Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

Gradual Approaches of Age.-From Tales of the Hall?

Six years had passed, and forty ere the six,
When time began to play his usual tricks;
The locks once comely in a virgin's sight,

Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching white;
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,
And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man.

I rode or walked as I was wont before,

But now the bounding spirit was no more;
A moderate pace would now my body heat;
A walk of moderate length distress my feet.
I shewed my stranger guest those hills sublime,
But said: The view is poor; we need not climb.'
At a friend's mansion I began to dread
The cold neat parlour and the gay glazed bed :
At home I felt a more decided taste,

And must have all things in my order placed.
I ceased to hunt; my horses pleased me less--
My dinner more; I learned to play at chess.
I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute
Was disappointed that I did not shoot.

My morning walks I now could bear to lose,

And blessed the shower that gave me not to choose :

In fact, I felt a languor stealing on;

The active arm, the agile hand, were gone;
Small daily actions into habits grew,

And new dislike to forms and fashions new.

I loved my trees in order to dispose ;

I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose ;
Told the same story oft-in short, began to prose.

Song of the Crazed Maiden.-From the same.
Let me not have this gloomy view
About my room, about my bed;
But morning roses, wet with dew,

To cool my burning brow instead ;
As flowers that once in Eden grew,
Let them their fragrant spirits shed,
And every day their sweets renew,

Till I, a fading flower, am dead.

O let the herbs I loved to rear

Give to my sense their perfumed breath! Let them be placed about my bier,

And grace the gloomy house of death. I'll have my grave beneath a hill,

Where only Lucy's self shall know, Where runs the pure pellucid rill Upon its gravelly bed below; There violets on the borders blow,

And insects their soft light display,
Till, as the morning sunbeams glow,
The cold phosphoric fires decay.
That is the grave to Lucy shewn ;
The soil a pure and silver sand;
The green cold moss above it grown,
Unplucked of all but maiden hand.
In virgin earth, till then unturned,

There let my maiden form be laid ;
Nor let my changed clay be spurned,
Nor for new guest that bed be made.
There will the lark, the lamb, in sport,
In air, on earth, securely play :
And Lucy to my grave resort,

As innocent, but not so gay.
I will not have the churchyard ground
With bones all black and ugly grown,
To press my shivering body round,

Or on my wasted limbs be thrown.

With ribs and skulls I will not sleep,
In clammy beds of cold blue clay,
Through which the ringed earth-worms creep,
And on the shrouded bosom prey.

[blocks in formation]

Sketches of Autumn.-From the same.

It was a fair and mild autumnal sky,
And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye,
As a rich beauty when the bloom is lost,
Appears with more magnificence and cost:
The wet and heavy grass, where feet had strayed,
Not yet erect, the wanderer's way betrayed;
Showers of the night had swelled the deepening rill,
The morning breeze had urged the quickening mill;
Assembled rooks had winged their seaward flight,
By the same passage to return at night,
While proudly o'er them hung the steady kite,
Then turned them back, and left the noisy throng,
Nor deigned to know them as he sailed along.
Long yellow leaves, from osiers, strewed around,
Choked the dull stream, and hushed its feeble sound,
While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees,
Our squire beheld not with his wonted ease;
But to his own reflections made reply,
And said aloud: Yes; doubtless we must die.'
'We must,' said Richard; 'and we would not live
To feel what dotage and decay will give;
But we yet taste whatever we behold;
The morn is lovely, though the air is cold:
There is delicious quiet in this scene,
At once so rich, so varied, so serene;
Sounds, too, delight us-each discordant tone
Thus mingled please, that fail to please alone ;
This hollow wind, this rustling of the brook,
The farm-yard noise, the woodman at yon oak-
See, the axe falls!-now listen to the stroke:
That gun itself, that murders all this peace,
Adds to the charm, because it soon must cease.'

Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief,
Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf:
The dew dwelt ever on the herb; the woods
Roared with strong blasts, with mighty showers the

floods :

All green was vanished save of pine and yew,
That still displayed their melancholy hue;
Save the green holly with its berries red,
And the green moss that o'er the gravel spread.

SAMUEL ROGERS.

