Youthful delight, oh oft lur’st thou me out in the night!  Oh ye heralds of day, ye heavenly eyes of my mistress,

Now ye appear, and the sun evermore riseth too soon.
-----
Thou art amazed, and dost point to the ocean.  It seems to be burning,
Flame-crested billows in play dart round our night-moving bark. 
Me it astonisheth not,—­of the ocean was born Aphrodite,—­
Did not a flame, too, proceed from her for us, in her son?
-----
Gleaming the ocean appear’d, the beauteous billows were smiling,

While a fresh, favouring wind, filling the sails, drove us on.  Free was my bosom from yearning; yet soon my languishing glances

Turn’d themselves backward in haste, seeking the snow-cover’d hills.  Treasures unnumber’d are southwards lying.  Yet one to the northwards

Draws me resistlessly back, like the strong magnet in force.
-----
Spacious and fair is the world; yet oh! how I thank the kind heavens

That I a garden possess, small though it be, yet mine own.  One which enticeth me homewards; why should a gardener wander?

Honour and pleasure he finds, when to his garden he looks.
-----
Ah, my maiden is going! she mounts the vessel!  My monarch,

AEolus! potentate dread! keep ev’ry storm far away!  “Oh, thou fool!” cried the god:"ne’er fear the blustering tempest;

When Love flutters his wings, then mayst thou dread the soft breeze.”
-----

Elegies.

-----
Part I.

Roman elegies.

[The Roman Elegies were written in the same year as the Venetian Epigrams—­viz. 1790.]

Speak, ye stones, I entreat!  Oh speak, ye palaces lofty!

Utter a word, oh ye streets!  Wilt thou not, Genius, awake?  All that thy sacred walls, eternal Rome, hold within them

Teemeth with life; but to me, all is still silent and dead.  Oh, who will whisper unto me,—­when shall I see at the casement

That one beauteous form, which, while it scorcheth, revives? 
Can I as yet not discern the road, on which I for ever

To her and from her shall go, heeding not time as it flies?  Still do I mark the churches, palaces, ruins, and columns,

As a wise traveller should, would he his journey improve.  Soon all this will be past; and then will there be but one temple,

Amor’s temple alone, where the Initiate may go.  Thou art indeed a world, oh Rome; and yet, were Love absent,

Then would the world be no world, then would e’en Rome be no Rome.
-----
Do not repent, mine own love, that thou so soon didst surrender

Trust me, I deem thee not bold! reverence only I feel.  Manifold workings the darts of Amor possess; some but scratching,

Yet with insidious effect, poison the bosom for years.  Others mightily feather’d, with fresh and newly-born sharpness

Pierce to the innermost bone, kindle the blood into flame.  In the heroical times, when loved each god and each goddess,