TO TIBUR.*

WILL not sing thy noisy waterfall,
It needs no voice of mine;

I will not thy imperial state recall,
All know thou once didst shine ;
Thou art no more, and many are no more,
Who once were rich and great;
'Tis the same story often told before,
None can outlive their date.

Yet, Tibur! thou shalt never die,
Though buried all thy greatness lie,
Because thy softer rural Fame
Is mingled with the Poet's name,
And here, as from himself we know,
His sweetest cadences would flow.
For here, removed from noisy Rome,
The Muse of Horace found a home,
*The modern Tivoli,

M

'Twas here he poured the lovely line,

In measures more than half divine,
Delighting through thy shades to rove,
For every poet loves the grove.

Thy skies that shone, thy airs that blew,
Thy fragrant flowers of early spring,
Around his heart their magic threw,

And taught him like thy birds to sing ;
And while thy streams responsive flowed,
Melpomene would breathe the ode!
But sometimes he would seize the lyre,
Imbued with more than wonted fire,
And strike a more resounding string,
Of Cæsar and of arms to sing-
Of how the soldier in the field
Had bent new distant foes to yield,

Or how the aspiring Roman State
Was destined for Eternal Fate ;
But soon these echoes died away
As if too harsh he deemed the strain,

And turning to his wonted lay,

He sang of Peace and thee again;

The shepherds, and the basking flocks
That feed along thy grassy rocks;

Of Love that threw her charm around,

And made e'en thine more hallowed ground;

Of chosen friends, and frugal fare,

And wealth, not great enough for care,
And how the wise, by asking less,

Enjoyed their more of happiness;
Rejoicing in the quiet mind

That only rural poets find;

And praying, that the gods would please.
To grant, if he to age should live,
Among thy olives and thy bees

The home that thou alone couldst give :
Whose charms he cherished far before

Larissa's plains and Baia's shore.

Such, Tibur, were the songs he sung,

When thou and Horace both were young!

And thou art passed, and he is dead,

And centuries have flown away,

But where the Bard lies buried

There stands no monument to say ;

He always scorned the pompous stone,
And Fate has made his grave unknown.
But whom the Muses make divine,

We seek not in the voiceless shrine,

But rather in his living line,

Whose life, while Nature shines, shall shine : In all the scenes his harp has sung,

We find him breathing still, and young,

And these in turn preserve his name,

And all his melody proclaim,

Both gathering and giving fame :
Thus he and they shall Fate defy,

And Tibur, thou-shalt never die!

F

FAREWELL TO ROME.

AREWELL to Rome, but not her memories!

The fond unwilling eye must fain submit,
With all its wondrous range, to say farewell;
The faithful heart will never say farewell.

No compass bounds its more than mortal sight,
No darkness can its recollection blind,

But to past scenes permitted to return

It calls them forth and makes them live again,
And moulds them to a part of its own life:
Hence all its penalties and all its pleasures!
Thus, then, farewell! and yet how strange it seems
To say farewell to Rome! How many years
The pondering mind has dwelt upon that word,
As on a dream it ne'er should realise,

And now we say farewell! Rome visited,
Her ruins made companions and her scenes
Of antiquated gray and living glory