Poems, translated and original

by E. F. Ellet

INDEX.

The Sepulchres,	PAGE [13]
Lake Ontario,	[22]
The Prince and the Palm Tree,	[24]
Hacon,	[26]
The Forest Temple,	[29]
Oh! her glance is the brightest that ever has shone,	[31]
To a Waterfall,	[32]
The Sea Kings,	[34]
The waves that on the sparkling sand,	[36]
Is this a Day of Death?	[37]
Paraphrase of the one hundred and thirty-seventh Psalm,	[38]
The cloud where sunbeams soft repose,	[40]
Like southern birds,	[41]
The Loss of the Anio,	[42]
The Guardian Genius,	[47]
Stanzas,	[49]
Song—the closing year,	[51]
Scene from Alfieri’s Tragedy of Saul,	[53]
The Vanity of the Vulgar Great,	[59]
Sonnet—Rome in ruins,	[61]
Fables,	[62]
O’er the far mountain peak on high,	[65]
Incantation of Hervor,	[66]
Death,	[69]
Enthusiasm,	[71]
The Dying Poet,	[74]
I would I were the light winged bird,	[80]
Midnight Thoughts,	[82]
Song of the Jewish Exiles,	[84]
The Druids’ Hymn,	[86]
The Blind Harper,	[88]
The Mermaid’s Song,	[90]
Susquehanna,	[91]
Romance,	[94]
The Death of St. Louis,	[96]
Complaint of Harald,	[100]
Echo,	[102]
Epigram,	[ib.]
The Pictured Rocks,	[103]
Sunset,	[107]
To the Lance-fly,	[108]
The Division of the Earth,	[109]
In yonder lake of silver sheen,	[111]
The Swallows,	[112]
Nature,	[114]
Lines,	[116]
Fragment from “Ildegonda,”	[117]
A Life spent in Pursuit of Glory,	[119]
The Wish,	[120]
The Northern Hunter’s Song,	[121]
From Ippolito Pindemonte—The Poet’s Last Dwelling,	[123]
From mountains at the dawn of day,	[125]
The Witches’ Revel,	[126]
Song,	[128]
Sodus Bay,	[130]
Notes,	[133]
Teresa Contarini—a tragedy,	[137]

POEMS.

---

THE SEPULCHRES.[1]

FROM THE ITALIAN OF UGO FOSCOLO.

Beneath the cypress shade, or sculptured urn

By fond tears watered, is the sleep of death

Less heavy?—When for me the sun no more

Shall shine on earth, to bless with genial beams

This beauteous race of beings animate—

When bright with flattering hues the coming hours

No longer dance before me—and I hear

No more, regarded friend, thy dulcet verse,

Nor the sad gentle harmony it breathes—

When mute within my breast the inspiring voice

Of youthful poesy, and love, sole light

To this my wandering life—what guerdon then

For vanished years will be the marble reared

To mark my dust amid the countless throng

Wherewith the Spoiler strews the land and sea?

Thus is it, Pindemonte! Man’s last friend,

Hope, flies the tomb; and dim forgetfulness

Wraps in his rayless night all mortal things:

Change after change, unfelt, resistless, takes

Its tribute—and o’er man, his sepulchres,

His being’s lingering traces, and the relics

Of earth and heaven, time in mockery treads.

Yet why hath man, from immemorial years,

Yearned for the illusive power that may retain

The parted spirit on life’s threshold still?

Doth not the buried live, e’en though to him

The day’s enchanted melody is mute,

If yet life’s music with fond memories

He wake in friendly breasts? Oh! ’tis from heaven,

This sweet communion of abiding love!

A boon celestial! By its charm we hold

Full oft a solemn converse with the dead;

If yet the pious earth, that nourished once

Their ripening youth, in her maternal breast

Yielding a last asylum, shall protect

Their sacred relics from insulting storms,

Or step profane—if some secluded stone

Preserve their name, and flowery verdure wave

Its fragrant shade above their honored dust.

But he who leaves no heritage of love,

Is heedless of an urn; and if he look

Beyond the grave, his spirit wanders lost

Among the wailings of infernal shores;

Or hides itself beneath the sheltering wings

Of God’s forgiving mercy; while his bones

Moulder unrecked of on the desert sand,

Where never loving woman pours her prayer,

Nor solitary pilgrim hears the sigh

Which mourning nature sends us from the tomb.

New laws now banish from our yearning gaze

The hallowed sepulchres, and envious strip

Their honors from the dead. Without a tomb

Thy votary sleeps, Thalia! he who sung

To thee beneath his humble roof, and reared

His bays to weave a coronal for thee.

And thou didst wreathe with gracious smiles his lay

That stung the Sardanapalus of our land,[2]

Whose grovelling soul loved but to hear the lowing

Of cattle pasturing in Ticino’s fields,

His source of boasted wealth. Oh, muse inspired!

