From sickness, quailing underneath her pains;

And health, exulting in his pride of life;

From black meláncholy, that turns her gains,

All to the theme of an unending strife;

From that fine frame of beauty and of bliss,

That, over-sensitive, will not distort

Nature’s delights to Hell’s triumphant hiss,

That, ’mid its sorrows, lives near joy’s high court:

From genius, freedom, beauty it assumes

As many forms, as hate’s dark hell consumes.

{46}

{46}

XLVI.

I once inquired, whence the cicada brought

The joy whose music prattles through the day;

I wished that the glad lark would but have taught,

Whence came the glee that could incite his lay;

And, as the rolling streams of music flow,

Building all heaven along the deep blue wave,

I prayed, that I might e’er thus rapturous glow

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