University of Virginia Library


33

TO UGO FOSCOLO.

Who be the mighty of the land, but they,
The Poets, eloquent of truth divine?
And that high meed, my Foscolo, be thine,
For peerless dost thou wear Italia's bay.
And though in vain for many a weary day
Thine eye hath gazed along the ocean line,
Yet mark! how bursts the flame from Freedom's shrine,
And Venice chides, though late, thy lingering stay.
So home returned, whose soft and pensive tale,
By far Avignon, and the hermit-stream
Of Sorga, listening to the love-sick dream,
Like thine was heard—so He, an exile pale,
Saw from the gates of morn, the golden beam
Burst o'er the Euganean hills, and Arqua's vale.