Their gilded collars glittering in the sun;
But is not Doria's menace come to pass?
Are they not _bridled_?--Venice, lost and won,
Her thirteen hundred years of freedom done, 50
Sinks, like a seaweed, into whence she rose!
Better be whelmed beneath the waves, and shun,
Even in destruction's death, her foreign foes,
From whom submission wrings an infamous repose.
LORD BYRON.
AT VENICE
_On the Lido_
On her still lake the city sits
While bark and boat beside her flits,
Nor hears, her soft siesta taking,
The Adriatic billows breaking.
_In the Piazza at night_
O beautiful beneath the magic moon 5
To walk the watery way of palaces;
O beautiful, o'er-vaulted with gemmed blue
This spacious court; with colour and with gold,
With cupolas, and pinnacles, and points,
And crosses multiplex, and tips, and balls, 10
(Wherewith the bright stars unreproving mix,
Nor scorn by hasty eyes to be confused;)
Fantastically perfect this lone pile
Of oriental glory; these long ranges
Of classic chiselling; this gay flickering crowd, 15
And the calm Campanile.--Beautiful!
O beautiful!
A. H. CLOUGH.
FLORENCE
Arno wins us to the fair white walls,
Where the Etrurian Athens claims and keeps
A softer feeling for her fairy halls.
Girt by her theatre of hills, she reaps
Her corn, and wine, and oil, and Plenty leaps 5
To laughing life, with her redundant horn.
Along the banks where smiling Arno sweeps
Was modern Luxury of Commerce born,
And buried Learning rose, redeemed to a new morn.
There, too, the Goddess loves in stone, and fills 10
The air around with beauty; we inhale
The ambrosial aspect, which, beheld, instils
Part of its immortality; the veil
Of heaven is half undrawn; within the pale
We stand, and in that form and face behold 15
What Mind can make, when Nature's self would fail;
And to the fond idolaters of old
Envy the innate flash which such a soul could mould.
LORD BYRON.
AN INVITATION TO ROME
Oh, come to Rome, it is a pleasant place,
Your London sun is here seen shining brightly;
The Briton, too, puts on a cheery face,
And Mrs. Bull is suave and even sprightly.
The Romans are a kind and cordial race, 5
The women charming, if one takes them rightly;
I see them at their doors, as day is closing,
More proud than duchesses,--and more imposing.
A _far niente_ life promotes the graces;
They pass from dreamy bliss to wakeful glee, 10
And in their bearing and their speech one traces
A breadth of grace and depth of courtesy
That are not found in more inclement places;
Their clime and tongue seem much in harmony:
The Cockney met in Middlesex, or Surrey, 15
Is often cold--and always in a hurry.
Though _far niente_ is their passion, they
Seem here most eloquent in things most slight;
No matter what it is they have to say,
The manner always sets the matter right: 20
And when they've plagued or pleased you all the day,
They sweetly wish you 'a most happy night'.
Then, if they fib, and if their stories tease you,
'Tis always something that they've wished to please you!
Oh, come to Rome, nor be content to read 25
Alone of stately palaces and streets
Whose fountains ever run with joyful speed,
And never-ceasing murmur. Here one meets
Great Memnon's monoliths, or, gay with weed,
Rich capitals, as corner-stones, or seats, 30
The sites of vanished temples, where now moulder
Old ruins, hiding ruin even older.
Ay, come, and see the pictures, statues, churches,
Although the last are commonplace, or florid.--
Some say 'tis here that superstition perches, 35
Myself I'm glad the marbles have been quarried.
The sombre streets are worthy your researches:
The ways are foul, the lava pavement's horrid,
But pleasant sights, that squeamishness disparages,
Are missed by all who roll about in carriages. 40
About one fane I deprecate all sneering,
For during Christmas-time I went there daily,
Amused, or edified, or both, by hearing
The little preachers of the _Ara Coeli_.