There is a poetry of taste as well as of the passions, which can only be relished by the intellectual classes, but is capable of imparting exquisite pleasure to those who have the key to its hidden mysteries. It is somewhat akin to that delicate appreciation of the fine arts, or of music, which in some men amounts to almost a new sense. SAMUEL

ROGERS, author of the Pleasures of Memory, was a votary of this school of refinement. We have everywhere in his works a classic and graceful beauty; no slovenly or obscure lines; fine cabinet pictures of soft and mellow lustre; and occasionally trains of thought and association that awaken or recall tender and heroic feelings. His diction is clear and polished-finished with great care and scrupulous nicety. On the other hand, it must be admitted that he has no forcible or original invention, no deep pathos that thrills the soul, and no kindling energy that fires the imagination. In his shadowy poem of Columbus, he seems often to verge on the sublime, but does not attain it. His late works are his best. Parts of Human Life possess deeper feeling than are to be found in the Pleasures of Memory; and in the easy half-conversational sketches of his Italy, there are delightful glimpses of Italian life, and scenery, and old traditions. The poet was an accomplished traveller, a lover of the fair and good, and a worshipper of the classic glories of the past. Samuel Rogers was born at Stoke Newington, one of the suburbs of London, on the 30th July 1763. His father was a banker in the City, and the poet, after a careful private education, was introduced into the banking establishment, of which he continued a partner up to the time of his death. He appeared as an author in 1786, the same year that witnessed the advent of Burns. The production of Rogers was a thin quarto of a few pages, an Ode to Superstition, with some other Poems. In 1792, he produced the Pleasures of Memory; in 1798, his Epistle to a Friend, with other Poems; in 1812, Columbus; and in 1814, Jacqueline, a tale, published in conjunction with Byron's Lara

Like morning brought by night.

In 1819, appeared Human Life, and in 1822, the first part of Italy, a descriptive poem in blank verse. Rogers was a careful and fastidious writer. In his Table Talk, published by Mr Dyce, the poet is represented as saying: I was engaged on the Pleasures of Memory for nine years; on Human Life for nearly the same space of time; and Italy was not completed in less than sixteen years.' The collected works of Mr Rogers have been published in various forms-one of them containing vignette engravings from designs by Stothard and Turner, and forming no inconsiderable trophy of British art. The poet was enabled to cultivate his favourite tastes, to enrich his house in St James's Place with some of the finest and rarest pictures, busts, books, gems, and other articles of virtu, and to entertain his friends with a generous and unostentatious hospitality. His conversation was rich and various, abounding in critical remarks, shrewd observation, and personal anecdote. It is gratifying to add that his bounty soothed and relieved the death-bed of Sheridan, and was exerted to a large extent annually in behalf of suffering or unfriended talent. 'Genius languishing for want of patronage,' says Mr Dyce, was sure to find in Mr Rogers a generous patron. His purse was ever open to the distressed of the prompt assistance which he rendered in the hour of need to various well-known individuals, there is ample record; but of his many acts of kindness and charity to the wholly obscure, there is no memorial-at least on earth. The taste of Mr Rogers had been cultivated to the utmost refine

ment; and, till the failure of his mental powers, a short time previous to his death, he retained that love of the beautiful which was in him a passion : when more than ninety, and a close prisoner to his chair, he still delighted to watch the changing colours of the evening sky-to repeat passages of his favourite poets, or to dwell on the merits of the great painters whose works adorned his walls. By slow decay, and without any suffering, he died in St James's Place, 18th December 1855.' The poet bequeathed three of his pictures-a Titian, a Guido, and a Giorgione-to the National Gallery. The Titian he considered the most valuable in his possession. It had been in the Orleans Gallery, and when that princely collection was broken up, it was sold for four hundred guineas. Mr Rogers, however, gave more than double that sum for it in 1828.

It was as a man of taste and letters, as a patron of artists and authors, and as the friend of almost every illustrious man that has graced our annals for the last half-century and more, that Mr Rogers chiefly engaged the public attention. At his celebrated breakfast-parties, persons of almost all classes and pursuits were found. He made the morning meal famous as a literary rallying-point; and during the London season there was scarcely a day in which from four to six persons were not assembled at the hospitable board in St James's Place. There, discussion as to books or pictures, anecdotes of the great of old, some racy saying of Sheridan, Erskine, or Horne Tooke, some social trait of Fox, some apt quotation or fine passage read aloud, some incident of foreign travel recounted-all flowed on without restraint, and charmed the hours till mid-day. A certain quaint shrewdness and sarcasm, though rarely taking an offensive form, also characterised Rogers's conversation. Many of his sayings circulated in society and got into print. Some one said that Gally Knight was getting deaf: 'It is from want of practice,' remarked Rogers, Mr Knight being a great speaker and bad listener. The late Lord Dudley (Ward) had been free in his criticisms on the poet, who retaliated with that epigrammatic couplet, which has never been surpassed

Ward has no heart, they say; but I deny it;
He has a heart-he gets his speeches by it.

