Seemed like the Seraphs who in Heaven adore The radiant throne of the celestial Sire; And all the wondrous dreams she did inspire Their colours lose and wane And in our yielding souls no longer reign. Strange, infinite desires And visionary fires Doth wondrous music in our fancy wake, And we then take through a delightful sea A wondrous voyage far Like some undaunted sailor of the deep; But if a discord crush Our spirit's rapturous rush, The spell is broken and our souls are free A lonely vigil unrelieved to keep: So slight a break that solemn bliss can mar. O Nature, say, if thou art wholly vile, If dust and ashes symbolise thy being, How canst thou be so lofty and far-seeing? And if thou art so fair That sacred dreams thy children can beguile With art and wisdom, their appointed share, Why by a cause so slight Are all thy fond aspirings put to flight? _Exquisite is the picture in_ "LA VITA SOLITARIA" _of silent meditation._ At times I seat me in a lonely spot, Upon a hill, or by a calm lake's bank, Fringed and adorned with flowers taciturn. There, when full mid-day heat informs the sky, His peaceful image doth the sun depict, And to the air moves neither leaf nor herb, And neither ruffling wave nor cricket shrill, Nor birds disporting in the boughs above, Nor fluttering butterfly, nor voice nor step, Afar or near, can sight or hearing find. Those shores are held in deepest quietude: Whence I the world and even myself forget, Seated unmoved; and it appears to me My body is released, no longer worn With soul or feeling, and its old repose Is blended with the silence all around. _Very noble is the conclusion of the_ "EPISTLE TO COUNT CARLO PEPOLI":-- Thou lovest song and poets charm thy mind; Thy task it is that rarest gift to find, That beauty of the soul, amid mankind So seldom seen, so fugitive and frail, That we its absence rather than its loss bewail. Thrice happy he who never lost the flame Of rich imagination when he came To the autumnal tinting of his years, In whom the freshness of the heart appears For ever pure and tender! Blessed he Whom Nature still in holy liberty Preserves and keeps that he may deck her brow With all the treasures that his thoughts allow. Such be the gift by Heaven on thee conferred! May sacred Poesy by thee be heard When snowy age hath marked thee as her own And on thy head her silvery signs are shown.