th-place, and I sprang
Of noble parents: seventy[3] years and three 30
Lived I--then yielded to a slow disease.

VARIANTS:

[1] 1837.

... Forty ... 1809.

[2] 1832.

I learn ... 1809.

[3] 1837.

... sixty ... 1809.

FOOTNOTES:

[A] In _The Friend_, December 28.--ED.

V

"TRUE IS IT THAT AMBROSIO SALINERO"

Published 1837

True is it that Ambrosio Salinero
With an untoward fate was long involved
In odious litigation; and full long,
Fate harder still! had he to endure assaults
Of racking malady. And true it is 5
That not the less a frank courageous heart
And buoyant spirit triumphed over pain;
And he was strong to follow in the steps
Of the fair Muses. Not a covert path
Leads to the dear Parnassian forest's shade, 10
That might from him be hidden; not a track
Mounts to pellucid Hippocrene, but he
Had traced its windings.--This Savona knows,
Yet no sepulchral honours to her Son
She paid, for in our age the heart is ruled 15
Only by gold. And now a simple stone
Inscribed with this memorial here is raised
By his bereft, his lonely, Chiabrera.
Think not, O Passenger! who read'st the lines
That an exceeding love hath dazzled me; 20
No--he was One whose memory ought to spread
Where'er Permessus bears an honoured name,
And live as long as its pure stream shall flow.[A]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Compare S. T. Coleridge's poem, _A Tombless Epitaph_.--ED.

VI

"DESTINED TO WAR FROM VERY INFANCY"

Published 1809[A]

Destined to war from very infancy
Was I, Roberto Dati, and I took
In Malta the white symbol of the Cross:
Nor in life's vigorous season did I shun
Hazard or toil; among the sands was seen 5
Of Libya; and not seldom, on the banks
Of wide Hungarian Danube, 'twas my lot
To hear the sanguinary trumpet sounded.
So lived I, and repined not at such fate:
This only grieves me, for it seems a wrong, 10
That stripped of arms I to my end am brought
On the soft down of my paternal home.
Yet haply Arno