Conceive a four-year-old _bambina_ rearing 45
Her small form on a rostrum,--tricked out gaily,
And lisping, what for doctrine may be frightful,
With action quite dramatic and delightful.
Oh come! We'll charter such a pair of nags!
The country's better seen when one is riding: 50
We'll roam where yellow Tiber speeds or lags
At will. The aqueducts are yet bestriding
With giant march (now whole, now broken crags
With flowers plumed) the swelling and subsiding
Campagna, girt by purple hills, afar,-- 55
That melt in light beneath the evening star.
A drive to Palestrina will be pleasant;
The wild fig grows where erst her turrets stood;
There oft, in goat-skins clad, a sunburnt peasant
Like Pan comes frisking from his ilex wood, 60
And seems to wake the past time in the present.
Fair _contadina_, mark his mirthful mood,
No antique satyr he. The nimble fellow
Can join with jollity your _salterello_.
Old sylvan peace and liberty! The breath 65
Of life to unsophisticated man.
Here Mirth may pipe, here Love may weave his wreath,
_Per dar' al mio bene._ When you can,
Come share their leafy solitudes. Grim Death
And Time are grudging of Life's little span: 70
Wan Time speeds lightly o'er the waving corn,
Death grins from yonder cynical old thorn.
I dare not speak of Michael Angelo--
Such theme were all too splendid for my pen:
And if I breathe the name of Sanzio 75
(The brightest of Italian gentlemen),
It is that love casts out my fear, and so
I claim with him a kindredship. Ah, when
We love, the name is on our hearts engraven,
As is thy name, my own dear Bard of Avon! 80
Nor is the Coliseum theme of mine,
'Twas built for poet of a larger daring;
The world goes there with torches, I decline
Thus to affront the moonbeams with their flaring.
Some day in May our forces we'll combine 85
(Just you and I), and try a midnight airing,
And then I'll quote this rhyme to you--and then
You'll muse upon the vanity of men!
Oh, come! I send a leaf of tender fern,
'Twas plucked where Beauty lingers round decay: 90
The ashes buried in a sculptured urn
Are not more dead than Rome--so dead to-day!
That better time, for which the patriots yearn,
Enchants the gaze, again to fade away.
They wait and pine for what is long denied, 95
And thus I wait till thou art by my side.
Thou'rt far away! Yet, while I write, I still
Seem gently, Sweet, to press thy hand in mine;
I cannot bring myself to drop the quill,
I cannot yet thy little hand resign! 100
The plain is fading into darkness chill,
The Sabine peaks are flushed with light divine,
I watch alone, my fond thought wings to thee;
Oh, come to Rome--oh come, oh come to me!
F. LOCKER-LAMPSON.
THE COLISEUM
I do remember me, that in my youth,
When I was wandering,--upon such a night
I stood within the Coliseum's wall,
'Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome;
The trees which grew along the broken arches 5
Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars
Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar
The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and
More near from out the Caesar's palace came
The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, 10
Of distant sentinels the fitful song
Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot. Where the Caesars dwelt, 15
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battlements,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths,
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, 20
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection,
While Caesar's chambers, and the Augustan halls,
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light, 25
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 't were anew, the gaps of centuries;
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place 30
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old,--
The dead but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns.
LORD BYRON.
AT ROME
Is this, ye Gods, the Capitolian Hill?
Yon petty Steep in truth the fearful Rock,
Tarpeian named of yore, and keeping still
That name, a local Phantom proud to mock
The Traveller's expectation?--Could our Will 5
Destroy the ideal Power within, 'twere done
Thro' what men see and touch,--slaves wandering on,
Impelled by thirst of all but Heaven-taught skill.
Full oft, our wish obtained, deeply we sigh;
Yet not unrecompensed are they who learn, 10
From that depression raised, to mount on high
With stronger wing, more clearly to discern
Eternal things; and, if need be, defy
Change, with a brow not insolent, though stern.
