Chapter M: Arnold

NEVER, OH NEVER MORE

Never, oh never more shall I behold
A sunrise on the glacier:--stars of morn
Paling in primrose round the crystal horn;
Soft curves of crimson mellowing into gold 4
O'er sapphire chasm, and silvery snow-field cold;
Fire that o'er-floods the horizon; beacons borne
From wind-worn peak to storm-swept peak forlorn;
Clear hallelujahs through heaven's arches rolled.

Never, oh never more these feet shall feel
The firm elastic tissue of upland turf, 10
Or the crisp edge of the high rocks; or cling
Where the embattled cliffs beneath them reel
Through cloud-wreaths eddying like the Atlantic surf,
Far, far above the wheeling eagle's wing.

J. A. SYMONDS.

HAPPY IS ENGLAND

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
To feel no other breezes than are blown
Through its tall woods with high romances blent:
Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment 5
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne,
And half forget what world or worldling meant.
Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me, 10
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

J. KEATS.

THE DAISY

WRITTEN AT EDINBURGH

O love, what hours were thine and mine, In lands of palm and southern pine; In lands of palm, of orange-blossom, Of olive, aloe, and maize and vine.

What Roman strength Turbia showed 5 In ruin, by the mountain road; How like a gem, beneath, the city Of little Monaco, basking, glowed.

How richly down the rocky dell The torrent vineyard streaming fell 10 To meet the sun and sunny waters, That only heaved with a summer swell.

What slender campanili grew By bays, the peacock's neck in hue; Where, here and there, on sandy beaches 15 A milky-belled amaryllis blew.

How young Columbus seemed to rove, Yet present in his natal grove, Now watching high on mountain cornice, And steering, now, from a purple cove, 20

Now pacing mute by ocean's rim; Till, in a narrow street and dim, I stayed the wheels at Cogoletto, And drank, and loyally drank to him.

Nor knew we well what pleased us most, 25 Not the clipt palm of which they boast; But distant colour, happy hamlet, A mouldered citadel on the coast,

Or tower, or high hill-convent, seen A light amid its olives green; 30 Or olive-hoary cape in ocean; Or rosy blossom in hot ravine,

Where oleanders flushed the bed Of silent torrents, gravel-spread; And, crossing, oft we saw the glisten 35 Of ice, far up on a mountain head.

We loved that hall, tho' white and cold, Those niched shapes of noble mould, A princely people's awful princes, The grave, severe Genovese of old. 40

At Florence too what golden hours, In those long galleries, were ours; What drives about the fresh Cascine, Or walks in Boboli's ducal bowers.

In bright vignettes, and each complete, 45 Of tower or duomo, sunny-sweet, Or palace, how the city glittered, Thro' cypress avenues, at our feet.

But when we crost the Lombard plain Remember what a plague of rain; 50 Of rain at Reggio, rain at Parma; At Lodi, rain, Piacenza, rain.

And stern and sad (so rare the smiles Of sunlight) looked the Lombard piles; Porch-pillars on the lion resting, 55 And sombre, old, colonnaded aisles.

O Milan, O the chanting quires, The giant windows' blazoned fires, The height, the space, the gloom, the glory! A mount of marble, a hundred spires! 60

I climbed the roofs at break of day; Sun-smitten Alps before me lay. I stood among the silent statues, And statued pinnacles, mute as they.

How faintly-flushed, how phantom-fair, 65 Was Monte Rosa, hanging there A thousand shadowy-pencilled valleys And snowy dells in a golden air.

Remember how we came at last To Como; shower and storm and blast 70 Had blown the lake beyond his limit, And all was flooded; and how we past

From Como, when the light was grey, And in my head, for half the day, The rich Virgilian rustic measure 75 Of Lari Maxume, all the way,

Like ballad-burthen music, kept, As on The Lariano crept To that fair port below the castle Of Queen Theodolind, where we slept; 80

Or hardly slept, but watched awake A cypress in the moonlight shake, The moonlight touching o'er a terrace One tall Agave above the lake.

What more? we took our last adieu, 85 And up the snowy Splugen drew, But ere we reached the highest summit I plucked a daisy, I gave it you.

