THE MAREMMA.
Mais elle etait du monde, ou les plus belles choses,
Ont le pire destin;
Et Rose elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un Matin.
Malherbe.
There are bright scenes beneath Italian skies,
Where glowing suns their purest light diffuse,
Uncultured flowers in wild profusion rise,
And nature lavishes her warmest hues;
But trust thou not her smile, her balmy breath,
Away! her charms are but the pomp of Death!
He in the vine-clad bowers, unseen is dwelling,
Where the cool shade its freshness round thee throws,
His voice, in every perfumed zephyr swelling,
With gentlest whisper lures thee to repose,
And the soft sounds that thro' the foliage sigh,
But woo thee still to slumber and to die.
Mysterious danger lurks, a Syren, there,
Not robed in terrors, or announced in gloom,
But stealing o'er thee in the scented air,
And veiled in flowers, that smile to deck thy tomb:
How may we deem, amidst their bright array,
That heaven and earth but flatter to betray?
Sunshine, and bloom, and verdure! can it be,
That these but charm us with destructive wiles?
Where shall we turn, O Nature! if in thee
Danger is masked in beauty—death in smiles?
Oh! still the Circe of that fatal shore,
Where she, the sun's bright daughter, dwelt of yore!
There, year by year, that secret peril spreads,
Disguised in loveliness, its baleful reign,
And viewless blights o'er many a landscape sheds,
Gay with the riches of the south, in vain,
O'er fairy bowers, and palaces of state,
Passing unseen, to leave them desolate.