W. WORDSWORTH.
ROME
AT THE PYRAMID OF CESTIUS NEAR THE GRAVES OF SHELLEY AND KEATS
Who, then, was Cestius,
And what is he to me?--
Amid thick thoughts and memories multitudinous
One thought alone brings he.
I can recall no word 5
Of anything he did;
For me he is a man who died and was interred
To leave a pyramid
Whose purpose was exprest
Not with its first design, 10
Nor till, far down in Time, beside it found their rest
Two countrymen of mine.
Cestius in life, maybe,
Slew, breathed out threatening;
I know not. This I know: in death all silently
He does a rarer thing, 16
In beckoning pilgrim feet
With marble finger high
To where, by shadowy wall and history-haunted street,
Those matchless singers lie.... 20
--Say, then, he lived and died
That stones which bear his name
Should mark, through Time, where two immortal Shades abide;
It is an ample fame.
T. HARDY.
THE VALLEY AND VILLA OF HORACE
Tibur is beautiful, too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio
Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;
Tibur and Anio's tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,
With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,
Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:-- 5
So not seeing I sung; so seeing and listening say I,
Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,
Here with Albunea's home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;
Tibur beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,
Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters! 10
Tivoli's waters and rocks; and fair unto Monte Gennaro,
(Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows,
Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,)
Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,
Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace. 15
A. H. CLOUGH.
VALLOMBROSA
Vallombrosa! I longed in thy shadiest wood
To slumber, reclined on the moss-covered floor,
To listen to Anio's precipitous flood,
When the stillness of evening hath deepened its roar;
To range through the Temples of Paestum, to muse
In Pompeii preserved by her burial in earth; 6
On pictures to gaze where they drank in their hues;
And murmur sweet songs on the ground of their birth!
The beauty of Florence, the grandeur of Rome,
Could I leave them unseen, and not yield to regret?
With a hope (and no more) for a season to come, 11
Which ne'er may discharge the magnificent debt?
Thou fortunate Region! whose Greatness inurned
Awoke to new life from its ashes and dust;
Twice-glorified fields! if in sadness I turned 15
From your infinite marvels, the sadness was just.
Vallombrosa! of thee I first heard in the page
Of that holiest of Bards, and the name for my mind
Had a musical charm, which the winter of age
And the changes it brings had no power to unbind.
And now, ye Miltonian shades! under you 21
I repose, nor am forced from sweet fancy to part,
While your leaves I behold and the works they will strew,
And the realized vision is clasped to my heart.
W. WORDSWORTH.
PAESTUM
They stand between the mountains and the sea;
Awful memorials, but of whom we know not!
The seaman, passing, gazes from the deck;
The buffalo-driver, in his shaggy cloak,
Points to the work of magic, and moves on. 5
Time was they stood along the crowded street,
Temples of Gods, and on their ample steps
What various habits, various tongues beset
The brazen gates for prayer and sacrifice!
Time was perhaps the third was sought for justice; 10
And here the accuser stood, and there the accused,
And here the judges sat, and heard, and judged.
All silent now, as in the ages past,
Trodden under foot and mingled, dust with dust.
How many centuries did the sun go round 15
From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea,
While, by some spell rendered invisible,
Or, if approached, approached by him alone
Who saw as though he saw not, they remained
As in the darkness of a sepulchre, 20
Waiting the appointed time! All, all within
Proclaims that Nature had resumed her right,
And taken to herself what man renounced;
No cornice, triglyph, or worn abacus,
But with thick ivy hung, or branching fern, 25
Their iron-brown o'erspread with brightest verdure!
From my youth upward have I longed to tread
This classic ground; and am I here at last?
Wandering at will through the long porticoes,
And catching, as through some majestic grove, 30
Now the blue ocean, and now, chaos-like,
Mountains and mountain-gulfs, and, half-way up,
Towns like the living rock from which they grew?
A cloudy region, black and desolate,
Where once a slave withstood a world in arms. 35
The air is sweet with violets, running wild
'Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals;
Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts,
Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost--
Turning to thee, divine philosophy, 40
Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul--
Sailed slowly by, two thousand years ago,
For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds
Blew from the Paestan gardens, slacked her course.