It told of England then to me, And now it tells of Italy. 90 O love, we two shall go no longer To lands of summer across the sea;

So dear a life your arms enfold Whose crying is a cry for gold: Yet here to-night in this dark city, 95 When ill and weary, alone and cold,

I found, though crushed to hard and dry, This nurseling of another sky Still in the little book you lent me, And where you tenderly laid it by: 100

And I forgot the clouded Forth, The gloom that saddens Heaven and Earth, The bitter east, the misty summer And grey metropolis of the North.

Perchance, to lull the throbs of pain, 105 Perchance, to charm a vacant brain, Perchance, to dream you still beside me, My fancy fled to the South again.

LORD TENNYSON.

CADENABBIA

LAKE OF COMO

No sound of wheels or hoof-beat breaks
The silence of the summer day,
As by the loveliest of all lakes
I while the idle hours away.

I pace the leafy colonnade 5
Where level branches of the plane
Above me weave a roof of shade
Impervious to the sun and rain.

At times a sudden rush of air
Flutters the lazy leaves o'erhead, 10
And gleams of sunshine toss and flare
Like torches down the path I tread.

By Somariva's garden gate
I make the marble stairs my seat,
And hear the water, as I wait, 15
Lapping the steps beneath my feet.

The undulation sinks and swells
Along the stony parapets,
And far away the floating bells
Tinkle upon the fisher's nets. 20

Silent and slow, by tower and town
The freighted barges come and go,
Their pendent shadows gliding down
By town and tower submerged below.

The hills sweep upward from the shore, 25
With villas scattered one by one
Upon their wooded spurs, and lower
Bellagio blazing in the sun.

And dimly seen, a tangled mass
Of walls and woods, of light and shade, 30
Stands beckoning up the Stelvio Pass
Varenna with its white cascade.

I ask myself, Is this a dream?
Will it all vanish into air?
Is there a land of such supreme 35
And perfect beauty anywhere?

Sweet vision! Do not fade away;
Linger until my heart shall take
Into itself the summer day,
And all the beauty of the lake. 40

Linger until upon my brain
Is stamped an image of the scene,
Then fade into the air again,
And be as if thou hadst not been.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

TO VERONA

Verona! thy tall gardens stand erect Beckoning me upward. Let me rest awhile Where the birds whistle hidden in the boughs, Or fly away when idlers take their place, Mated as well, concealed as willingly; 5 Idlers whose nest must not swing there, but rise Beneath a gleaming canopy of gold, Amid the flight of Cupids, and the smiles Of Venus ever radiant o'er their couch. Here would I stay, here wander, slumber here, 10 Nor pass into that theatre below Crowded with their faint memories, shades of joy. But ancient song arouses me: I hear Coelius and Aufilena; I behold Lesbia, and Lesbia's linnet at her lip 15 Pecking the fruit that ripens and swells out For him whose song the Graces loved the most, Whatever land, east, west, they visited. Even he must not detain me: one there is Greater than he, of broader wing, of swoop 20 Sublimer. Open now that humid arch Where Juliet sleeps the quiet sleep of death, And Romeo sinks aside her. Fare ye well, Lovers! Ye have not loved in vain: the hearts Of millions throb around ye. This lone tomb, 25 One greater than yon walls have ever seen, Greater than Manto's prophet-eye foresaw In her own child or Rome's, hath hallowed; And the last sod or stone a pilgrim knee 29 Shall press (Love swears it, and swears true) is here.

W. S. LANDOR.

THE APENNINE

Once more upon the woody Apennine, The infant Alps, which--had I not before Gazed on their mightier parents, where the pine Sits on more shaggy summits, and where roar The thundering lauwine--might be worshipped more; 5 But I have seen the soaring Jungfrau rear Her never-trodden snow, and seen the hoar Glaciers of bleak Mont Blanc both far and near, And in Chimari heard the thunder-hills of fear,

Th' Acroceraunian mountains of old name; 10
And on Parnassus seen the eagles fly
Like spirits of the spot, as 'twere for fame,
For still they soared unutterably high:
I've looked on Ida with a Trojan's eye;
Athos, Olympus, Aetna, Atlas, made 15
These hills seem things of lesser dignity,
All, save the lone Soracte's height, displayed
Not _now_ in snow, which asks the lyric Roman's aid

For our remembrance, and from out the plain
Heaves like a long-swept wave about to break,
And on the curl hangs pausing. 21

LORD BYRON.

