O! what is love by poets deified,

Compared with friendship in all dangers tried?
Gonzalvo to his Lara could not be

A firmer friend than Henry was to me.

Could not this balmy clime restore his health,
Where Nature boon has lavish'd all her wealth?

Alas! Consumption gives a sickly hue

To wood-crown'd hills, rich vales, and skies of deeepest blue.

Busy Remembrance! why call up in vain

Those happy nights, that ne'er will come again,
When in our mock-debates young Henry's mind
Show'd a ripe judgment, and a taste refined!

FLORENCE, October 2, 1818.

POEMS,

MORAL AND RELIGIOUS.

RECOLLECTIONS AT

WRITTEN IN OCT. 1826.

WILD flowers, that Fancy o'er our path has strown,
So gay in youth, maturer years imbrown ;
Nature's high instinct, like the vernal gales,
In childhood fresh'ning o'er the heart prevails!
Shadows of beauty then around us come
Like trails of glory from the soul's first home,
Embellishing existence they are gone,

Gone like the light that yesterday hath shone.

Yet forms that are most beautiful remain,
They do not woo the poet's love in vain :
While his fine genius gives to all he sees
Their natural colours, they must ever please!
His thought-embodying mind can well express
Sensations others do not feel the less.

With variegated hues adorn'd below

A mellow autumn's sun the woodlands glow;
All is unbreathing silence, not a rush

Is stirr'd; and how intense the noon-day hush!
Years have elapsed, but what are years, since they
Whom I remember here, have past away!

Like to a sun-burst gathering clouds among,
Probus shone forth above the worldly throng
That walk in darkness, warming all who came
Within his influence, yet unmark'd by fame.

He drew towards God, with sweet attractive force,
Those who deflected from the even course.

Though mild to others, to himself severe,

He ne'er relax'd, content that Heaven was near:
Religion on his heart betimes engraved
The maxim, "Be thou watchful to be saved."

His mind, within its tenement of dust,
Rose unassailable by passion's gust:

The pyramid, thus heavenward pointing stands
Above the desert's ever-whirling sands.

Habitual piety had given a tone

Of feeling to him that seem'd his alone;
The calm intensity of which, unquell'd
By tumults of the world, each act impell'd.