Here, wandering in scenes that are sacred to night,
Love wears me and wastes me away;

And often the sun has spent much of his light
Ere yet I perceive it is day.

While a mantle of darkness envelopes the sphere,
My sorrows are safely rehearsed;

To me the dark hours are all equally dear,
And the last is as sweet as the first.

Here I and the beasts of the desert agree;
Mankind are the wolves that I fear:
They grudge me my natural right to be free,
But nobody questions it here.

Though little is found in this dreary abode
That appetite wishes to find,

My spirit is soothed by the presence of God,
And appetite wholly resigned.

Ye desolate scenes, to your solitude led
My life I in praises employ,

And scarce know the source of the tears that I shed,
Proceed they from sorrow or joy.

There's nothing I seem to have skill to discern;
I feel out my way in the dark;
Love reigns in my bosom, I constantly burn
Yet hardly distinguish the spark.

I live, yet I seem myself to be dead;
Such a riddle is not to be found;

I am nourished without knowing how I am fed,
I have nothing, and yet I abound.

O Love! who in darkness art pleased to abide,
Though dimly yet surely I see

That these contrarieties only reside

In the soul that is chosen of thee

Ah send me not back to the race of mankind,
Perversely by folly beguiled:

For where, in the crowds I have left, shall I find
The spirit and heart of a child?

Here let me, though fixed in a desert, be free,
A little one whom they despise,

Though lost to the world, if in union with thee
Shall be holy and happy and wise.

FROM THE ENGRAVING BY FINDEN AFTER A DRAWING BY W. HARVEY OF THE

ORIGINAL PAINTING BY SIR THOMAS LAWRENCE

COMPLIMENTARY POEMS TO MILTON

FROM THE LATIN AND ITALIAN

THE NEAPOLITAN, JOHN BAPTIST MANSO

MARQUIS OF VILLA

TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON

WHAT features, form, mien, manners, with a mind
Oh how intelligent and how refined!

Were but thy piety from fault as free,

Thou would'st no Angle but an Angel be.

AN EPIGRAM

ADDRESSED TO THE ENGLISHMAN, JOHN MILTON, A POET WORTHY OF THREE LAURELS, THE GRECIAN, LATIN, AND ETRUSCAN,

BY JOHN SALSILLO, OF ROME

MELES and Mincio, both, your urns depress!
Sebetus, boast henceforth thy Tasso less!
But let the Thames o'erpeer all floods, since he,
For Milton famed, shall single match the three.

TO JOHN MILTON

GREECE, Sound thy Homer's, Rome, thy Virgil's name,
But England's Milton equals both in fame.

SELVAGGI.

AN ODE

ADDRESSED TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS ENGLISHMAN, MR. JOHN MILTON,

BY SIGNOR ANTONIO FRANCINI, GENTLEMAN OF FLORENCE

EXALT me, Clio, to the skies,

That I may form a starry crown
Beyond what Helicon supplies

In laureate garlands of renown:

To nobler worth be brighter glory given,

And to a heavenly mind a recompense from heaven.

Time's wasteful hunger cannot prey
On everlasting high desert,

Nor can oblivion steal away

Its record graven in the heart;

Lodge but an arrow, virtue, on the bow

That binds my lyre, and death shall be a vanquished foe.

In Ocean's blazing flood enshrined,
Whose vassal tide around her swells,
Albion, from other climes disjoined,
The prowess of the world excels;

She teems with heroes that to glory rise

With more than human force in our astonished eyes.

To virtue driven from other lands
Their bosoms yield a safe retreat;
Her law alone their deed commands,
Her smiles they feel divinely sweet.
Confirm this record, Milton, generous youth!

And by true virtue prove thy virtues' praise a truth.

Zeuxis, all energy and flame,

Set ardent forth in his career;
Urged to his task by Helen's fame
Resounding ever in his ear;

To make his image to her beauty true

From the collected fair each sovereign charm he drew.

The bee, with subtlest skill endued,
Thus toils to earn her precious juice
From all the flowery myriads strewed
O'er meadow and parterre profuse;
Confederate voices one sweet air compound,

And various chords consent in one harmonious sound.