THE AVE MARIA. (DON JUAN, Canto iii. Stanzas 102-109.) AVE Maria! blessed be the hour! The time, the clime, the spot, where I so oft Have felt that moment in its fullest power Sink o'er the earth so beautiful and soft, While swung the deep bell in the distant tower, Or the faint dying day-hymn stole aloft, And not a breath crept through the rosy air, And yet the forest leaves seem'd stirr'd with prayer. Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of prayer! Ave Maria! 'tis the hour of love! Ave Maria! may our spirits dare Look up to thine and to thy Son's above! Ave Maria! oh, that face so fair! Those downcast eyes beneath the Almighty doveWhat though 'tis but a pictured image?-strike That painting is no idol-'tis too like. Sweet hour of twilight!—in the solitude Of the pine forest, and the silent shore And Dryden's lay made haunted ground to me, The shrill cicalas, people of the pine, Making their summer lives one ceaseless song, Were the sole echoes, save my steed's and mine, And vesper bell's that rose the boughs along ; The spectre huntsman of Onesti's line, His hell-dogs, and their chase, and the fair throng Which learn'd from this example not to fly From a true lover,-shadow'd my mind's eye. Oh, Hesperus! thou bringest all good things— Whate'er our household gods protect of dear, Are gather'd round us by thy look of rest; Soft hour! which wakes the wish and melts the heart Of those who sail the seas, on the first day When they from their sweet friends are torn apart; As the far bell of vesper makes him start, When Nero perish'd by the justest doom Of nations freed, and the world overjoy'd, Of feeling for some kindness done, when power ARQUA. (Childe Harold, Canto iv. Stanzas 30-32.) THERE is a tomb in Arqua ;-rear'd in air, They keep his dust in Arqua, where he died; A feeling more accordant with his strain And the soft quiet hamlet where he dwelt And sought a refuge from their hopes decay'd CLITUMNUS. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 66, 67.) BUT thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave And most serene of aspect, and most clear; Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughtersA mirror and a bath for Beauty's youngest daughters! And on thy happy shore a Temple still, Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales. TERNI. (CHILDE HAROLD, Canto iv. Stanzas 69-72.) THE roar of waters !-from the headlong height The fall of waters! rapid as the light The flashing mass foams shaking the abyss; And mounts in spray the skies, and thence again Making it all one emerald :—how profound The gulf! and how the giant element From rock to rock leaps with delirious bound, Crushing the cliffs, which, downward worn and rent With his fierce footsteps, yield in chasms a fearful vent To the broad column which rolls on, and shows Torn from the womb of mountains by the throes Of a new world, than only thus to be With many windings, through the vale :-Look back! As if to sweep down all things in its track, Charming the eye with dread, a matchless cataract, |