Where art thou? No ambrosial air I breathe

Betokening thy blest presence, in these bowers

Where now I sigh for home. Here wert thou wont

To smile on him beneath yon linden tree,

That now with scattered foliage seems to weep

Because it droops not o’er the old man’s urn

Who once sought peace beneath its cooling shade.

Perchance thou, goddess, wandering among graves

Unhonor’d, vainly seek’st the spot where rests

Parini’s sacred head! The city now

To him no space affords within her walls,

Nor monument, nor votive line. His bones

Perchance lie sullied with some felon’s blood,

Fresh from the scaffold that his crimes deserved.

See’st thou the lone wild dog among the tombs

Howling with famine, roam—raking the dust

From mouldering bones—while from the skull through which

The moonlight streams, the noisome hoopoe flies,

And flaps his hateful wings above the field

Spread with funereal crosses—screaming shrill,

As if to curse the light the pious stars

Shed on neglected burial-grounds?—In vain

Dost thou invoke upon thy poet’s dust

The sweet distilling dews of silent night:

There spring no flowers on graves by human praise

Or tears of love unhallowed!

From the days

When first the nuptial feast, and judgment seat,

And altar, softened our untutor’d race,

And taught to man his own and others’ weal,

The living treasured from the bleaching storm

And savage brute, those sad and poor remains

By nature destined to a lofty fate.

Then tombs became the witnesses of pride,

And altars for the young: thence gods invoked,

Uttered their solemn answers; and the oath

Sworn on the father’s dust was thrice revered.

Hence the devotion, which with various rites,

The warmth of patriot virtue, kindred love,

Transmits us through the countless lapse of years.

Not in those times did stones sepulchral pave

The temple floors—nor fumes of shrouded corpses,

Mixed with the altar’s incense, smite with fear

The suppliant worshipper—nor cities frown

Ghastly with sculptured skeletons—while leaped

Young mothers from their sleep in wild affright,

Shielding their helpless babes with feeble arm,

And listening for the groans of wandering ghosts,

Imploring vainly from their impious heirs

Their gold bought masses.—But in living green

Cypress and stately cedar spread their shade

O’er unforgotten graves, scattering in air

Their grateful odors; vases rich received

The mourners’ votive tears. There pious friends

Enticed the day’s pure beam to gild the gloom

Of monuments—for man his dying eye

Turns ever to the sun; and every breast

Heaves its last sigh toward the departing light!

There fountains flung aloft their silvery spray,

Watering sweet amaranths and violets

Upon the funeral sod; and he who came

To commune with the dead, breathed fragrance round,

Like bland airs wafted from Elysian fields.

Sublime and fond illusion! This endears

The rural burial place to British maids,

Who wander there to mourn a mother lost,

Or supplicate the hero’s safe return,

Who of its mast the hostile ship despoiled,

To scoop from it his own triumphal bier.[3]

Where slumbers the high thirst of glorious deeds,

And wealth and fear are ministers to life,

Unhallowed images of things unseen,

And idle pomp, usurp the place of groves

And mounds. The rich, the learned, the vulgar great,

Italia’s pride and ornament, may boast

Enduring tombs in costly palaces,

With their sole praise—ancestral names—inscribed.

For us, my friend, be quiet couch prepared,

Where fate, for once, may weary of his storms,

And friendship gather from our urn, no treasure

Of sordid gold, but wealth of feeling warm,

And models of free song!

Yes—Pindemonte!

The aspiring soul is fired to lofty deeds

By great men’s monuments—and they make fair

And holy to the pilgrim’s eye, the earth

That has received their trust. When I beheld

The spot where sleeps enshrined that noble genius[4]

Who, humbling the proud sceptres of earth’s kings,

Stripped thence the illusive wreaths, and showed the nations

What tears and blood defiled them—when I saw

His mausoleum,[5] who upreared in Rome

A new Olympus to the Deity—

And his,[6] who ’neath heaven’s azure canopy

Saw worlds unnumbered roll, and suns unmoved

Irradiate countless systems—treading first

For Albion’s son, who soared on wings sublime,

The shining pathways of the firmament—

Oh! blest art thou, Etruria’s queen! I cried—

For thy pure airs, so redolent of life,

And the fresh streams thy mountain summits pour

In homage at thy feet. In thy blue sky

The glad moon walks—and robes with silver light

Thy vintage-smiling hills; and valleys fair,

Studded with domes and olive groves, send up

To heaven the incense of a thousand flowers.

Thou, Florence, first didst hear the song divine

That cheered the Ghibelline’s indignant flight;[7]

And thou the parents and sweet tongue didst give

To him, the chosen of Calliope,[8]

Who Love with purest veil adorning—Love

That went unrobed in elder Greece and Rome—

Restored him to a heavenly Venus’ lap.

Yet far more blest, that in thy fane repose

Italia’s buried glories! all, perchance,

She e’er may boast! since o’er the barrier frail

Of Alpine rocks the o’erwhelming tide of fate

Hath swept in mighty wreck her arms—her wealth—

Altars—and country—and save memory—all!

