Chapter II

Let thy warm, thy wond’rous clime,
Animate my artless rhyme,
Whilst alternate round me rise
Terror, pleasure, and surprise.--
Here th’ astonish’d soul surveys
Dread Vesuvius’ awful blaze,
Smoke that to the sky aspires,
Heavy hail of solid fires,
Flames the fruitful fields o’erflowing,
Ocean with the reflex glowing;
Thunder, whose redoubled sound
Echoes o’er the vaulted ground!--
Such thy glories, such the gloom
That conceals thy secret tomb,
Sov’reign of this enchanted sea,
Where sunk thy charms, Parthenope.