II.

The love-sick vestal of the old "Frasciti"; Priestess of Thalia, alas! whose name Only the prompter knows and he is dead; Bygone celebrities that in bygone days The Tivoli o'ershadowed in their bloom; All charm me; yet among these beings frail Three, turning pain to honey-sweetness, said To the Devotion that had lent them wings: "Lift me, O powerful Hippogriffe, to the skies"-- One by her country to despair was driven; One by her husband overwhelmed with grief; One wounded by her child, Madonna-like; Each could have made a river with her tears.