Part 8 — PICTURE OF TASSO.

“Are there not deep, sad oracles to read

In the clear stillness of that radiant face?

Yes, ev’n like thee must gifted spirits bleed,

Thrown on a world, for heavenly things no place!”

Those poet-eyes, with inspiration burning —

Half wild, half pensive, still they haunt my dream —

Eyes, in whose depths the soul of passionate yearning,

Intense unrest, and high devotion gleam.

The Spirit of the Ideal, throned in glory,

Shines with superior brightness on that brow: —

O, laurel-crowned! thou famed in song and story,

How sweetly float thy spell-strains o’er me now!

Doth this rapt, earnest, mournful face resemble

In all its shaded lineaments thine own?

Did the soft love-vow on that proud lip tremble —

Yet fear to deepen to a tenderer tone?

And the rare love that haunts thy magic numbers —

Didst thou not hope to make such worship thine?

The passionate paleness on thy cheek that slumbers,

Tells that thy heart was but Love’s lonely shrine!

The love of Genius!—with its dream and vision —

Its hopes and fears—vainest of earthly things.

Only in spiritual visitings Elysian

Are realized the bard’s imaginings.

Meanwhile thine image rises oft before me,

With memories that to mine own heart belong;

And as I muse on thy life’s hist’ry, o’er me

Comes the conviction, O, sad son of song!

That the celestial gift can never, never

For all the unrest it hath cost atone;

The Unattained still haunts us here forever —

There, in thy world, vain yearnings are unknown!

ELIZABETH J. EAMES.