Not to thee Bedford mournful is the tale
Of days departed. Time in his career
Arraigns not thee that the neglected year
Has past unheeded onward. To the vale
Of years thou journeyest. May the future road
Be pleasant as the past! and on my friend
Friendship and Love, best blessings! still attend,
'Till full of days he reach the calm abode
Where Nature slumbers. Lovely is the age
Of Virtue. With such reverence we behold
The silver hairs, as some grey oak grown old
That whilome mock'd the rushing tempest's rage

III

Qual in colle aspro, al imbrunir di sera
L'avezza giovinetta pastorella
Va bagnando l'herbetta strana e bella
Che mal si spande a disusata spera
Fuor di sua natia alma primavera,
Cosi Amor meco insu la lingua snella
Desta il fior novo di strania favella,
Mentre io di te, vezzosamente altera,
Canto, dal mio buon popol non inteso
E'l bel Tamigi cangio col bel Arno
Amor lo volse, ed io a l'altrui peso
Seppi ch' Amor cosa mai volse indarno.
Deh! foss' il mio cuor lento e'l duro seno

Life ever seems as from its present site
It aimed to lure us. Mountains of the past
It melts, with all their crags and caverns vast,
Into a purple cloud! Across the night
Which hides what is to be, it shoots a light
All rosy with the yet unrisen dawn.
Not the near daisies, but yon distant height
Attracts us, lying on this emerald lawn.
And always, be the landscape what it may --
Blue, misty hill or sweep of glimmering plain --
It is the eye's endeavor still to gain
The fine, faint limit of the bounding day.

Why should you be astonished that my heart,
Plunged for so long in darkness and in dearth,
Should be revived by you, and stir and start
As by warm April now, reviving Earth?
I am the field of undulating grass
And you the gentle perfumed breath of Spring,
And all my lyric being, when you pass,
Is bowed and filled with sudden murmuring.
I asked you nothing and expected less,
But, with that deep, impassioned tenderness
Of one approaching what he most adores,
I only wished to lose a little space

Lord, what a change within us one short hour
Spent in Thy presence will prevail to make --
What heavy burdens from our bosoms take,
What parchèd grounds refresh, as with a shower!
We kneel, and all around us seems to lower;
We rise, and all, the distant and the near,
Stands forth in sunny outline, brave and clear;
We kneel how weak, we rise how full of power!
Why, therefore, should we do ourselves this wrong,
Or others -- that we are not always strong;
That we are ever overborne with care;
That we should ever weak or heartless be,

II

But only three in all God's universe
Have heard this word thou hast said,—Himself, beside
Thee speaking, and me listening! and replied
One of us . . . that was God, . . . and laid the curse
So darkly on my eyelids, as to amerce
My sight from seeing thee,—that if I had died,
The deathweights, placed there, would have signified
Less absolute exclusion. 'Nay' is worse
From God than from all others, O my friend!
Men could not part us with their worldly jars,
Nor the seas change us, nor the tempests bend;

Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way
Homeward thou hastest light of heart along,
If heavily creep on one little day
The medley crew of travellers among,
Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here
On Life's sad journey comfortless he roves,
Remote from every scene his heart holds dear,
From him he values, and from her he loves.
And when disgusted with the vain and dull
Whom chance companions of thy way may doom,
Thy mind, of each domestic comfort full,
Turns to itself and meditates on home,

II

Donna leggiadra il cui bel nome honora
L'herbosa val di Rheno, e il nobil varco,
Ben e colui d'ogni valore scarco
Qual tuo spirto gentil non innamora,
Che dolcemente mostra si di fuora
De suoi atti soavi giamai parco,
E i don', che son d'amor saette ed arco,
La onde l' alta tua virtu s'infiora.
Quando tu vaga parli, O lieta canti
Che mover possa duro alpestre legno,
Guardi ciascun a gli occhi ed a gli orecchi
L'entrata, chi di te si truova indegno;
Gratia sola di su gli vaglia, inanti

Most men know love but as a part of life;
They hide it in some corner of the breast,
Even from themselves; and only when they rest
In the brief pauses of that daily strife,
Wherewith the world might else be not so rife,
They draw it forth (as one draws forth a toy
To soothe some ardent, kiss-exacting boy)
And hold it up to sister, child, or wife.
Ah me! why may not love and life be one?
Why walk we thus alone, when by our side,
Love, like a visible God, might be our guide?
How would the marts grow noble! and the street,

Not that I always struck the proper mean
Of what mankind must give for what they gain,
But, when I think of those whom dull routine
And the pursuit of cheerless toil enchain,
Who from their desk-chairs seeing a summer cloud
Race through blue heaven on its joyful course
Sigh sometimes for a life less cramped and bowed,
I think I might have done a great deal worse;
For I have ever gone untied and free,
The stars and my high thoughts for company;
Wet with the salt-spray and the mountain showers,