Where from past fame springs hope of future deeds,

In daring minds, for Italy enslaved

Draw we our auspices. Around these tombs

In thought entranced, Alfieri wandered oft.

Indignant at his country, here he strayed

O’er Arno’s desert plain, and looked abroad

With silent longing on the field and sky:

And when no living aspect soothed his grief,

Turned to the voiceless dead; while on his brow

There sat the paleness, with the hope, of death.

With them he dwells for ever! Here his bones

Murmur a patriot’s love.

Oh, truly speaks

A god from this abode of pious rest!

The same that fired of old in Grecian bosoms

Hatred of Persian foes at Marathon,

Where Athens consecrates her heroes gone.

The mariner since, whose white sails woo the winds

Before Eubœa’s isle, through midnight deep

Hath seen the lightning flash of gleaming casques,

And swift encountering brands; seen blazing pyres

Roll forth their volumed vapors—phantom warriors

Begirt with steel, and striding to the fight:

While in night’s silence, o’er the distant shores,

From those tumultuous phalanxes was borne

The clang of arms—and trumpet’s hoarse response—

The tramp of rushing steeds, with hurrying hoofs

Above the helmed dead—and mingling wild,

Wails of the dying—hymns of victory—

And high o’er all, the Fates’ mysterious chant.[9]

Happy, my friend, who in thine early years

Hast crossed the wide dominion of the winds!

If e’er the pilot steered thy wandering bark

Beyond the Egean isles, thou heardst the shores

Of Hellespont resound with ancient deeds;

And the proud surge exult, that bore of old

Achilles’ armor to Rhetœum’s shore

Where Ajax sleeps.[10] To souls of generous mould

Death righteously awards the meed of fame:

Nor subtle wit, nor kingly favor gave

The perilous spoils to Ithaca—when waves

Stirred to wild fury by infernal gods,

Rescued the treasures from the shipwrecked bark.

For me, whom years and love of high renown

Impel through far and various lands to roam,

The muses, ever waking in my breast

Sad thoughts, bid me invoke the heroic dead.

They sit and guard the sepulchres:—and when

Time with cold wing sweeps tombs and fanes to ruin,

The gladdened desert echoes with their song,

And its loud harmony subdues the silence

Of noteless ages.

Yet on Ilium’s plain,

Where now the harvest waves, to pilgrim eyes

Devout, gleams starlike an eternal shrine.

Eternal for the nymph espoused by Jove,

Who bore her royal lord the son whence sprung

Troy’s ancient city and Assaracus,

The fifty sons of Priam’s regal line,

And the wide empire of the Latin race.

She, listening to the Fates’ resistless call

That summoned her from vital airs of earth

To choirs Elysian, of Heaven’s sire besought

One boon in dying.—“Oh! if e’er to thee,”

She cried—“this fading form, these locks were dear,

And the soft cares of love—since destiny

Denies me happier lot, guard thou at least

That thine Electra’s fame in death survive!”

She prayed and died. Then shook the Thunderer’s throne,

And bending in assent, the immortal head

Showered down ambrosia from celestial locks

To sanctify her tomb.—Ericthon there

Reposes; there the dust of Ilus lies.

There Trojan matrons with dishevelled hair

Sought vainly to avert impending fate

From their doomed lords. There, too, Cassandra stood,

O’erfraught with Deity, and told the ruin

That hung o’er Troy—and poured her wailing song

To solemn shades—and led the children forth—

And taught to youthful lips the fond lament.

Sighing she said—“If e’er the gods permit

Your safe return from Greece, where, exiled slaves,

Your hands shall feed your haughty conquerors’ steeds,

Your country ye will seek in vain! Yon walls

By mighty Phœbus reared, shall cumber earth

In smouldering ruins. Yet the gods of Troy

Shall hold their dwelling in these tombs;—Heaven grants

One proud last gift—in grief a deathless name.

Ye cypresses and palms! by princely hands

Of Priam’s daughters planted! ye shall grow,

Watered full soon, alas! by widows’ tears!

Guard ye my fathers! He who shall withhold

The impious axe from your devoted trunks,

Shall feel less bitterly his stroke of grief,

And touch the shrine with not unworthy hand.

Guard ye my fathers! One day shall ye mark

A sightless wanderer ’mid your ancient shades:

Groping among your mounds, he shall embrace

The hallowed urns, and question of their trust.

Then shall the deep and caverned cells reply

In hollow murmur, and give up the tale

Of Troy twice razed to earth, and twice rebuilt;

Shining in grandeur on the desert plain,

To make more lofty the last monument

Raised for the sons of Peleus. There the bard,

Soothing their restless ghosts with magic song,

A glorious immortality shall give

Those Grecian princes, in all lands renowned

Which ancient ocean wraps in his embrace.

And thou too, Hector! shalt the meed receive

Of pitying tears, where’er the patriot’s blood

Is prized or mourned—so long as yonder sun

Shall roll in heaven, and shine on human woes!”