I stood within the city disinterred ; +

And heard the autumnal leaves like lignt footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals

Thrill through those roofless halls ; The oracular thunder penetrating shook

The listening soul in my suspended blood ; 1 felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke I felt, but heard not :-through white columns glowed

The isle-sustaining Ocean-food,

* The Author las connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeji and Baiæ with the enthusiasnı excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constirutioval Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event. Author's Note.

+ Pompeii.

A plane of light between two Heayens of azure;

Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure Were to spare Death, had never made erasure ;

But every living lineament was clear

As in the sculptor's thought; and there The wreathes of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,

Like winter leaves o’ergrown by moulded snow,

Seemed only not to move and grow Because the crystal silence of the air

Weighed on their life ; even as the Power divine Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine.

EPODE II. a.

Then gentle winds arose

With many a mingled close Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen ;

And where the Baian ocean

Welters with airlike motion,
Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,

Moving the sea flowers in those purple caves
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere

Floats o'er the Elysian realm,
It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air

No storm can overwhelm ;
I sailed, where ever flows
Under the calm Serene

A spirit of deep emotion
From the unknown graves

of the dead kings of Melody.*
Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm
The horizontal æther; heaven stript bare
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow
Made the invisible water white as snow ;
From that Typhæan mount, Inarime
There streamed a sunlike vapour, like the standard

Of some ethereal host;

Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate They seize me, I must speak them-be they fate !

STROPHE a. I.

Naples ! thou Heart of men which ever pantest

Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven !
Elysian City which to calm enchantest

The mutinous air and sea : they round thee, even
As sleep round Love, are driven !
Metropolis of a ruined Paradise

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained !
Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice,

Which armed Victory offers up unstained

To Love, the flower-enchained ! Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,

* Ilomer and Virgil.

Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,

Hail, hail, all hail !

STROPHE ß. 2.

Thou youngest giant birth

Which from the groaning earth
Leaps't, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale !

Last, of the Intercessors !

Who'gainst the Crowned Transgressors Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in Wisdom's mail,

Wave thy lightning lance in mirth

Nor let thy high heart fail,
Though from their hundred gates the leagued Oppressors,

With hurried legions move !
Hail, hail, all hail !

ANTISTROPHE a.

What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme

Freedom and thee ? thy shield is as a mirror
To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam
To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer,

A new Acteon's error
Shall their's have been-devoured by their own hounds !

Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds!

Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk

Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk,
Fear not, but gaze--for freemen mightier grow,
And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe ;

If Hope and Truth and Justice may avail,
Thou shalt be great-all hail !

ANTISTROPHE B. 2.

From Freedom's form divine,

From Nature's inmost shrine, Strip every impious gawd, rend Error veil by veil

O’er Ruin desolate,

O'er Falsehood's fallen state Sit thou sublime, unawed : be the Destroyer pale !

And equal laws be thine,

And winged words let sail,
Freighteil with truth even from the throne of God :

That wealth, surviving fate,
Be thine.-All hail !

ANTISTROPHE a. y.

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling pæan

From land to land re-echoed solemnly,
Till silence became music? From the ean*

To the cold Alps, eternal Italy

Starts to hear thine! The Sea
Which paves the desart streets of Venice laughs
In light and music ; widowed Genoa wan
Ææa, the island of Çirce.