ON

THE DEATH OF A FRIEND.

But thou art fled

Like some frail exhalation which the dawn

Robes in its golden beams; ah, thou hast fled,

The brave, the gentle, and the beautiful!
The child of grace and beauty.-SHELLEY,

THY wooded hills, Firenze *, castle-crown'd,
In beautiful luxuriance rise around:
What sweetly-blended hues enchant the sight
As the sun 'gins to soften down his light!
On houses, olives, vineyards, crags, he glows,
All nature woos him as he smiles repose.
The purple-coloured Apennines appear
Like fairy-mountains painted in the air:
While o'er the fertile vale, where Arno flows,
The queen of beauty's sacred myrtle grows.

* Firenze, al cui splendore

Ogni bella cittate aspira indarno,

Inclita figlia d'Arno,

Che al Padre cingi d'ogni onore il crine, &c.

CHIABRERA.

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.