A Library of Poetry and Song: Being Choice Selections from the Best Poets

II.

Motionless waifs of ruined towers,
Soundless breakers of desolate land!
The sullen surf of the mist devours
That mountain-range upon either hand,
Eaten away from its outline grand.

III.

And over the dumb campagna-sea

On, and say nothing, for a word, a breath, Stirring the air, may loosen and bring down A winter's snow, - enough to overwhelm

Where the ship of the Church heaves on to wreck, The horse and foot that, night and day, defiled Alone and silent as God must be Along this path to conquer at Marengo.

The Christ walks! - Ay, but Peter's neck Is stiff to turn on the foundering deck.

SAMUEL Rogers.

VIEW FROM THE EUGANEAN HILLS,
NORTH ITALY.

MANY a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,
Or the mariner, worn and wan,
Never thus could voyage on
Day and night, and night and day,
Drifting on his dreary way,
With the solid darkness black
Closing round his vessel's track;
Whilst above, the sunless sky,
Big with clouds, hangs heavily,
And behind the tempest fleet
Hurries on with lightning feet,
Riving sail and cord and plank
Till the ship has almost drank
Death from the o'er-brimming deep;
And sinks down, down, like that sleep
When the dreamer seems to be
Weltering through eternity;
And the dim low line before
Of a dark and distant shore
Still recedes, as ever still
Longing with divided will,
But no power to seek or shun,
He is ever drifted on

O'er the unreposing wave,
To the haven of the grave.

Ay, many flowering islands lie
In the waters of wide agony :
To such a one this morn was led
My bark, by soft winds piloted.

Mid the mountains Euganean

I stood listening to the pæan
With which the legioned rooks did hail
The sun's uprise majestical:

Gathering round with wings all hoar,
Through the dewy mist they soar

Like gray shades, till the eastern heaven
Bursts, and then, as clouds of even,
Flecked with fire and azure, lie

In the unfathomable sky,

So their plumes of purple grain

Starred with drops of golden rain
Gleam above the sunlight woods,
As in silent multitudes
On the morning's fitful gale
Through the broken mist they sail;
And the vapors cloven and gleaming
Follow down the dark steep streaming,
Till all is bright and clear and still
Round the solitary hill.

Beneath is spread like a green sea
The waveless plain of Lombardy,
Bounded by the vaporous air,
Islanded by cities fair ;

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
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 ;
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
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
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,
If the power that raised thee here
Hallow so thy watery bier.

A less drear ruin then than now
With thy conquest-branded brow
Stooping to the slave of slaves
From thy throne among the waves,
Wilt thou be, when the sea-mew
Flies, as once before it flew,
O'er thine isles depopulate,
And all is in its ancient state,
Save where many a palace-gate,
With green sea-flowers overgrown
Like a rock of ocean's own,
Topples o'er the abandoned sea
As the tides change sullenly.
The fisher on his watery way
Wandering at the close of day
Will spread his sail and seize his oar
Till he pass the gloomy shore,

Lest thy dead should, from their al-ep

Bursting o'er the starlight dep,
Lead a rapid mask of death
O'er the waters of his path.

Noon descends around me now:
"T is the noon of autumn's glow,
When a soft and purple mast
Like a vaporous amethyst,
Or an air-dissolved star
Mingling light and fragrance, far
From the curved horizon's bound
To the point of heaven's profound,
Fills the overflowing sky;
And the plains that sint he
Underneath; the leaves unlim
Where the infant frost has trodden
With his morning-winged fort,
Whose bright print is gleaming yet;
And the red and goiden vines
Piercing with their trellised lines
The rough, dark-skirted waderness;
The dun and bladed grass no lesa,
Pointing from this hoary tower
In the windless air; the flower
Glimmering at my feet, th line
Of the olive-sandailed Apennita
In the south dimly islanded ;
And the Alps, whose shows are spread
High between the clouds and sun;
And of living things each one;

And my spirit, which so long
Darkened this swift stream of song
Interpenetrated he

By the glory of the sky;

Be it love, light, harmony,
Odor, or the soul of all

Which from heaven like dew dễ th fall,
Or the mind which feeds this verse
Peopling the lone universe,

Noon descends, and after noon
Autumn's evening meets me with,
Leading the infantine moon
And that one star, which to her
Almost seems to minister

Half the crimson light she brings
From the sunset's radiant sport:
And the soft dreams of the morta
(Which like winged winds had horne
To that silent isle, which lis
Mii remembered azomes,
The frail bark of this lone bing)
Pass, to other sufferers fleeing,
And its ancient pilot, Pain,
Sits beside the helm again.
Other flowering isles must be
In the sea of life and agɔny;

Other spirits float and flee

O'er that gulf; even now, perhaps,
On some rock the wild wave wraps,
With folding winds they waiting sit
For my bark, to pilot it

To some calm and blooming cove,
Where for me, and those I love,
May a windless bower be built,
Far from passion, pain, and guilt,
In a dell mid lawny hills

Which the wild sea-murmur fills,
And soft sunshine, and the sound
Of old forests echoing round,
And the light and smell divine

Of all flowers that breathe and shine.
We may live so happy there,

That the spirits of the air,
Envying us, may even entice
To our healing paradise
The polluting multitude;
But their rage would be subdued

By that clime divine and calm,

And the winds whose wings rain balm
On the uplifted soul, and leaves
Under which the bright sea heaves;
While each breathless interval
In their whisperings musical
The inspired soul supplies
With its own deep melodies;

And the love which heals all strife
Circling, like the breath of life,
All things in that sweet abode
With its own mild brotherhood.

