Beside a pumice isle in Baiæ's bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave's intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet the sense faints picturing them! thou
For whose path the Atlantic's level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow gray with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O, hear!
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O uncontrollable! if even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skyey speed
Scarce seemed a vision, I would ne'er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
O, lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life; I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee; tameless and swift and proud.
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, spirit fierce,
My spirit! be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth;
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
THE ruins of Fort Fuentes form the crest of a rocky eminence that rises from the plain at the head of the Lake of Como, commanding views up the Valteline, and toward the town of Chiavenna. The prospect in
the latter direction is characterized by melancholy sublimity. . . . While descending, we discovered on the ground, apart from the path, and at a considerable distance from the ruined chapel, a statue of a child in pure white marble, uninjured by the explosion that had driven it so far down the hill.
READ hour! when, upheaved by war's sulphurous blast,
This sweet-visaged cherub of Parian stone So far from the holy enclosure was cast,
To couch in this thicket of brambles alone,
To rest where the lizard may bask in the palm
Of his half-open hand, pure from blemish or speck, And the green, gilded snake, without troubling the calm Of the beautiful countenance, twine round his neck;
Where haply, (kind service to piety due!)
When winter the grove of its mantle bereaves, Some bird (like our own honored redbreast) may strew The desolate slumberer with moss and with leaves:
Fuentes once harbored the good and the brave,
Nor to her was the dance of soft pleasure unknown; Her banners for festal enjoyment did wave While the thrill of her fifes through the mountains was blown:
Now gads the wild vine o'er the pathless ascent;
O silence of Nature, how deep is thy sway,
When the whirlwind of human destruction is spent,
Our tumults appeased, and our strifes passed away!
A ROOM IN THE VILLA TAVERNA.
HREE windows cheerfully poured in the light:
One from the east, where o'er the Sabine hills
The sun first rose on the great Roman plain,
And shining o'er the garden, with its fountains,
Vine-trellises, and heaps of rosy bloom,
Struck on the glittering laurel-trees, that shone
With burnished golden leaves against my lattice.
One towards the north, close-screened with a dark wall
Of bay and ilex, with tall cypress-shafts
Piercing with graceful spires the limpid air,
Like delicate shadows in transparent water.
One towards the west, above a sunny green,
Where merry black-eyed Tusculan maidens laid
The tawny woof to bleach between the rays
Of morning light and the bright morning dew.
There spread the graceful balustrade, and down
Swept the twin flights of steps, with their stone vases,
And thick-leaved aloes, like a growth of bronze,
To the broad court, where from a twilight cell,
A Naiad, crowned with tufts of trembling green
Sang towards the sunny palace all day long.
Frances Anne Kemble.
CLOSE OF OUR SUMMER AT FRASCATI.
HE end is come: in thunder and wild rain
Autumn has stormed the golden house of Summer.
She, going, lingers yet, sweet glances throwing
Of kind farewell upon the land she loves
And leaves. No more the sunny landscape glows
In the intense, uninterrupted light
And splendor of transparent, cloudless skies;
No more the yellow plain its tawny hue
Of sunburnt ripeness wears; even at noon
Thick watery veils fall on the mountain-ranges,
And the white sun-rays, with pale slanting brushes,
Paint rainbows on the leaden-colored storms.
Through milky, opal clouds the lightning plays,
Visible presence of that hidden power,
Mysterious soul of the great universe,
Whose secret force runs in red human veins,
And in the glaring white veins of the tempest;
Uplifts the hollow earth, the shifting sea;
Makes stormy reformations in the sky,
Sweeping, with searching besoms of sharp winds,
The foul and stagnant chambers of the air,
Where the thick, heavy summer vapors slumber;
And, working in the sap of all still-growth,
In moonlight nights, unfolding leaves and blossoms,
Of all created life the vital element
Appearing still in fire, - whether in the sea,
When its blue waves turn up great swathes of stars;
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