e.
Thus would I furnish me for life's long march,
Arm for its dangers, cater for its wants,
Work out its ends with confidence and truth,
And rest unstained, unwearied at the goal!

ALCESTE.

I.

Beautiful Florence! e'en thy very name
Falls on the ear with a strange magic spell,
As though upon the wings of Time there came
A breathing of sweet chances that befell
In days of old, all chronicled by Fame,
Whose faintest whisper makes the bosom swell
With kindred feelings, as a sea-flower waves
Concordant to the tale the ripple laves.

II.

Thou art entwined with all lovely things
That bind a rosy chaplet round the earth;
The life of Poets, whose sweet utterings
Have the soft cadence of an angel's mirth;
The springs of genius--high imaginings
That are the wealth of ages, and the birth
Of Art, beneath whose vivifying wand
The stone, the canvas, animated, stand.

III.

Thy very dust is hallowed, and we tread
The footsteps of the mighty, meeting ever
The prized memorials of the Living Dead,
Those whose sublimed spirits, waning never,
Hover around the struggling world and shed
Their blessings o'er it, which nor time can sever,
Nor can oblivion crush, but which endure
Strong in their greatness, in their truth secure.

IV.

Would that some faint ray of the heavenly light
Shower'd on thy children now might rest on me,
Illume my twilight thoughts and grant me sight
Into the depths of Nature's poesie;
And tune my faltering tones to breathe aright
That which my heart so fondly feels of thee,
For 'twere a music sweet as heaven's own lays,
Could love's deep soul be cadenced in thy praise.

V.

There was a garden sloping to the west,
Smooth'd downward from the giant Apennines,
The serried outlines of whose hoary crest
Blent with the distant heavens in mystic lines,
At eventide with golden splendours drest,
When the red sun its farewell greeting shines;
A palace topped it, from whose terraced height
Wound a broad stair of marble, snowy white.

VI.

And paths went wandering beneath the sweep
Of Orange boughs and trelliced vines, whose leaves
Gave in their parting many a transient peep
Of the blue sky, as through soft-tinted eaves;
And oft they led to arbours shaded deep,
As are the nooks the midway forest weaves,
And carven forms of nymphs and dryads gleamed
Through leafy