They, not it, would change; and soon
Every sprite beneath the moon

Would repent its envy vain,

And the earth grow young again!

Now, upon Syria's land of roses
Softly the light of eve reposes,
And, like a glory, the broad sun
Hangs over sainted Lebanon ;
Whose head in wintry grandeur towers,
And whitens with eternal sleet,
While summer, in a vale of flowers,
Is sleeping rosy at his feet.

To one who looked from upper air
O'er all the enchanted regions there,
How beauteous must have been the glow,
The life, how sparkling from below!
Fair gardens, shining streams, with ranks
Of golden melons on their banks,
More golden where the sunlight falls;
Gay lizards, glittering on the walls
Of ruined shrines, busy and bright
As they were all alive with light;

And, yet more splendid, numerous flocks
Of pigeons, settling on the rocks,
With their rich restless wings, that gleam
Variously in the crimson beam

goes! —

Press to one centre still, the general good
See dying vegetables life sustain,
See lhe dissolving vegetate again.
All forms that perish other forms suj¡'y
(By turns we catch the vital trvata, ama de
Like bubbles on the sea of matter borur,
They rise, they break, and to that sea retura.
Nothing is foreign; parts relate to whot,
One all-extending, all-preserving Seal
Connects each being, greatest with the beast ;

When the shrines through the foliage are gleam-Made beast in aid of man, and man of teast,

ing half shown,

And each hallows the hour by some rites of its

own.

Here the music of prayer from a minaret swells,
Here the Magian his urn full of perfume is

swinging,

And here, at the altar, a zone of sweet bells

Round the waist of some fair Indian dancer is

ringing.

Or to see it by moonlight, when mellowly

shines

The light o'er its palaces, gardens, and shrines;
When the waterfalls gleam like a quick fall of

stars,

And the nightingale's hymn from the Isle of

Chenars

Is broken by laughs and light echoes of feet
From the cool shining walks where the young
people meet.

Or at morn, when the magic of daylight awakes
A new wonder each minute as slowly it breaks,
Hills, cupolas, fountains, called forth every one
Out of darkness, as they were just born of the

sun.

When the spirit of fragrance is up with the day,
From his harem of night-flowers stealing away;
And the wind, full of wantonness, wooes like

lover

The young aspen-trees till they tremble all over. When the east is as warm as the light of first hopes,

And day, with its banner of radiance unfurled, Shines in through the mountainous portal that

The chain holds on, and where it enas, uha. 9%,
All served, all serving; nothing stau is a te;

Has God, thou fool' worked solely for the
Who for thy table feeds the wanton fawni,
Thy joy, thy pastime, thy attire, thy fxma i
For him as kindly spread the flowery sami.
Is it for thee the lark ascends and singe

Joy tunes his voice, joy elevates has Wil
Loves of his own and raptures swen the io to
Is it for thee the linnet pours his thrust ?
Shares with his lord the pleasure an 1 th
The bounding steed you pompously bestræ
Is thine alone the seed that stress the j

Thine the full harvest of the golden year ↑
Part pays, and justly, the deserving steer i
Lives on the labors of this lord of all.
The hog that ploughs not, nor obeys thy al

The birds of heaven shail vindi ate their

The fur that warms a monarch warmed a twar
Know, nature's children all divile her care,
While man exclaims, "See all things for try

See man for mine!" repies a pamper so
And just as short of reason he must fail
Who thinks all made for one, not one for all

Be man the wit and tyrant of the w
Grant that the powerful still the wILA
Nature that tyrant checks; he ov

Say, will the falcon, stooping from aðove,
Smit with her varying plumage, square "an
Or hears the hawk when Philomela a
Admires the jay the insect's goded West
Man cares for all: to birds he gives las mands,
For some his interest prompts him to protect
To beasts his pastures, and to t-li laas fonnas,
For more his pleasure, yet for more han prose
All feed on one vain patron, and eng y
The extensive blessing of his luxury.
That very life his learned hunger craves,
He saves from famine, from the savage saves,

And helps, another creature's wan's ani

Look round our world; behold the chain of love Nay, feasts the animal he doors his feast,

Combining all below and all above,
See plastic nature working to this end,
The single atoms each to other tend,
Attract, attracted to, the next n place,
Formed and impelled its neighbor to embrace.
Se matter next, with various life endued,