ODE TO NAPLES. EPODE I. a. I STOOD within the city disinterred; † And heard the autumnal leaves like lignt footfalls 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-flood, The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baie with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional 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 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 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 11. 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 A spirit of deep emotion Of the dead kings of Melody.* There streamed a sunlike vapour, like the standard Of some ethereal host; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered They seize me-I must speak them-be they fate! STROPHE α. I. Naples! thou Heart of men which ever pantest The mutinous air and sea: they round thee, even 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, * Homer and Virgil. Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, STROPHE B. 2. Thou youngest giant birth Leaps't, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale! 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 α. What though Cimmerian Anarchs dare blaspheme Shall their's have been-devoured by their own hounds! Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk Χ Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk, ANTISTROPHE ẞ. 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, 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 Starts to hear thine! The Sea Which paves the desart streets of Venice laughs * Eca, the island of Circe. |