THE BROOK. Eternal Sun! the warmth which thou hast given, Doth meet the look of him who seeks it there, 53 THE BROOK. FROM THE SPANISH. LAUGH of the mountain !—lyre of bird and tree! gaze. How without guile thy bosom, all transparent Thy secrets scan, thy smooth, round pebbles count! How, without malice murmuring, glides thy current! O sweet simplicity of days gone by! Thou shun'st the haunts of man, to dwell in limpid fount! THE CELESTIAL PILOT. FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO II. AND now, behold! as at the approach of morning, Appeared to me, may I again behold it !— And when therefrom I had withdrawn a little Thereafter, on all sides of it, appeared My master yet had uttered not a word, He cried aloud; "Quick, quick, and bow the knee Behold the Angel of God! fold up thy hands! Henceforward shalt thou see such officers! "See, how he scorns all human arguments, "See, how he holds them, pointed straight to heaven, Fanning the air with the eternal pinions, That do not moult themselves like mortal hair!” THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE. And then, as nearer and more near us came presence, But down I cast it; and he came to shore Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot! Thus sang they all together in one voice, Then made he sign of holy rood upon them, THE TERRESTRIAL PARADISE. FROM DANTE. PURGATORIO XXVIII. 55 LONGING already to search in and round Withouten more delay I left the bank, A gently-breathing air, that no mutation Whereat the tremulous branches readily Did all of them bow downward towards that side Where its first shadow casts the Holy Mountain; Yet not from their upright direction bent Should cease the practice of their tuneful art; But, with full-throated joy, the hours of prime Singing received they in the midst of foliage That made monotonous burden to their rhymes, Even as from branch to branch it gathering swells, Through the pine forests on the shore of Chiassi, When Æolus unlooses the Sirocco. Already my slow steps had led me on Could see no more the place where I had entered. And lo! my farther course cut off a river, All waters that on earth most limpid are, Would seem to have within themselves some mixture, Compared with that, which nothing doth conceal, Although it moves on with a brown, brown cur rent, Under the shade perpetual, that never Ray of the sun lets in, nor of the moon. BEATRICE. 57 FROM Dante. BEATRICE. PURGATORIO XXX., XXXI. EVEN as the Blessed, in the new covenant, So, upon that celestial chariot, A hundred rose ad vocem tanti senis, They all were saying; " Benedictus qui venis,” I once beheld, at the approach of day, And the sun's face uprising, overshadowed, Thus in the bosom of a cloud of flowers, With crown of olive o'er a snow-white veil, Even as the snow, among the living rafters Blown on and beaten by Sclavonian winds, |