SONNET.

As on a hill-top rude, when closing day
Imbrowns the scene, some pastoral maiden fair
Waters a lovely foreign plant with care,

Borne from its native genial airs away,
That scarcely can its tender bud display,

So, on my tongue these accents, new and rare, Are flowers exotic, which Love waters there. While thus, O sweetly scornful! I essay

Thy praise in verse to British ears unknown, And Thames exchange for Arno's fair domain; So Love has will'd and ofttimes Love has shown That what he wills, he never wills in vain. Oh that this hard and sterile breast might be To Him, who plants from Heaven, a soil as free!

CANZONE.

THEY mock my toil-the nymphs and amorous swains

And whence this fond attempt to write, they cry, Love-songs in language that thou little know'st? How darest thou risk to sing these foreign strains? Say truly. Find'st not oft thy purpose cross'd, And that thy fairest flowers here fade and die? Then with pretence of admiration high—

Thee other shores expect, and other tides,
Rivers, on whose grassy sides

Her deathless laurel leaf, with which to bind
Thy flowing locks, already Fame provides;
Why then this burthen, better far declined?
Speak, Muse! for me-the fair one said, who
guides

My willing heart, and all my fancy's flights,
"This is the language in which Love delights."

SONNET, TO CHARLES DEODATI.

CHARLES-and I say it wondering-thou must know

That I, who once assumed a scornful air And scoff'd at Love, am fallen in his snare, (Full many an upright man has fallen so :) Yet think me not thus dazzled by the flow Of golden locks, or damask cheek; more rare The heartfelt beauties of my foreign fair; A mien majestic, with dark brows that show The tranquil lustre of a lofty mind; Words exquisite, of idioms more than one, And song, whose fascinating power might bind, And from her sphere draw down the labouring

moon;

With such fire-darting eyes that, should I fill My ears with wax, she would enchant me still.

SONNET.

LADY! It cannot be but that thine eyes
Must be my sun, such radiance they display,
And strike me e'en as Phoebus him whose way
Through horrid Libya's sandy desert lies.
Meantime, on that side steamy vapours rise

Where most I suffer. Of what kind are they,
New as to me they are, I cannot say,
But deem them, in the lover's language-sighs.
Some, though with pain, my bosom close conceals,
Which, if in part escaping thence, they tend
To soften thine, thy coldness soon congeals.
While others to my tearful eyes ascend,

Whence my sad nights in showers are ever drown'd, Till my Aurora comes, her brow with roses bound.

SONNET.

ENAMOUR'D, artless, young, on foreign ground, Uncertain whither from myself to fly;

To thee, dear Lady, with an humble sigh Let me devote my heart, which I have found By certain proofs, not few, intrepid, sound, Good, and addicted to conceptions high: When tempests shake the world, and fire the sky, It rests in adamant self-wrapt around,

194

TRANSLATIONS FROM MILTON.

As safe from envy, and from outrage rude,
From hopes and fears that vulgar minds abuse,
As fond of genius, and fix'd fortitude,
Of the resounding lyre, and every Muse.
Weak you will find it in one only part,
Now pierced by love's immedicable dart.

SIMILE IN PARADISE LOST.

'So when, from mountain tops, the dusky clouds Ascending,' &c.

QUALES aërii montis de vertice nubes

Cum surgunt, et jam Boreæ tumida ora quiêrunt,
Cælum hilares abdit, spissâ caligine, vultus:
Tum si jucundo tandem sol prodeat ore,
Et croceo montes et pascua lumine tingat,
Gaudent omnia, aves mulcent concentibus agros,
Balatuque ovium colles vallesque resultant.

TRANSLATION OF DRYDEN'S EPIGRAM ON
MILTON.

TRES tria, sed longè distantia, sæcula vates
Ostentant tribus è gentibus eximios.
Græcia sublimem, cum majestate disertum
Roma tulit, felix Anglia utrique parem.

Partubus ex binis Natura exhausta, coacta est,
Tertius ut fieret, consociare duos.

July, 1780.

TRANSLATIONS

FROM VINCENT BOURNE.

THE THRACIAN.

THRACIAN parents, at his birth,
Mourn their babe with many a tear,

But with undissembled mirth

Place him breathless on his bier.

Greece and Rome with equal scorn,
"O the savages!" exclaim,
"Whether they rejoice or mourn,
Well entitled to the name!"

But the cause of this concern,

And this pleasure, would they trace, Even they might somewhat learn

From the savages of Thrace.

RECIPROCAL KINDNESS THE PRIMARY LAW OF NATURE.

ANDROCLES, from his injured lord, in dread
Of instant death, to Libya's desert fled.
Tired with his toilsome flight, and parch'd with

heat,

He spied at length a cavern's cool retreat;

But scarce had given to rest his weary frame,