Lady! if for the cold and cloudy clime

Where I was born, but where I would not die,

Of the great Poet-Sire of Italy

I dare to build[276] the imitative rhyme,

Harsh Runic[277] copy of the South's sublime,

Thou art the cause; and howsoever I

Fall short of his immortal harmony,

Thy gentle heart will pardon me the crime.

Thou, in the pride of Beauty and of Youth,

Spakest; and for thee to speak and be obeyed

Are one; but only in the sunny South

Such sounds are uttered, and such charms displayed,

So sweet a language from so fair a mouth—[278]

Ah! to what effort would it not persuade?

Ravenna, June 21, 1819.