Thou that wouldst mark, in form of human birth, All heaven and nature’s perfect skill combined, Come gaze on her, the day-star of the earth, Dazzling, not me alone, but all mankind: And haste! for Death, who spares the guilty long, First calls the brightest and the best away; And to her home, amidst the cherub throng, The angelic mortal flies, and will not stay! Haste! and each outward charm, each mental grace, In one consummate form thine eye shall trace, Model of loveliness, for earth too fair! Then thou shalt own how faint my votive lays, My spirit dazzled by perfection’s blaze: But if thou still delay, for long regret prepare. “Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde.” If to the sighing breeze of summer hours Bend the green leaves; if mourns a plaintive bird; Or from some fount’s cool margin, fringed with flowers, The soothing murmur of the wave is heard; Her whom the heavens reveal, the earth denies, I see and hear: though dwelling far above, Her spirit, still responsive to my sighs, Visits the lone retreat of pensive love. “Why thus in grief consume each fruitless day,” (Her gentle accents thus benignly say,) “While from thine eyes the tear unceasing flows? Weep not for me, who, hastening on my flight, Died, to be deathless; and on heavenly light Whose eyes but open’d, when they seem’d to close!” VERSI SPAGNUOLI DI PIETRO BEMBO. “O Muerte! que sueles ser.” Thou, the stem monarch of dismay, Whom nature trembles to survey, O Death! to me, the child of grief, Thy welcome power would bring relief, Changing to peaceful slumber many a care. And though thy stroke may thrill with pain Each throbbing pulse, each quivering vein; The pangs that bid existence close, Ah! sure are far less keen than those Which cloud its lingering moments with despair. FRANCESCO LORENZINI. “O Zefiretto, che movendo vai.” Sylph of the breeze! whose dewy pinions light Wave gently round the tree I planted here, Sacred to her whose soul hath wing’d its flight To the pure ether of her lofty sphere; Be it thy care, soft spirit of the gale! To fan its leaves in summer’s noontide hour; Be it thy care that wintry tempests fail To rend its honours from the sylvan bower. Then shall it spread, and rear th’ aspiring form. Pride of the wood, secure from every storm, Graced with her name, a consecrated tree! So may thy Lord, thy monarch of the wind, Ne’er with rude chains thy tender pinions bind, But grant thee still to rove, a wanderer wild and free! GESNER. MORNING SONG. “Willkommen, fruhe morgensonn.” Hail! morning sun, thus early bright; Welcome, sweet dawn! thou younger day! Through the dark woods that fringe the height, Beams forth, e’en now, thy ray.