Light of far Grecian days comes glimmering through:
This pure crystalline sky of cloudless blue.
Here are the rocks where gold-haired sirens sang.
Here Tasso's harp in later ages rang.
Over the sacred waves the purple isles
Answer the heavens with their serenest smiles;
Round yonder point steep Capri with her caves;
Beyond, where the sky kisses the far waves,
Those amethystine sisters of the sea,
Prochyta, and the blue Inarimé.
Gemming the shore from Baia's ruined towers
To marble Pompeii, half embalmed in flowers,
Stretches the chain of towns along the sea;
While gleaming in the midst Parthenope
Sits crowned with palaces, an ocean queen
Gazing into her mirror of clear green.
And over all, the bodeful genius
Of this fair clime, fire-eyed Vesuvius
Frowns, the sole troubled spirit of the scene,
Yet even him the distance makes serene.
All this I see from my still summer home,
A bower where naught but peace and beauty come.
Geraniums and roses round me bloom,
From orange groves, amid whose verdant gloom
Gold fruit and silver flowers together shine,
Come tropic odors. A thick blossoming vine
Shadows the terrace, where, e'en as I write,
The wind snows down the olive blossoms white.
Above, the birds sing their unwearied song,
Beneath, the ocean whispers all day long.
Sometimes when morning lights the rippling waves
Below the steep rocks and the ocean caves,
The sunshine weaves a net of flickering gleams
Fit to entrap a siren in her dreams.
There tangled braids of ever-changing light
In golden mazes glitter up the sands;
And underneath the rocks and pebbles bright
Are jewelled with the wealth of Eastern lands.
Well might such sweet transparent waters hold
Tritons and nymphs with locks of dripping gold,
For nothing were too wonderful to be
Born from the pure depths of this summer sea.
Four moons have passed, and days and nights have flown Cloudless, a summer of an orient tone,
Since my unequal pen essayed to tell
Brief passages of what I loved so well.
Above me now, where blossoms fell in spring,
Large purple grapes hang thickly clustering.
The fig-tree near with ample leaves displayed
Shelters its sweet cool fruit beneath their shade.
Still hang the oranges upon their stems
Whose dark green foliage makes them glow like gems.
The cypresses by yonder convent wall
Shoot up as freshly green, as stately tall;
And there the drowsy vesper-bell ne'er tires
Calling to prayers the brown-robed, bearded friars.
Down on the beach, content with slender gain,
Still drag their nets the red-capped fishermen.
Still glide the days as fair, the nights more cool;
The sea is still as ever beautiful.
And yonder purple mountain towering proud
Still blends his light smoke with the flying cloud.
And now, ere I these pleasant scenes resign,
I would repaint each hue, retouch each line.
I would remember every odorous breeze
That sighed in the deep shade of citron-trees,
The roses clustering on their leafy stalks,
Dropping their faint leaves in the garden walks ;
The sweet geraniums and the passion-flowers
Twining through countless roses; the noon hours
When underneath the oaks I watched the sea
Rippling below me calm and dreamily;
The hueless olives when the full moon came
Kindling behind them with a holy flame,
Touching their pale leaves with mysterious sheen,
And shimmering o'er old trunks of silvery green.
Above, the inextinguishable lights
That made all nights in heaven like festal nights,
That seemed too sacred for frail men to keep,
And yet too costly to be spent in sleep.
O lovely days and nights! too quickly flown,
Leave me the memory of your sweetest tone.
O ocean! long I've lingered on thy shore,
Lulled by thy whisper, wakened by thy roar.
Ere I depart and see no more thy face,
Let me retain some sign of thy embrace;
Not pearls, nor painted shells, nor coral rare,
But dreams of beauty from the goddess fair
Who in a sea-shell rose from out thy foam,
And rules all hearts, and fills the Olympian home.
Christopher Pearse Cranch.
LINES WRITTEN AT SORRENTO.
THE wild waves madly dash and roar,
In thunder-throbs, upon the beach;
Their broad white hands upon the shore
They struggle evermore to reach.
Up through the cavernous rocks amain,
With short, hoarse growl, they plunge and leap,
Like an armed host, again and again,
Battering some castellated steep.
Great pulses of the ocean heart,
Beating from out immensity,
What mystic news would ye impart
From the great spirit of the sea?
Ever, in still increasing force,
Earnest as cries of love or hate, Your large and eloquent discourse Is mighty as the march of fate.
I sit alone on the glowing sand,
Filled with the music of your speech,
And only half may understand
The wondrous lore that ye would teach.
The sea-weed and the shells are wise,
And versed in your broad Sanscrit tongue;
The rocks need not our ears and eyes
To comprehend the under-song.
The ocean and the shore are one;
The rocks and trees that hang above,
The birds and insects in the sun
Are linked in one strong tie of love.
Would that I might with freedom be
A seer into your hidden truth,
Joining your firm fraternity,
To drink with you perpetual youth!
Christopher Pearse Cranch.
HE gods are gone, the temples overthrown,
The storms of time the very rocks have shaken: The Past is mute, save where some mouldy stone Speaks to confuse, like speech by age o'ertaken.
The pomp that crowned the winding shore
Has fled forevermore :
Its old magnificence shall never reawaken.
Where once against the Grecian ships arrayed,
The Oscan warriors saw their javelins hurtle,
The farmer prunes his olives, and the maid
Trips down the lanes in flashing vest and kirtle :
The everlasting laurel now
And, dedicate no more to Venus, blooms the myrtle.
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