WHERE UPON APENNINE SLOPE

Where, upon Apennine slope, with the chestnut the oak-trees immingle, Where amid odorous copse bridle-paths wander and wind, Where under mulberry-branches the diligent rivulet sparkles, Or amid cotton and maize peasants their water-works ply, Where, over fig-tree and orange in tier upon tier still repeated, 5 Garden on garden upreared, balconies step to the sky,-- Ah, that I were far away from the crowd and the streets of the city, Under the vine-trellis laid, O my beloved, with thee!

A. H. CLOUGH.

'DE GUSTIBUS----'

I

Your ghost will walk, you lover of trees,
(If our loves remain)
In an English lane,
By a cornfield-side a-flutter with poppies.
Hark, those two in the hazel coppice-- 5
A boy and a girl, if the good fates please,
Making love, say,--
The happier they!
Draw yourself up from the light of the moon,
And let them pass, as they will too soon, 10
With the beanflowers' boon,
And the blackbird's tune,
And May, and June!

II

What I love best in all the world, Is, a castle, precipice-encurled, 15 In a gash of the wind-grieved Apennine. Or look for me, old fellow of mine, (If I get my head from out the mouth O' the grave, and loose my spirit's bands, And come again to the land of lands)-- 20 In a sea-side house to the farther south, Where the baked cicalas die of drouth, And one sharp tree--'tis a cypress--stands, By the many hundred years red-rusted, Rough iron-spiked, ripe fruit-o'ercrusted, 25 My sentinel to guard the sands To the water's edge. For, what expands Before the house, but the great opaque Blue breadth of sea without a break? While, in the house, for ever crumbles 30 Some fragment of the frescoed walls, From blisters where a scorpion sprawls. A girl bare-footed brings, and tumbles Down on the pavement, green-flesh melons, And says there's news to-day--the king 35 Was shot at, touched in the liver-wing, Goes with his Bourbon arm in a sling: --She hopes they have not caught the felons. Italy, my Italy! Queen Mary's saying serves for me-- 40 (When fortune's malice Lost her, Calais)

Open my heart and you will see
Graved inside of it, 'Italy,'
Such lovers old are I and she; 45
So it always was, so shall ever be!

R. BROWNING.

VENICE

There is a glorious City in the sea. The sea is in the broad, the narrow streets, Ebbing and flowing; and the salt sea-weed Clings to the marble of her palaces. No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, 5 Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the sea, Invisible; and from the land we went, As to a floating city--steering in, And gliding up her streets as in a dream, So smoothly, silently--by many a dome, 10 Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, The statues ranged along an azure sky; By many a pile in more than eastern pride, Of old the residence of merchant-kings; The fronts of some, though Time had shattered them, Still glowing with the richest hues of art, 16 As though the wealth within them had run o'er.

S. ROGERS.

OCEAN'S NURSLING

Underneath Day's azure eyes Ocean's nursling, Venice lies, A peopled labyrinth of walls, Amphitrite's destined halls, Which her hoary sire now paves 5 With his blue and beaming waves. Lo! the sun upsprings behind, Broad, red, radiant, half-reclined On the level quivering line Of the waters crystalline; 10 And before that chasm of light, As within a furnace bright, Column, tower, and dome, and spire, Shine like obelisks of fire, Pointing with inconstant motion 15 From the altar of dark ocean To the sapphire-tinted skies; As the flames of sacrifice From the marble shrines did rise, As to pierce the dome of gold 20 Where Apollo spoke of old. Sun-girt City! thou hast been Ocean's child, and then his queen; Now is come a darker day, And thou soon must be his prey, 25 If the power that raised thee here Hallow so thy watery bier.

P. B. SHELLEY.

VENICE

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter's wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand 5
Around me, and a dying Glory smiles
O'er the far times, when many a subject land
Looked to the winged Lion's marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean, 10
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was;--her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East 15
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

In Venice Tasso's echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier; 20
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone--but Beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade--but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear, 25
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond 30
Above the dogeless city's vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away--
The keystones of the arch! though all were o'er, 35
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

The spouseless Adriatic mourns her lord;
And, annual marriage now no more renewed,
The Bucentaur lies rotting unrestored,
Neglected garment of her widowhood! 40
St. Mark yet sees his lion where he stood
Stand, but in mockery of his withered power,
Over the proud Place where an Emperor sued,
And monarchs gazed and envied in the hour
When Venice was a queen with an unequalled dower. 45

Before St. Mark still glow his steeds of brass,
Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria's menace come to pass?
Are they not _bridled_?--Venice, lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 50
Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
Even in destruction's death, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.

