his flame;
    And Genoa’s bard, who left his native coast,
    And on Marsilia’s towers the memory lost
    Of his first time, when Salem’s sacred flame
    Taught him a nobler heritage to claim,—­
    Gerard and Peter, both of Gallic blood,
    And tuneful Rudel, who, in moonstruck mood,
    O’er ocean by a flying image led,
    In the fantastic chase his canvas spread;
    And, where he thought his amorous vows to breathe,
    From Cupid’s bow received the shaft of Death.—­
    There was Cabestaing, whose unequall’d lays
    From all his rivals won superior praise.—­
    Hugo was there, with Almeric renown’d;—­
    Bernard and Anselm by the Muses crown’d.—­
    Those and a thousand others o’er the field
    Advanced; nor javelin did they want, or shield;
    The Muses form’d their guard, and march’d before. 
    Spreading their long renown from shore to shore.—­
    The Latian band, with sympathising woe,
    At last I spied amid the moving show: 
    Bologna’s poet first, whose honour’d grave
    His relics hold beside Messina’s wave. 
    O fickle joys, that fleet upon the wind,
    And leave the lassitude of life behind! 
    The youth, that every thought and movement sway’d
    Of this sad heart, is now an empty shade! 
    What world contains thee now, my tuneful guide,
    Whom nought of old could sever from my side? 
    What is this life?—­what none but fools esteem;
    A fleeting shadow, a romantic dream!—­
    Not far I wander’d o’er the peopled field,
    Till Socrates and Laelius I beheld. 
    Oh, may their holy influence never cease
    That soothed my heart-corroding pangs to peace! 
    Unequall’d friends! no bard’s ecstatic lays
    Nor polish’d prose your deathless name can raise
    To match your genuine worth!  O’er hill and dale
    We pass’d, and oft I told my doleful tale,
    Disclosing all my wounds, end not in vain: 
    Their sacred presence seem’d to soothe my pain. 
    Oh, may that glorious privilege be mine,
    Till dust to dust the final stroke resign! 
    My courage they inspired to claim the wreath—­
    Immortal emblem of my constant faith
    To her whose name the poet’s garland bears! 
    Yet nought from her, for long devoted years,
    I reap’d but cold disdain, and fruitless tears.—­
    But soon a sight ensued, that, like a spell,
    Restrain’d at once my passion’s stormy swell: 
    But this a loftier muse demands to sing,
    The hallow’d power that pruned the daring wing
    Of that blind force, by folly canonized
    And in the garb of deity disguised. 
    Yet first the conscious muse designs to tell
    How I endured and ’scaped his witching spell;
    A subject that demands a muse of fire,
    A glorious theme, that Phoebus might inspire—­
    Worthy of Homer and the Orphean