Wooed by Italian airs, does woman's cheek With purer color glow, than in our land? Or does her eye more eloquently speak, Or with a softer grace her form expand? Does music there, with power to us unknown, Breathe o'er the heart a far diviner spell? And with a sweeter, more entrancing tone, The thrilling strains of love and glory swell? Tell me if thou in thought didst dearer prize Thy home, than all that Italy could give? Didst thou regret that her resplendent skies Should smile on men as slaves content to live? Didst thou, when straying in her cities fair, Or in her groves of bloom, regret that here No perfumes mingle with the passing air? And was thine own, thy native land, less dear? Or didst thou turn where proudly in the breeze America's star-spangled flag was flying? The flag that o'er thee waved on the high seas; With conscious heart exultingly replying, "No slothful land of dreaming ease is ours, Her soil is only trodden by the free-- Less rich in music, poetry, and flowers, Still, still she is the land of all for me!" E. A. S. _Lombardy, Va._ For the Southern Literary Messenger. MUSINGS II--_By the Author of Vyvyan_. The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets Ebbing and flowing.--------_Rogers_. I loved her from my boyhood--she to me Was as a fairy city of the heart, Rising like water columns from the sea. _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. Stanza xviii. There is, far in a foreign clime, Alas! no longer free-- A city famed in olden time As queen of all the sea; Still fair but fallen from her prime-- For such is destiny. There motley masque and princely ball Make gay the merry carnival, And all the night some serenade Steals sweetly from the calm Lagune, While many a dark eyed loving maid Is wooed in secret neath the moon. And swiftly o'er the noiseless tide Gondolas dark, like spectres, glide Neath archways deep and bridges fair, Temples and marble palaces, Adorned with jutting balconies, And dim arcades of beauty rare. There's naught that meets the wondering eye, From the wave that kisses the landing stair To the sculptured range in the azure sky,[1] But wears a wild unearthly air, And every voice that echoes among Those phantomlike halls, breathes the spell of song. The rudest Barcarolli's cry, Heard faint and far o'er Adria's waves, Might cheat the listener of a sigh-- So sad the farewell which it leaves, When sinking on the ear it dies Along the borders of the skies. Oh! Venice! Venice! couldst thou be Still wond'rous fair and even as free! How peerless were thy regal halls!-- How glorious were thy seagirt walls!-- But foreign banners flaunt thy tide, And chains have tamed thy lion's pride.