LORD BYRON.

AT VENICE

_On the Lido_

On her still lake the city sits While bark and boat beside her flits, Nor hears, her soft siesta taking, The Adriatic billows breaking.

_In the Piazza at night_

O beautiful beneath the magic moon 5 To walk the watery way of palaces; O beautiful, o'er-vaulted with gemmed blue This spacious court; with colour and with gold, With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points, And crosses multiplex, and tips, and balls, 10 (Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix, Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused;) Fantastically perfect this lone pile Of oriental glory; these long ranges Of classic chiselling; this gay flickering crowd, 15 And the calm Campanile.--Beautiful! O beautiful!

A. H. CLOUGH.

FLORENCE

Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps 5
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.

There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 10
The air around with beauty; we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold 15
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.

LORD BYRON.

AN INVITATION TO ROME

Oh, come to Rome, it is a pleasant place, Your London sun is here seen shining brightly; The Briton, too, puts on a cheery face, And Mrs. Bull is suave and even sprightly. The Romans are a kind and cordial race, 5 The women charming, if one takes them rightly; I see them at their doors, as day is closing, More proud than duchesses,--and more imposing.

A _far niente_ life promotes the graces; They pass from dreamy bliss to wakeful glee, 10 And in their bearing and their speech one traces A breadth of grace and depth of courtesy That are not found in more inclement places; Their clime and tongue seem much in harmony: The Cockney met in Middlesex, or Surrey, 15 Is often cold--and always in a hurry.

Though _far niente_ is their passion, they Seem here most eloquent in things most slight; No matter what it is they have to say, The manner always sets the matter right: 20 And when they've plagued or pleased you all the day, They sweetly wish you 'a most happy night'. Then, if they fib, and if their stories tease you, 'Tis always something that they've wished to please you!

Oh, come to Rome, nor be content to read 25 Alone of stately palaces and streets Whose fountains ever run with joyful speed, And never-ceasing murmur. Here one meets Great Memnon's monoliths, or, gay with weed, Rich capitals, as corner-stones, or seats, 30 The sites of vanished temples, where now moulder Old ruins, hiding ruin even older.

Ay, come, and see the pictures, statues, churches, Although the last are commonplace, or florid.-- Some say 'tis here that superstition perches, 35 Myself I'm glad the marbles have been quarried. The sombre streets are worthy your researches: The ways are foul, the lava pavement's horrid, But pleasant sights, that squeamishness disparages, Are missed by all who roll about in carriages. 40

About one fane I deprecate all sneering, For during Christmas-time I went there daily, Amused, or edified, or both, by hearing The little preachers of the _Ara Coeli_. Conceive a four-year-old _bambina_ rearing 45 Her small form on a rostrum,--tricked out gaily, And lisping, what for doctrine may be frightful, With action quite dramatic and delightful.

Oh come! We'll charter such a pair of nags! The country's better seen when one is riding: 50 We'll roam where yellow Tiber speeds or lags At will. The aqueducts are yet bestriding With giant march (now whole, now broken crags With flowers plumed) the swelling and subsiding Campagna, girt by purple hills, afar,-- 55 That melt in light beneath the evening star.

A drive to Palestrina will be pleasant; The wild fig grows where erst her turrets stood; There oft, in goat-skins clad, a sunburnt peasant Like Pan comes frisking from his ilex wood, 60 And seems to wake the past time in the present. Fair _contadina_, mark his mirthful mood, No antique satyr he. The nimble fellow Can join with jollity your _salterello_.

Old sylvan peace and liberty! The breath 65 Of life to unsophisticated man. Here Mirth may pipe, here Love may weave his wreath, _Per dar' al mio bene._ When you can, Come share their leafy solitudes. Grim Death And Time are grudging of Life's little span: 70 Wan Time speeds lightly o'er the waving corn, Death grins from yonder cynical old thorn.

I dare not speak of Michael Angelo-- Such theme were all too splendid for my pen: And if I breathe the name of Sanzio 75 (The brightest of Italian gentlemen), It is that love casts out my fear, and so I claim with him a kindredship. Ah, when We love, the name is on our hearts engraven, As is thy name, my own dear Bard of Avon! 80

Nor is the Coliseum theme of mine, 'Twas built for poet of a larger daring; The world goes there with torches, I decline Thus to affront the moonbeams with their flaring. Some day in May our forces we'll combine 85 (Just you and I), and try a midnight airing, And then I'll quote this rhyme to you--and then You'll muse upon the vanity of men!

