ITALIAN SONG.
Dear is my little native vale;
The ring-dove builds and warbles there;
Close by my cot she tells her tale
To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.
In orange grove and myrtle bowers,
That breathe a gale of fragrance round,
I charm the fairy-footed hours
With my lov’d lute’s romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.
The shepherd’s horn, at break of day,
The ballet danc’d in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay,
Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys, that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.
Samuel Rogers.