For at her look the while,

Her voice, and her sweet smile,

And heavenly air, truth parted from mine eyes;

So that, with long-drawn sighs,

I said, as far from men,

"How came I here, and when !"

I had forgotten; and alas,

Fancied myself in heaven, not where I was;

And from that time till this, I bear

Such love for the green bower, I cannot rest elsewhere.

Così carco d'obblio

Il divin portamento,

E'l volto, e le parole, e 'l dolce viso,

M' aveano, e sì diviso

Da l' imagine vera;

Ch'i' dicea sospirando,

Qui come venn' io, o quando?

Credendo esser in ciel, non là dov' era.

Da indi in quà mi piace

Quest' erba sì, ch' altrove non ho

pace.

ANDREA DE BASSO'S

ODE TO A DEAD BODY.

FROM THE ITALIAN.

ANDREA DE BASSO was a churchman of Ferrara, who lived in the fifteenth century. The translator need not disclaim all participation with the bigotry of his fine poem. A finer rebuke might be given it, by supposing the soul of the deceased to animate her body for the occasion, and to return his "railing accusation" in a spirit of gentle and final knowledge. It must be owned, however, that his ferocity is of a very grand and appalling description. The seeming coarseness of one or two passages (besides being reducible to nothing in the eyes of a philosophy more genial, and more discerning between life and death,) is borne away in the tempest of the speaker's enthusiasm, and in the sense of the great interests which he thought he was advocating.

RISE from the loathsome and devouring tomb,

Give up thy body, woman without heart,

Now that its worldly part

Is over; and deaf, blind, and dumb,

Risorga da la tomba avara e lorda
La putrida tua salma, O donna cruda,

Or che di spirto nuda,

E cieca, e muta, e sorda,

Thou servest worms for food,

And from thine altitude

Fierce death has shaken thee down, and thou dost fit

Thy bed within a pit.

Night, endless night, hath got thee

To clutch, and to englut thee;

And rottenness confounds

Thy limbs and their sleek rounds;

And thou art stuck there, stuck there, in despite,

Like a foul animal in a trap at night.

Ai vermi dai pastura;

E da la prima altura

Da fiera morte scossa

Fai tuo letto una fossa.

Notte, continua notte

Ti divora ed inghiotte,
E la puzza ti smembra

Le si pastose membra,

E ti stai fitta fitta per dispetto,

Come animal immondo al laccio stretto.

Come in the public path, and see how all

Shall fly thee, as a child goes shrieking back

From something long and black,

Which mocks along the wall.

See if the kind will stay,

To hear what thou wouldst say;

Vedrai se ognun di te mettrà paura,

E fuggirà come garzon la sera

Da l'ombra lunga e nera,

Che striscia per le mura;

Vedrai se a la tua vose

Cedran l'alme pietose ;

Vedrai se al tuo invitare

Alcun vorrà cascare;

Vedrai se seguiranti

Le turbe de gli amanti;

And if where they make way,

Thou❜lt carry now the day;

Or whether thou wilt spread not such foul night,

That thou thyself shalt feel the shudder and the fright.

Yes, till thou turn into the loathly hole,

As the least pain to thy bold-facedness.

There let thy foul distress

Turn round upon thy soul,