We will have books, Spanish, Italian, Greek;
And ask one week to make another week
As like his father, as I'm unlike mine,
Which is not his fault, as you may divine.
Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine,
Yet let's be merry: we'll have tea and toast;
Custards for supper, and an endless host
Of syllabubs and jellies and mince-pies,
And other such lady-like luxuries, -
Feasting on which we will philosophize!
And we'll have fires out of the Grand Duke's wood,
To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood.
And then we'll talk;- what shall we talk about?
Oh! there are themes enough for many a bout
Of thought-entangled descant; as to nerves-
With cones and parallelograms and curves
I've sworn to strangle them if once they dare
To bother me when you are with me there.
And they shall never more sip laudanum,
From Helicon or Himeros ;- well, come,
And in despite of God and of the devil,
We'll make our friendly philosophic revel
Outlast the leafless time; till buds and flowers
Warn the obscure inevitable hours

Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew ;-
"To-morrow to fresh woods and pastures new."

301 Mrs. Shelley, transcript || omit, Mrs. Shelley, 1824, 18391,2. 317 well, come, Mrs. Shelley, 18392 || we'll come, Mrs. Shelley, transcript, 1824, 18391.

318 despite of God, Mrs. Shelley, transcript || despite of. Mrs. Shelley, 1824, spite of . . . Mrs. Shelley, 18391.

319 We'll, Mrs. Shelley, transcript || Will, Mrs. Shelley, 1824, 18391,2.

...

ODE TO NAPLES

EPODE I a

I STOOD within the city disinterred;

And heard the autumnal leaves like light 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; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spokeI felt, but heard not. Through white columns glowed

The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood,

A plane of light between two Heavens 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 wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine, Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, Seemed only not to move and grow

EPODE II а

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

Then gentle winds arose,

With many a mingled close

Ode to Naples. Published by Mrs. Shelley, 1824. Composed at the Baths of San Giuliano, near Pisa, August 17-25.

Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odor keen ;
And where the Baian ocean
Welters with air-like 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 Aornus darkened o'er the helm
The horizontal ether; heaven stripped bare
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow
Made the invisible water white as snow;
From that Typhæan mount, Inarimé,

There streamed a sunlit vapor, like the standard
Of some ethereal host;

Whilst from all the coast,

Louder and louder, gathering round, there wan

dered

Over the oracular woods and divine sea
Prophesyings which grew articulate -
They seize me I must speak them
fate!

-be they

STROPHE a 1

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,
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,
Hail, hail, all hail!

STROPHE 82

Thou youngest giant birth,

Which from the groaning earth

Leap'st, clothed in armor 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 1

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 Actæon's error

Shall theirs 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 gaud, 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,

Freighted with truth even from the throne of God;
That wealth, surviving fate,
Be thine. All hail!

ANTISTROPHE α Y

Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling pæan
From land to land reëchoed solemnly,

Till silence became music? From the Eæan
To the cold Alps, eternal Italy
Starts to hear thine! The Sea

Which paves the desert streets of Venice laughs
In light and music; widowed Genoa wan
By moonlight spells ancestral epitaphs,