Oh, come! I send a leaf of tender fern, 'Twas plucked where Beauty lingers round decay: 90 The ashes buried in a sculptured urn Are not more dead than Rome--so dead to-day! That better time, for which the patriots yearn, Enchants the gaze, again to fade away. They wait and pine for what is long denied, 95 And thus I wait till thou art by my side.

Thou'rt far away! Yet, while I write, I still Seem gently, Sweet, to press thy hand in mine; I cannot bring myself to drop the quill, I cannot yet thy little hand resign! 100 The plain is fading into darkness chill, The Sabine peaks are flushed with light divine, I watch alone, my fond thought wings to thee; Oh, come to Rome--oh come, oh come to me!

F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.

THE COLISEUM

I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering,--upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, 'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome; The trees which grew along the broken arches 5 Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near from out the Caesar's palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 10 Of distant sentinels the fitful song Begun and died upon the gentle wind. Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt, 15 And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through levelled battlements, And twines its roots with the imperial hearths, Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth; But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, 20 A noble wreck in ruinous perfection, While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls, Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 25 Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place 30 Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old,-- The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns.

LORD BYRON.

AT ROME

Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill? Yon petty Steep in truth the fearful Rock, Tarpeian named of yore, and keeping still That name, a local Phantom proud to mock The Traveller's expectation?--Could our Will 5 Destroy the ideal Power within, 'twere done Thro' what men see and touch,--slaves wandering on, Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill. Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sigh; Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, 10 From that depression raised, to mount on high With stronger wing, more clearly to discern Eternal things; and, if need be, defy Change, with a brow not insolent, though stern.

W. WORDSWORTH.

ROME

AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS

Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me?--
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.

I can recall no word 5
Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
To leave a pyramid

Whose purpose was exprest
Not with its first design, 10
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
Two countrymen of mine.

Cestius in life, maybe,
Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not. This I know: in death all silently
He does a rarer thing, 16

In beckoning pilgrim feet
With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
Those matchless singers lie.... 20

--Say, then, he lived and died
That stones which bear his name
Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;
It is an ample fame.

T. HARDY.

THE VALLEY AND VILLA OF HORACE

Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence; Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever, With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain, Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:-- 5 So not seeing I sung; so seeing and listening say I, Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl, Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me; Tibur beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone, Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters! 10 Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro, (Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows, Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,) Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations, Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace. 15

A. H. CLOUGH.

VALLOMBROSA

Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor, To listen to Anio's precipitous flood, When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar; To range through the Temples of Paestum, to muse In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth; 6 On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues; And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth! The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome, Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret? With a hope (and no more) for a season to come, 11 Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt? Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust; Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned 15 From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.

Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind Had a musical charm, which the winter of age And the changes it brings had no power to unbind. And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you 21 I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to part, While your leaves I behold and the works they will strew, And the realized vision is clasped to my heart.

W. WORDSWORTH.

PAESTUM

They stand between the mountains and the sea; Awful memorials, but of whom we know not! The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck; The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak, Points to the work of magic, and moves on. 5 Time was they stood along the crowded street, Temples of Gods, and on their ample steps What various habits, various tongues beset The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice! Time was perhaps the third was sought for justice; 10 And here the accuser stood, and there the accused, And here the judges sat, and heard, and judged. All silent now, as in the ages past, Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust. How many centuries did the sun go round 15 From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea, While, by some spell rendered invisible, Or, if approached, approached by him alone Who saw as though he saw not, they remained As in the darkness of a sepulchre, 20 Waiting the appointed time! All, all within Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right, And taken to herself what man renounced; No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus, But with thick ivy hung, or branching fern, 25 Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure! From my youth upward have I longed to tread This classic ground; and am I here at last? Wandering at will through the long porticoes, And catching, as through some majestic grove, 30 Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like, Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up, Towns like the living rock from which they grew? A cloudy region, black and desolate, Where once a slave withstood a world in arms. 35 The air is sweet with violets, running wild 'Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals; Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts, Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost-- Turning to thee, divine philosophy, 40 Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul-- Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago, For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds Blew from the Paestan gardens, slacked her course. On as he moved along the level shore, 45 These temples, in their splendour eminent 'Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers, Reflecting back the radiance of the west, Well might he dream of glory! Now, coiled up, The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf 50 Suckles her young; and as alone I stand In this, the nobler pile, the elements Of earth and air its only floor and covering, How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round 55 On the rough pediment to sit and sing; Or the green lizard rushing through the grass, And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring, To vanish in the chinks that time has made. In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk 60 Seen at his setting, and a flood of light Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries-- Gigantic shadows, broken and confused, Athwart the innumerable columns flung-- In such an hour he came, who saw and told, 65 Led by the mighty genius of the place. Walls of some capital city first appeared, Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn; --And what within them? What but in the midst These three in more than their original grandeur, And, round about, no stone upon another? 71 As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear, And, turning, left them to the elements.

