SONNET.

FROM THE ITALIAN OF EUSTACHIO MANFREDI.

FOR A NUN, ON TAKING THE VEIL.

As when a lion, mad with hunger, springs
To seize the unguarded shepherd by surprise,
Fear in a moment lends the victim wings;

To some broad elm or ancient oak he flies,
Climbs for his life, amidst the branches cowers,
And sees th' infuriate brute, with ramping paws,
Leap at the trunk, and wearying all his powers,
Spurn the loose sand, and grind his foaming jaws.
So she, whom hell's fierce lion mark'd for prey,
Flies to the tree of life's extended arms,
The cross of Calvary,-which, night and day,
Yields shade, and rest, and refuge from alarms;
Whence she be holds the baffled fiend again,
Gnashing his teeth slink back to his old den.

SONNET.

From Petrarch, in which the Poet laments the death of his friend Signore Stefano Colonna, occurring soon after that of Laura. In the original there is a symbolical allusion to the names of both,-the one as a Column, the other a Laurel.

FALL'N is the lofty Column, and uptorn

The verdant Laurel, in whose shade my mind

Found peace I ne'er again may hope to find,

Though round the heavens o'er earth and ocean borne:
-O Death! how hast thou me of comfort shorn!
My double treasure to the grave consign'd,
Which made life sweet!-and wealth with power combined,
Can ne'er restore to soothe my thought forlorn.
What can I do, if fate have so decreed,
But let my sorrowing heart in secret bleed,
My brow be sad, mine eyes o'erflow with tears?
-O Life! so beautiful to look upon,
How, in a moment's space, for ever gone
Is all we toil to gain through many years!

THE SWISS COWHERD'S SONG,

IN A FOREIGN LAND.

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

Oн, when shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,

Our hamlets, our mountains,

With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore ?
Oh, when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead,
In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed?

When shall I return to that lowly retreat,
Where all my fond objects of tenderness meet,——
The lambs and the heifers that follow my call,
My father, my mother,

My sister, my brother,

And dear Isabella, the joy of them all?

Oh, when shall I visit the land of my birth?

'Tis the loveliest land on the face of the earth.

VOL. I.

MEET AGAIN!*

JOYFUL words, we meet again!
Love's own language, comfort darting
Through the souls of friends at parting;
Life in death, we meet again!

While we walk this vale of tears,

Compass'd round with care and sorrow,
Gloom to-day, and storm to-morrow,

"Meet again!" our bosom cheers.

* The three following pieces were paraphrased from the German.

Far in exile, when we roam,
O'er our lost endearments weeping,
Lonely, silent vigils keeping,
"Meet again!" transports us home.
When this weary world is past,
Happy they, whose spirits soaring,
Vast eternity exploring,

"Meet again" in heaven at last.

VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS.

NIGHT turns to day :

When sullen darkness lowers,

And heaven and earth are hid from sight,

Cheer up, cheer up;

Ere long the opening flowers,

With dewy eyes, shall shine in light.

Storms die in calms :

When over land and ocean

Roll the loud chariots of the wind,

Cheer up, cheer up;

The voice of wild commotion

Proclaims tranquillity behind.

Winter wakes spring:

When icy blasts are blowing

O'er frozen lakes, through naked trees,

Cheer up, cheer up;

All beautiful and glowing,

May floats in fragrance on the breeze.

War ends in peace :

Though dread artillery rattle,

And ghastly corses load the ground,
Cheer up, cheer up;

Where groan'd the field of battle,

The

the dance, the feast song,

go

round.

825.

7

Toil brings repose :—

With noontide fervours beating,

When droop thy temples o'er thy breast,
Cheer up, cheer up;

Gray twilight, cool and fleeting,

Wafts on its wing the hour of rest.

Death springs to life :

Though brief and sad thy story,

Thy years all spent in care and gloom,
Look up, look up;

Eternity and glory

Dawn through the portals of the tomb.

GERMAN WAR SONG.1

HEAVEN speed the righteous sword,
And freedom be the word!

Come, brethren, hand in hand,

Fight for your father-land!

Germania from afar

Invokes her sons to war;

Awake! put forth your powers,
And victory must be ours.

On to the combat, on!

Go where your sires have gone :
Their might unspent remains,
Their pulse is in our veins.

On to the battle, on!

Rest will be sweet anon;
The slave may yield, may fly,
We conquer, or we die!

TRANSLATIONS FROM DANTE.

UGOLINO AND RUGGIERI.

The sufferings of Ugolino on earth, and his cannibal revenge in hell, on his betrayer and murderer, Ruggieri, are better known in this country than any other part of the Divina Commedia, having been often translated, and several times made the subject of painting, especially in the rival pictures of Reynolds and Fuseli. One version more may be tolerated, and it will probably be long before it can be said that yet another is not wanted, to give the English reader an adequate idea of the poet's power in the delineation,-not so much of the supernatural horrors of his infernal caverns, as of a real earthly scene, (like the death by starvation in the dungeon of a father and his four innocent children,)" so simply, so severely great," that of the narrative, in his own Italian, it may be said,

"The force of nature could no further go."

Ugolino, Count of Gherardesca, having united with the Archbishop Ruggieri degli Ubaldini to expel his own nephew, Nino Giudice di Gallura, from the sovereignty of Pisa, seized it for himself. But the archbishop soon turned against him, and being supported by Lanfranchi, Sismondi, and Gualandi, three of the principal inhabitants, they raised a tumult in the city, during which Ugolino was dragged from his palace, and with his two sons, and their two sons, (he calls all four his children in the story,) imprisoned in a tower on the Piazza degli Anziani, for several months, at the expiration of which the portals were all locked, and the keys thrown into the river Arno: the miserable captives being thus left to perish with hunger, whence the hold itself obtained the name of "Famine." With great skill, to produce the most pathetic impression, as well as with consummate knowledge of human nature, Dante makes Ugolino dwell wholly on the treachery and cruelty exercised towards himself, without any allusion to his own atrocious injustice towards his nephew, for which he is doomed to the second round of the ninth or lowest gulf of Hell, with no mitigation of the pains of eternal hunger, except the ra venous feast, like that of the eagle on the liver of Prometheus, upon the neversatisfying and never-wasting brain of the traitor Ruggieri.

Dante (accompanied by Virgil, his conductor) finds in this department of "the doleful city" the victims tormented variously, according to their crimes,

"In thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice;"

and, among others, the two personages aforenamed.

SCARCE had we parted thence, when I beheld
Two in one well of ice, so grouped together
The head of one to the other seem'd the cowl,
While, like a hungry man devouring bread,
The uppermost had fasten'd with his teeth
Upon the lower, where skull and neck are join'd;