The poet, it is said, on one occasion tried to extort a confession from his neighbour, Sir Philip Francis, that he was the author of Junius, but Francis gave a surly rebuff, and Rogers remarked that if he was not Junius, he was at least Brutus. We may remark that the poet's recipe for long life was, 'temperance, the bath and flesh brush, and don't fret.' The felicity of his own lot he has thus gracefully alluded to:

[blocks in formation]

Stilled is the hum that through the hamlet broke,
When round the ruins of their ancient oak
The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?

Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew. . . .
Childhood's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know ;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke !-to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned,
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.

The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn:
Unheard the shout that rent the noontide air
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams.

Down by yon hazel copse, at evening, blazed
The gipsy's fagot-there we stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sunburnt face with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps in the barn with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed;

Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest shade,

When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed:

And heroes fled the sibyl's muttered call,

Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall.

As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,

And traced the line of life with searching view, How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears,

To learn the colour of my future years!

Ah, then, what honest triumph flushed my breast; This truth once known-to bless is to be blest! We led the bending beggar on his wayBare were his feet, his tresses silver-graySoothed the keen pangs his aged spirit felt, And on his tale with mute attention dwelt : As in his scrip we dropt our little store, And sighed to think that little was no more, He breathed his prayer, Long may such goodness live!'

'Twas all he gave-'twas all he had to give.

The adventurous boy that asks his little share, And hies from home with many a gossip's prayer, Turns on the neighbouring hill, once more to see The dear abode of peace and privacy;

And as he turns, the thatch among the trees,
The smoke's blue wreaths ascending with the breeze,
The village-common spotted white with sheep,
The churchyard yews round which his fathers sleep;
All rouse Reflection's sadly pleasing train,
And oft he looks and weeps, and looks again.

So, when the mild Tupia dared explore
Arts yet untaught, and worlds unknown before,
And, with the sons of Science, wooed the gale
That, rising, swelled their strange expanse of sail
So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu,
Borne from his leafy hut, his carved canoe,
And all his soul best loved-such tears he shed,
While each soft scene of summer-beauty fled.
Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast,
Long watched the streaming signal from the mast;
Till twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye,
And fairy forests fringed the evening sky.

So Scotia's queen, as slowly dawned the day,
Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away.
Her eyes had blessed the beacon's glimmering height,
That faintly tipped the feathery surge with light:
But now the morn with orient hues portrayed
Each castled cliff and brown monastic shade:
All touched the talisman's resistless spring,
And lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing!
Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.
Hence home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's sigh;
This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
For this young Foscari, whose hapless fate
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice, vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though hope could grant no more,
And chains and torture hailed him to the shore.

And hence the charm historic scenes impart ;
Hence Tiber awes, and Avon melts the heart.
Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale

Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell,
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.

'Twas ever thus. Young Ammon, when he sought
Where Ilium stood, and where Pelides fought,

Sat at the helm himself. No meaner hand

Steered through the waves, and when he struck the

land,

Such in his soul the adour to explore,
Pelides-like, he leaped the first ashore.
'Twas ever thus. As now at Virgil's tomb

We bless the shade, and bid the verdure bloom :

So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet in honoured dust disclosed,
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as he long in sweet delusion hung
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung;
Who now but meets him musing, when he roves
His ruined Tusculan's romantic groves?
In Rome's great Forum, who but hears him roll
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul? . . . .

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine
From age to age unnumbered treasures shine!
Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey,
And Place and Time are subject to thy sway!
Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone;
The only pleasures we can call our own.
Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die,
If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky;
If but a beam of sober Reason play,
Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away!
But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power,
Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour?

These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, Pour round her path a stream of living light; And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

From Human Life?

The lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noontide lullaby;
Still in the vale the village bells ring round,
Still in Llewellyn hall the jests resound;
For now the caudle-cup is circling there,
Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And, crowding, stop the cradle to admire
The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.

