Italy, how beautiful thou art! Yet i could weep-for thou art lying, alas, As we admire the beautiful in death. Thine was a dangerous gift, when thou wast born, That now beset thee, making thee their slave! Would they had loved thee less, or feared thee more! Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again Their wisdom folly. Even now the flame And, dying, left a splendour like the day, Blesses the earth-the light of genius, virtue, They of that sacred shore, have heard the call, GINEVRA. [From the same.] · If thou shoulds ever come by choice or chance To Modena, where still religiously Among her ancient trophies is preserved Stop at 2 Palace near the Reggio-gate, Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight, 'Tis of a Lady in her earliest youth, As tho' she said 'Beware!' her vest of gold So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth, Alone it hangs Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion, That by the way-it may be true or false But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not, The joy, the pride of an indulgent Sire. That precious gift, what else remained to him? Her playmate from her birth, and her first love. Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue. Great was the joy; but at the Bridal feast, And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook, Weary of his life, Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers. Full fifty years were past, and all forgot, When on an idle day, a day of search Mid the old lumber in the Gallery, That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra, 'Why not remove it from its lurking place!' 'Twas done as soon as said; but on the way It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton, With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone, A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold. All else had perished-save a nuptial ring, And a small seal, her mother's legacy, Engraven with a name, the name of both, 'Ginevra' WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES. [THE REV. WILLIAM LISLE BOWLES was born at King's Sutton in 1762. His chief work is his Sonnets, first published in 1789. He died at Salisbury in 1850.] It was the candle of Bowles that lit the fire of Coleridge. We have it on record in the Biographia Literaria that to the author of The Ancient Mariner, bewildered at seventeen between metaphysics and theological controversy, and utterly out of sympathy with the artificialities of the Popesque school, the early sonnets of Bowles came almost in the light of a revelation. In a copy preserved at South Kensington he writes of them later as 'having done his heart more good than all the other books he ever read excepting his Bible.' Those who to-day turn to the much-praised verses will scarcely find in their pensive amenity that enduring charm which they presented to the hungry and restless soul of Coleridge, se king its fitting food in unpropitious places. They exhibit a grace of expression, a delicate sensibility, and above all a 'musical sweet melancholy' that is especially grateful in certain moods of mind; but with lapse of time and change of fashion they have grown a little thin and faint and colourless. Of Bowles's remaining works it is not necessary to speak. He was overmatched in his controversy with Byron as to Pope, and the blunt Stick to thy sonnets, Bowles, - at least they pay' of the former must be accepted as the final word upon the poetical efforts of the cultivated and amiable Canon of Salisbury. AUSTIN DOBSON. |