S. ROGERS.

VESUVIUS

AS SEEN FROM CAPRI

A wreath of light blue vapour, pure and rare, Mounts, scarcely seen against the bluer sky, In quiet adoration, silently-- Till the faint currents of the upper air Dislimn it, and it forms, dissolving there, 5 The dome, as of a palace, hung on high Over the mountain; underneath it lie Vineyards and bays and cities white and fair. Might we not think this beauty would engage All living things unto one pure delight? 10 Oh vain belief! for here, our records tell, Rome's understanding tyrant from men's sight Hid, as within a guilty citadel, The shame of his dishonourable age.

R. C. TRENCH.

AMALFI

Sweet the memory is to me Of a land beyond the sea, Where the waves and mountains meet, Where, amid her mulberry-trees, Sits Amalfi in the heat, 5 Bathing ever her white feet In the tideless summer seas. In the middle of the town, From its fountains in the hills, Tumbling through the narrow gorge, 10 The Canneto rushes down, Turns the great wheels of the mills, Lifts the hammers of the forge.

'Tis a stairway, not a street, That ascends the deep ravine, 15 Where the torrent leaps between Rocky walls that almost meet. Toiling up from stair to stair Peasant girls their burdens bear; Sunburnt daughters of the soil, 20 Stately figures tall and straight, What inexorable fate Dooms them to this life of toil?

Lord of vineyards and of lands, Far above the convent stands. 25 On its terraced walk aloof Leans a monk with folded hands, Placid, satisfied, serene, Looking down upon the scene Over wall and red-tiled roof; 30 Wondering unto what good end All this toil and traffic tend, And why all men cannot be Free from care and free from pain, And the sordid love of gain, 35 And as indolent as he.

Where are now the freighted barks From the marts of east and west? Where the knights in iron sarks Journeying to the Holy Land, 40 Glove of steel upon the hand, Cross of crimson on the breast? Where the pomp of camp and court? Where the pilgrims with their prayers? Where the merchants with their wares, 45 And their gallant brigantines Sailing safely into port Chased by corsair Algerines?

Vanished like a fleet of cloud, Like a passing trumpet-blast, 50 Are those splendours of the past, And the commerce and the crowd! Fathoms deep beneath the seas Lie the ancient wharves and quays Swallowed by the engulfing waves; 55 Silent streets and vacant halls, Ruined roofs and towers and walls; Hidden from all mortal eyes Deep the sunken city lies: Even cities have their graves! 60

This is an enchanted land! Round the headlands far away Sweeps the blue Salernian bay With its sickle of white sand: Further still and furthermost 65 On the dim-discovered coast Paestum with its ruins lies, And its roses all in bloom Seem to tinge the fatal skies Of that lonely land of doom. 70

On his terrace, high in air, Nothing doth the good monk care For such worldly themes as these. From the garden just below Little puffs of perfume blow, 75 And a sound is in his ears Of the murmur of the bees In the shining chestnut-trees; Nothing else he heeds or hears. All the landscape seems to swoon 80 In the happy afternoon; Slowly o'er his senses creep The encroaching waves of sleep, And he sinks as sank the town, Unresisting, fathoms down, 85 Into caverns cool and deep!

Walled about with drifts of snow, Hearing the fierce north wind blow, Seeing all the landscape white, And the river cased in ice, 90 Comes this memory of delight, Comes this vision unto me Of a long-lost Paradise In the land beyond the sea.