A few short years, and then these sounds shall hail
The day again, and gladness fill the vale;
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.
Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin;
The ale, now brewed, in floods of amber shine;
And basking in the chimney's ample blaze,
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days,
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled,
''Twas on her knees he sat so oft and smiled.'

And soon again shall music swell the breeze;
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees
Vestures of nuptial white; and hymns be sung,
And violets scattered round; and old and young,
In every cottage-porch with garlands green,
Stand still to gaze, and, gazing, bless the scene,
While, her dark eyes declining, by his side,
Moves in her virgin veil the gentle bride.

And once, alas! nor in a distant hour,
Another voice shall come from yonder tower;
When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen,
And weeping heard where only joy has been;
When, by his children borne, and from his door,
Slowly departing to return no more,

He rests in holy earth with them that went before.
And such is human life; so gliding on,
It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old, in hall or bower,
To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour!...
The day arrives, the moment wished and feared;
The child is born, by many a pang endeared,
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
O grant the cherub to her asking eye!

He comes-she clasps him. To her bosom pressed,
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.

Her by her smile how soon the stranger knows!
How soon by his the glad discovery shews!
As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy,
What answering looks of sympathy and joy!
He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word
His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard.
And ever, ever to her lap he flies,

When rosy Sleep comes on with sweet surprise.
Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung
(That name most dear for ever on his tongue),
As with soft accents round her neck he clings,
And, cheek to cheek, her lulling song she sings,
How blest to feel the beatings of his heart,
Breathe his sweet breath, and kiss for kiss impart ;
Watch o'er his slumbers like the brooding dove,
And, if she can, exhaust a mother's love!

Ginevra. From ' Italy!

If thou shouldst ever come by choice or chance
To Modena, where still religiously
Among her ancient trophies is preserved
Bologna's bucket-in its chain it hangs

Within that reverend tower, the Guirlandine-
Stop at a palace near the Reggio-gate,
Dwelt in of old by one of the Orsini.
Its noble gardens, terrace above terrace,
And rich in fountains, statues, cypresses,
Will long detain thee; through their arched walks,
Dim at noonday, discovering many a glimpse
Of knights and dames, such as in old romance,
And lovers, such as in heroic song;
Perhaps the two, for groves were their delight,
That in the spring-time, as alone they sat,
Venturing together on a tale of love,
Read only part that day. A summer sun,
Sets ere one half is seen; but, ere thou go,
Enter the house-prithee, forget it not-
And look a while upon a picture there.
'Tis of a lady in her earliest youth,
The very last of that illustrious race,
Done by Zampieri-but by whom I care not.
He who observes it, ere he passes on,
Gazes his fill, and comes and comes again,
That he may call it up, when far away.
She sits, inclining forward as to speak,
Her lips half-open, and her finger up,

As though she said 'Beware!' Her vest of gold
'Broidered with flowers, and clasped from head to
foot,

An emerald-stone in every golden clasp;
And on her brow, fairer than alabaster,
A coronet of pearls. But then her face,
So lovely, yet so arch, so full of mirth,
The overflowings of an innocent heart-
It haunts me still, though many a year has fled,
Like some wild melody!

Alone it hangs
Over a mouldering heir-loom, its companion,
An oaken chest, half-eaten by the worm,
But richly carved by Antony of Trent
With Scripture-stories from the life of Christ;
A chest that came from Venice, and had held
The ducal robes of some old ancestor.
That by the way-it may be true or false-
But don't forget the picture; and thou wilt not,
When thou hast heard the tale they told me there.
She was an only child; from infancy
The joy, the pride of an indulgent sire.
Her mother dying of the gift she gave,
That precious gift, what else remained to him?
The young Ginevra was his all in life,
Still as she grew, for ever in his sight;
And in her fifteenth year became a bride,
Marrying an only son, Francesco Doria,
Her playmate from her birth, and her first love.
Just as she looks there in her bridal-dress,
She was all gentleness, all gaiety,

Her pranks the favourite theme of every tongue.
But now the day was come, the day, the hour;
Now, frowning, smiling, for the hundredth time,
The nurse, that ancient lady, preached decorum;
And, in the lustre of her youth, she gave
Her hand, with her heart in it, to Francesco.

Great was the joy; but at the bridal-feast,
When all sat down, the bride was wanting there.
Nor was she to be found! Her father cried,
"Tis but to make a trial of our love!'

