THE VANITY OF THE VULGAR GREAT.

Stay, thou ambitious rill— Ignoble offspring of some fount impure! Beneath the rugged hill Gloomy with shade, thou hadst thy birth obscure; With faint steps issuing slow, In scanty waves among the rocks to flow. Fling not abroad thy spray, Nor fiercely lash the green turf at thy side! What though indulgent May With liquid snows hath swol’n thy foaming tide;— August will follow soon To still thy boastings with his scorching noon. Lo! calmly through the vale The Po, the king of rivers, sweeps along; Yet many a mighty sail Bears on his breast—proud vessels—swift and strong. Nor from the meadow’s side ’Neath summer’s sun recedes his lessened tide. Thou threatening all around Dost foam and roar along thy troubled path; In grandeur newly found— Stunning the gazer with thy noisy wrath! Yet foolish stream! not one Of all thy boasted glories is thine own. The smile of yonder sky Is brief—and change the fleeting seasons know; On barren sands and dry Soon to their death thy brawling waves shall flow. O’er thee, in summer’s heat, Shall pass the traveller with unmoistened feet.