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The New Monthly Magazine, Volume 47, Pages 175 to 179
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SUBJECTS FOR PICTURES.
BY L. E. L.
What seek I here to gather into words?
The scenes that rise before me as I turn
The pages of old times. A word—a name—
Conjures the past before me, till it grows
More actual than the present: that—I see
But with the common eyes of daily life,
Imperfect and impatient; but the past
Out of imagination works its truth,
And grows distinct with poetry.
I.
Petrarch's Dream.
Rosy as a waking bride
By her royal lover's side,
Flows the Sorgia's haunted tide
Through the laurel grove,—
Through the grove which Petrarch gave,
All that can escape the grave—
Fame, and song, and love.
He had left a feverish bed
For the wild flowers at his head,
And the dews the green leaves shed
O'er his charmed sleep:
From his hand had dropp'd the scroll
To which Virgil left his soul
Through long years to keep.
Passion on that cheek had wrought,
Its own paleness had it brought;
Passion marks the lines of thought:
We must feel to think.
Care and toil had flung their shade
Over that bright head, now laid
By the river's brink.
Youth that, like a fever, burns;
Struggle, scorning what it earns;
Knowledge, loathing as it learns;
Worn and wasted heart!
And a song whose secrets are
In its innermost despair;—
Such the poet's part!
But what rises to efface
Time's dark shadows from that face?
Doth the heart its image trace
In the morning dream?
Yes; it is its light that shines
Far amid the dusky pines,
By the Sorgia's stream.
Flowers up-springing, bright and sweet,
At the pressure of their feet,
As the summer came to greet
Each white waving hand.
Round them kindles the dark air;
Golden with their golden hair,
Glide a lovely band.
