darkness depths of light;*

His travelled eyeballs saw him not

In all his mighty gulphs of thought
Him the farthest-footed god,

Pleiad Mercury, never shewed

To any poet's wisest sight

In the silence of the night :

News of him the Assyrian priest t

Found not in his sacred list,

Non, cui profundum cæcitas lumen dedit,
Dircæus augur vidit hunc alto sinu;
Non hunc silente nocte Pleiones nepos
Vatum sagaci præpes ostendit choro;

Non hunc sacerdos novit Assyrius, licèt

* Tiresias, who was blind.

+ Sanchoniathon.

Though he traced back old king Nine,

And Belus, elder name divine,

And Osiris, endless famed.

Not the glory, triple-named,

Thrice great Hermes, though his eyes

Read the shapes of all the skies,

Left him in his sacred verse
Revealed to Nature's worshippers.

O Plato! and was this a dream

Of thine in bowery Academe?

Longos vetusti commemoret atavos Nini, Priscumque Belon, inclytumque Osiridem; Non ille, trino gloriosus nomine,

Ter magnus Hermes, ut sit arcani sciens,

Talem reliquit Isidis cultoribus.

At tu, perenne ruris Academi decus,

Wert thou the golden tongue to tell

First of this high miracle,

And charm him to thy schools below?

O call thy poets back, if so: *

Back to the state thine exiles call,

Thou greatest fabler of them all;

Or follow through the self-same gate,
Thou, the founder of the state.

(Hæc monstra si tu primus induxti scholis,) Jam jam poetas, urbis exules tuæ, Revocabis, ipse fabulator maximus;

Aut institutor ipse migrabis foras.

Whom Plato banished from his imaginary republic.

PETRARCH'S CONTEMPLATIONS OF DEATH

IN THE BOWER OF LAURA.

CLEAR, fresh, and dulcet streams,

Which the fair shape, who seems

To me sole woman, haunted at noon-tide ;

Fair bough, so gently fit,

(I sigh to think of it)

Which lent a pillar to her lovely side;

And turf, and flowers bright-eyed,

Chiare, fresche, e dolce acque,

Ove le belle membra

Pose colei, che sola a me par donna ;

Gentil ramo, ove piacque

(Con sospir mi rimembra)

A lei di fare al bel fianco colonna ;

Erba e fior, che la gonna

O'er which her folded gown

Flowed like an angel's down;

And you, O holy air and hush'd,

Where first my heart at her sweet glances gush'd; Give ear, give ear, with one consenting,

To my last words, my last and my lamenting.

If 'tis my fate below,

And heaven will have it so,

Leggiadra ricoverse

Con l'angelico seno;

Aer sacro sereno,

Ove amor co' begli occhi il cor m'aperse;

Date udienza insieme

A le dolenti mie parole estreme.

S'egli è pur mio destino,

E'l cielo in ciò s'adopra,