And filled his glass to all; but his hand shook,
And soon from guest to guest the panic spread.
'Twas but that instant she had left Francesco,
Laughing and looking back, and flying still,
Her ivory-tooth imprinted on his finger.
But now, alas! she was not to be found;
Nor from that hour could anything be guessed
But that she was not! Weary of his life,
Francesco flew to Venice, and forthwith
Flung it away in battle with the Turk.
Orsini lived; and long mightst thou have seen
An old man wandering as in quest of something,

Something he could not find-he knew not what.
When he was gone, the house remained a while
Silent and tenantless-then went to strangers.
Full fifty years were past, and all forgot,
When on an idle day, a day of search
'Mid the old lumber in the gallery,

That mouldering chest was noticed; and 'twas said
By one as young, as thoughtless as Ginevra,
Why not remove it from its lurking-place?'
'Twas done as soon as said; but on the way
It burst, it fell; and lo, a skeleton,
With here and there a pearl, an emerald-stone,
A golden clasp, clasping a shred of gold!
All else had perished-save a nuptial-ring,
And a small seal, her mother's legacy,
Engraven with a name, the name of both,
'Ginevra.' There then had she found a grave!
Within that chest had she concealed herself,
Fluttering with joy the happiest of the happy;
When a spring-lock that lay in ambush there,
Fastened her down for ever!

An Italian Song.

Dear is my little native vale,

The ring-dove builds and murmurs there; Close by my cot she tells her tale

To every passing villager.
The squirrel leaps from tree to tree,
And shells his nuts at liberty.

In orange groves and myrtle bowers,

That breathe a gale of fragrance round,

I charm the fairy-footed hours

With my loved lute's romantic sound;
Or crowns of living laurel weave
For those that win the race at eve.

The shepherd's horn at break of day,
The ballet danced in twilight glade,
The canzonet and roundelay

Sung in the silent greenwood shade;
These simple joys that never fail,
Shall bind me to my native vale.

Written in the Highlands of Scotland-1812.
Blue was the loch, the clouds were gone,
Ben Lomond in his glory shone,
When, Luss, I left thee; when the breeze
Bore me from thy silver sands,
Thy kirkyard wall among the trees,
Where, gray with age, the dial stands ;
That dial so well known to me!
Though many a shadow it had shed,
Beloved sister, since with thee
The legend on the stone was read.

The fairy isles fled far away;
That with its woods and uplands green,
Where shepherd-huts are dimly seen,
And songs are heard at close of day;
That, too, the deer's wild covert fled,
And that, the asylum of the dead :
While as the boat went merrily,
Much of Rob Roy the boatman told;
His arm that fell below his knee,
His cattle ford and mountain hold.

Tarbet, thy shore I climbed at last; And, thy shady region past, Upon another shore I stood, And looked upon another flood;" Great Ocean's self! ('Tis he who fills That vast and awful depth of hills);

1 Signifying, in the Gaelic language, an isthmus. 2 Loch Long.

Where many an elf was playing round, Who treads unshod his classic ground; And speaks, his native rocks among, As Fingal spoke, and Ossian sung.

Night fell, and dark and darker grew That narrow sea, that narrow sky, As o'er the glimmering waves we flew, The sea-bird rustling, wailing by. And now the grampus, half-descried, Black and huge above the tide ; The cliffs and promontories there, Front to front, and broad and bare; Each beyond each, with giant feet Advancing as in haste to meet ;

The shattered fortress, whence the Dane
Blew his shrill blast, nor rushed in vain,
Tyrant of the drear domain;
All into midnight shadow sweep,
When day springs upward from the deep!
Kindling the waters in its flight,

The prow wakes splendour, and the oar,
That rose and fell unseen before,
Flashes in a sea of light;

Glad sign and sure, for now we hail
Thy flowers, Glenfinnart, in the gale;
And bright indeed the path should be,
That leads to friendship and to thee!

O blest retreat, and sacred too!
Sacred as when the bell of prayer
Tolled duly on the desert air,
And crosses decked thy summits blue.
Oft like some loved romantic tale,
Oft shall my weary mind recall,
Amid the hum and stir of men,
Thy beechen grove and water-fall,
Thy ferry with its gliding sail,
And her the lady of the Glen!

Pastum-From Italy.

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.
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;
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
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,

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,
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,
Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like,
Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up,

1 The temples of Pæstum are three in number, and have survived, nearly nine centuries, the total destruction of the city. Tradition is silent concerning them, but they must have existed now between two and three thousand years.

« AnteriorContinua »