H. W. LONGFELLOW.

VIATOR

Nowhere I sojourn but I thence depart, Leaving a little portion of my heart; Then day-dreams make the heart's division good With many a loved Italian solitude. 4 As sons the whole year scattered here and there Gather at Christmas round their father's chair, Prodigal memories tenderly come home-- Suns Neapolitan, white noons at Rome; Watches that from the wreck'd Arena wall Saw Alps and Plain deny the Sun in his fall, 10 And rosy gold upon Verona tarry. O Cloister-Castle that the high winds harry, Butting Saint Benet's tower and doubling short To whisper with the rosebush in the Court! 14 How sweet the frogs by reedy Mantuan marges Cried in the broken moonlight round the barges, Where, glib decline of glass, the Mincio's march Flaws in a riot at the Causeway arch! How Cava from grey wall and silence green Echoes the humming voice of the ravine, 20 The while a second spell the brain composes, Fresh elder mixt with sun-dishevelled roses! How that first sunbeam on Assisi fell To wake Saint-Mary-of-the-Angels' bell, Before the tides of noonday washed the pale 25 Mist-bloom from off the purple Umbrian vale! Multitudinous colonies of my love! But there's a single village dear above Cities and scenes, a township of kind hearts, The quick Boite laughs to and departs 30 Burying his snowy leaps in pools of green. My tower that climbs to see what can be seen Towards Three Crosses or the high Giau daisies, Or where the great white highway southward blazes! My sloping barley plots, my hayfield lawn 35 Breathing heavy and sweet, before the dawn Shows up her pillared bulwarks one by one-- Cortina, open-hearted to the Sun! Oft as the pilgrim spirit, most erect, Dares the poor dole of _Here_ and _Now_ reject, 40 The lust of larger things invades and fills-- The heart's homesickness for the hills, the hills!

J. S. PHILLIMORE.

FAREWELL TO ITALY

I leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more From the high terraces, at even-tide, To look supine into thy depths of sky, Thy golden moon between the cliff and me, Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses 5 Bordering the channel of the milky-way. Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico Murmur to me but in the poet's song. I did believe (what have I not believed?), 10 Weary with age, but unopprest by pain, To close in thy soft clime my quiet day And rest my bones in the Mimosa's shade. Hope! Hope! few ever cherisht thee so little; Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised; 15 But thou didst promise this, and all was well. For we are fond of thinking where to lie When every pulse hath ceast, when the lone heart Can lift no aspiration ... reasoning As if the sight were unimpaired by death, 20 Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid, And the sun cheered corruption! Over all The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm, And light us to our chamber at the grave.

W. S. LANDOR.

MESSINA

'Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto.'

Why, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart Towards these scenes of ancient heathen fame? Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art, And shades of power, and those who bore a part 5 In the mad deeds that set the world in flame, So fret my memory here,--ah! is it blame?-- That from my eyes the tear is fain to start. Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise; 'Tis but that sympathy with Adam's race 10 Which in each brother's history reads its own. So let the cliffs and seas of this fair place Be named man's tomb and splendid record stone, High hope, pride-stained, the course without the prize.

J. H. NEWMAN.

TAORMINA

'And Jacob went on his way; and the angels of God met him.'

Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round,
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou couldst but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair?

And feel an awe within thee rise, 5
That sinful man should see
Glories far worthier Seraph's eyes
Than to be shared by thee?

Store them in heart! thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears, 10
As the third heaven once nerved a Saint
For fourteen trial-years.

J. H. NEWMAN.

HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA

Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away; Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay; Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay; In the dimmest North-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey; 'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'--say, 5 Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray, While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.

R. BROWNING.

GIBRALTAR

England, we love thee better than we know.-- And this I learned when, after wanderings long 'Mid people of another stock and tongue, I heard again thy martial music blow, And saw thy gallant children to and fro 5 Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates, Which like twin giants watch the Herculean Straits. When first I came in sight of that brave show, It made the very heart within me dance, To think that thou thy proud foot shouldst advance Forward so far into the mighty sea. 11 Joy was it and exultation to behold Thine ancient standard's rich emblazonry, A glorious picture by the wind unrolled.

R. C. TRENCH.

GIBRALTAR

Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more We ride into still water and the calm Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er, 5 Our exile is accomplished. Once again We look on Europe, mistress as of yore Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men. Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill 11 Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze, And at the summons of the rock gun's roar To see her red coats marching from the hill!

W. S. BLUNT.

FROM 'THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY'

Then fly our greetings, fly our speech and smiles!
--As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow 5
Among the Aegean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine-- 9
And knew the intruders on his ancient home,

The young light-hearted masters of the waves--
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;
And day and night held on indignantly
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 15
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the western straits; and unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 20