Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

PALESTRINA:

A

Metrical Romance.

BY

ROBERT M. HERON, ESQ.

Seguon questa infelice in ogni parte

Il sogno, e l'augurio,—

Sorte, indovini, e falsa profezia :

E fatta a voluntà la conjettura.

LORENZO DE' MEDICI.

LONDON:

PRINTED FOR

LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS,

PATERNOSTER-ROW.

1846.

217-

[blocks in formation]

SONNET TO ITALY.

CLIME of two languages, whose bounteous flow Hath twice reveal'd thy loveliness and pride, Where hast thou wafted now that heavenly tide?

Oh, Italy, thy voice doth but bestow

The broken strain that breathes of present woe,

Yet with an eloquence which is not thine,

Hopeless and sad — since Freedom's source divine

For thee no more doth shed the long-lost glow,

Once snatch'd from night

even by thy magic choice,

When Dante's soul and Ariosto's theme

Arose to bid the sinking Muse rejoice,

When Europe woke from out her feudal dream;

And nations guided by thy torch and voice,

Borrow'd thy lamp-have they restored its beam?

PREFACE.

THE following Poem has been written partly with the design of recording the impressions of the Author on visiting Italy eighteen months since. The period which it endeavours slightly to illustrate is fixed in the earliest time of the Middle Ages, and he has availed himself of the name of the COLONNA to give consistency to the fanciful tale which is here introduced.

The contorni of Rome, to which it chiefly relates, convey, beyond comparison, the most agreeable view that country exhibits as regards its scenery, antiquities, and the fine appearance of the people generally, while the associations which are awakened on treading a soil where we fancy ourselves brought nearer, as it were, to those incidents, which, in early youth, have warmed

« AnteriorContinuar »