"In the district of Gubbio, according to the Latin inscription under a marble bust of him against a wall in one of the chambers, Dante is recorded to have written a considerable portion of the "Divina Commedia.' Near the castle of Tulmino, a rock has been pointed out as a favorite resort of the inspired poet, while engaged in that marvellous and melancholy composition.

"There, nobly pensive, Dante sat and thought."

"Marius, banished from his country, and resting upon the ruins of Carthage, may have appeared a more august and mournful object; but Dante, in exile, want, and degradation, on a lonely crag, meditating thoughts, combining images, and creating a language for both in which they should for ever speak, presents a far more sublime and touching spectacle of fallen grandeur renovating itself under decay.

"Marius, having 'mewed his mighty youth,' flew back to Rome like the eagle to his quarry, surfeited himself with vengeance, and died in a debauch of blood; leaving a name to be execrated through all generations. Dante did not return to Florence; living or dead, he did not return: but his name, cast out and abhorred as it had been, stands the earliest and the greatest of a long line of Tuscan poets, rivalling the most illustrious of their country, not excepting those of even Rome and Ferrara."-Lives of the Eminent Men of Italy.

STANZAS

WRITTEN ON READING GRISWOLD'S 'POETS OF AMERICA.

'Tis the doom

Of spirits of my order to be racked

In life; to wear their hearts out, and consume
Their days in endless strife, and die alone.

LORD BYRON'S PROPHECY OF DANTE, Canto I.

I.

YES, here they are-the records of that band,

The wayward children of sweet poesy,
Collected safely by one fostering hand,

From the dark waves of time's oblivious sea.

The living, whatsoe'er their merits be,

Are here—a simple narrative of those

Who from the sorrowings of earth are free,

Their songs that lofty thoughts to us disclose,

While they in dreamless sleep lie hushed in calm repose.

II.

HERE are the young, the old, the small, the great,

Whose souls with the immortal flame did glow;

Each one hath something mournful in his fate,—
Some grief; and all, a common chord of wo,
That bids the sympathetic tears to flow :
Many have met the poet's general doom,
Of misery and despair-death's early blow;
And some, enveloped in a ceaseless gloom,
Are struggling sadly on to reach a later tomb.

III.

AND some have torn the laurel from their brow,
For lucre midst the busy throng have pressed—
No longer to Apollo's sway they bow;

A few, by the pure breath of fame caressed,
Serenely on Parnassus' summit rest ;

Some yet are toiling up his rugged side,
And with their rivals hard the prize contest,

Hoping to reach the top, and honored bide,

Beneath his peaceful shades, through life's calm eventide.

IV.

WHAT buds of promise live collected here!

That fell ere they had felt the genial sun,

Or soft reviving breath of zephyr near

One cheering smile by their young beauty won.
How many flowers, when first their reign begun
Of gloriousness, were suddenly entombed;

How many, ere their flowering half was done,

By chilling blasts, to fade were sadly doomed;

How few of them-alas! through their full season bloomed.

V.

It is a mournful task to scan the fate,
The wretchedness, and bitter suffering,
And calumny, and wo, and wrong, and hate,
The thousand pangs the tender bosoms wring,
Of those whom fate or fame hath forced to sing :
Sad, solitary, shivering here they stay,

For ever panting for some purer spring

Of light, but drinking no congenial ray,

Until they quench their thirst at founts of heavenly day.

VI.

And yet they are God's own peculiar race,

Sent here for a beneficent design,

Amidst aspersions, want, and oft disgrace,
To be interpreters of things divine,

To dimmer eyes to open thought's deep mine,

And soothe the aching hearts by sorrow riven;
To elevate, awaken, and refine

The wasting talents that to man are given,

With song to gladden earth and light the way to heaven.

VII.

KIND Fosterer of the tried and tuneful race,
Thy hand hath done a just and generous deed;
Impartially thou here hast given his place

To each, and, void of blame, to all their meed;
The flowerets kindly culled from every weed:
For this the living will thy name revere,

And bless thee wheresoe'er thy way may lead;

The spirits of the dead will hover near,

And guard thy wandering steps thro' dangers dark and drear.