A deep and hallowed spell
Is on thy waters and thy woods for me!
Though vainly fancy craves
Its childhood with the music of thy waves!
NOTES.
[1] Page [13]. The Sepulchres.
This poem was composed by Foscolo during a temporary retirement to Brescia, in Northern Italy. The occasion which called it forth was a law passed about that time in the Italian kingdom, directing that all burials should take place without the confines of the cities, forbidding inscriptions or any mark of distinction upon the graves, and prohibiting the approach of visiters to the cemeteries. Though intended to obviate the inconveniencies arising from the ancient custom of interring the dead in the churches, this law was carried to an arbitrary and unnecessary extreme; for it consigned the departed to one indiscriminate place of sepulture, and denied to the mourner the last consolation of grief. Our poet, fired with indignation at this sacrilegious infringement of the solemn rights of nature, gave utterance to his feelings in the work just mentioned, in which he dwells on the salutary influence over the living of their veneration for the dead; and proves the mischievous effects of that policy which would invade the sacredness of a sentiment so holy.—American Quarterly Review, Vol. xvi. page 76.
[2] Page [15]. That stung the Sardanapalus of our land.
“Il Lombardo Sardanapalo.” The Prince Belgiojoso, severely satirized in Parini’s poem of “The Day.”