ON A SCENE IN TUSCANY.

WHAT good were it to dim the pleasure-glow,
That lights thy cheek, fair Girl, in scenes like these,
By shameful facts, and piteous histories ?

While we enjoy, what matters what we know?

What tender love-sick looks on us below

Those Mountains cast! how courteously the Trees
Raise up their branching heads in calices
For the thick Vine to fill and overflow!
This nature is like Thee, all-bright, all-mild;
If then some self-wise man should say, that here
Hate, sin, and death held rule for many a year,
That of this kindliest earth there 's not a rood
But has been saturate with brother's blood,-
Believe him not, believe him not, my Child.

TO WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR,

AGED NINE YEARS.

SWEET, serious Child,-strange Boy! I fain would know
Why, when I fondly talk and sport with thee,
I never miss the exuberant heart-flow

Which is the especial charm of infancy :
Thou art so wise, so sober,-nothing wild,-
I hardly think, yet feel, thou art a child.

For had the formal bondage of a school

Checked the gay outgrowth of thy vernal years, Encumbered thy light wings with vulgar rule,

And dimmed the blossoms in thy cheeks with tears,— Thou mightst have been as grave, as still, as now, But not with that calm smile, that placid brow.

Nor has the knowledge of dull manly things,
And intellect grown ripe before its time,
Defiled thy being's freshly-salient springs,

And made thee conscious of a world of crime ;

With all thy earnest looks, as spirit-free

As ever infant dancing down the lea.

Is it not that within thee, as a shrine,
The power of uncommunicable Art
Is working out its ministry divine,

Silently moulding thy all-virgin heart

To its own solemn ends? Thus dost thou wear That priestly aspect,-that religious air;

And every

circumstance of outward life

Tends this sublime ordainment to unfold;
Is not each chamber of thy dwelling rife
With miracles of purest painters old,-
The Saints and Patriarchs of Art,-who knew
How best to make the Beautiful the True ?

Thou hast them all for teachers ;-He is there,
The limner cowled,* who never moved his hand
Till he had steeped his inmost soul in prayer :
Him thou art bound to in a special band,
For he was born, and fed his heart, as thou,
On storied Fiesole's fair-folded brow.

There thou canst read, with deeper reverence still,
Rare lessons of the later Monk,† who took

The world with awe of his inspired skill,
To which the Apostle leaning on his book,

* Fra Beato Angelico di Fiesole.

Fra Bartolomeo, commonly called the "Frate."

And those three marvels in old Lucca shown,
Bear witness, in the days we call our own.

There too Masaccio's grandly-plain design,—
Quaint Ghirlandaio,—and the mighty pair,*
Master and pupil, who must ever shine

Consociate Sovereigns-thy preceptors are ;
Nor pass him by, who with grave lines looks down
Upon thee, Michel of the triple crown. †

Thou hast a Sire, whose full-experienced eye
Keeps harmony with an unerring heart,—
Who, of that glorified society,

To thy young sense can every depth impart :
How dare I then deny thy perfect joy?
How dare I judge thee, thou unearthly Boy?

Fiesole, 1833.

* Pietro Perugino and Raffaello.
† As Painter, Sculptor, and Poet.

L

AN INCIDENT AT PISA.

"FROM the common burial-ground
Mark'd by some peculiar bound,
Beppo! who are these that lie
Like one numerous family?"

"They whose bodies rest within

This appointed place,

Signor never knew of sin,

Only knew of grace.

Purified from earthly leaven,

They have mounted straight to heaven, Without sorrow, without thrall,

Blessed children, angels all!"

"But that second space, with art

Fenc'd from all the rest apart,

Though from those sweet infants' bed

By a low wall separated

Beppo! who are these, and why
To the others laid so nigh ?"