On as he moved along the level shore, 45
These temples, in their splendour eminent
'Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers,
Reflecting back the radiance of the west,
Well might he dream of glory! Now, coiled up,
The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf 50
Suckles her young; and as alone I stand
In this, the nobler pile, the elements
Of earth and air its only floor and covering,
How solemn is the stillness! Nothing stirs
Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round 55
On the rough pediment to sit and sing;
Or the green lizard rushing through the grass,
And up the fluted shaft with short quick spring,
To vanish in the chinks that time has made.
In such an hour as this, the sun's broad disk 60
Seen at his setting, and a flood of light
Filling the courts of these old sanctuaries--
Gigantic shadows, broken and confused,
Athwart the innumerable columns flung--
In such an hour he came, who saw and told, 65
Led by the mighty genius of the place.
Walls of some capital city first appeared,
Half razed, half sunk, or scattered as in scorn;
--And what within them? What but in the midst
These three in more than their original grandeur,
And, round about, no stone upon another? 71
As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear,
And, turning, left them to the elements.
S. ROGERS.
VESUVIUS
AS SEEN FROM CAPRI
A wreath of light blue vapour, pure and rare,
Mounts, scarcely seen against the bluer sky,
In quiet adoration, silently--
Till the faint currents of the upper air
Dislimn it, and it forms, dissolving there, 5
The dome, as of a palace, hung on high
Over the mountain; underneath it lie
Vineyards and bays and cities white and fair.
Might we not think this beauty would engage
All living things unto one pure delight? 10
Oh vain belief! for here, our records tell,
Rome's understanding tyrant from men's sight
Hid, as within a guilty citadel,
The shame of his dishonourable age.
R. C. TRENCH.
AMALFI
Sweet the memory is to me
Of a land beyond the sea,
Where the waves and mountains meet,
Where, amid her mulberry-trees,
Sits Amalfi in the heat, 5
Bathing ever her white feet
In the tideless summer seas.
In the middle of the town,
From its fountains in the hills,
Tumbling through the narrow gorge, 10
The Canneto rushes down,
Turns the great wheels of the mills,
Lifts the hammers of the forge.
'Tis a stairway, not a street,
That ascends the deep ravine, 15
Where the torrent leaps between
Rocky walls that almost meet.
Toiling up from stair to stair
Peasant girls their burdens bear;
Sunburnt daughters of the soil, 20
Stately figures tall and straight,
What inexorable fate
Dooms them to this life of toil?
Lord of vineyards and of lands,
Far above the convent stands. 25
On its terraced walk aloof
Leans a monk with folded hands,
Placid, satisfied, serene,
Looking down upon the scene
Over wall and red-tiled roof; 30
Wondering unto what good end
All this toil and traffic tend,
And why all men cannot be
Free from care and free from pain,
And the sordid love of gain, 35
And as indolent as he.
Where are now the freighted barks
From the marts of east and west?
Where the knights in iron sarks
Journeying to the Holy Land, 40
Glove of steel upon the hand,
Cross of crimson on the breast?
Where the pomp of camp and court?
Where the pilgrims with their prayers?
Where the merchants with their wares, 45
And their gallant brigantines
Sailing safely into port
Chased by corsair Algerines?
Vanished like a fleet of cloud,
Like a passing trumpet-blast, 50
Are those splendours of the past,
And the commerce and the crowd!
Fathoms deep beneath the seas
Lie the ancient wharves and quays
Swallowed by the engulfing waves; 55
Silent streets and vacant halls,
Ruined roofs and towers and walls;
Hidden from all mortal eyes
Deep the sunken city lies:
Even cities have their graves! 60
This is an enchanted land!
Round the headlands far away
Sweeps the blue Salernian bay
With its sickle of white sand:
Further still and furthermost 65
On the dim-discovered coast
Paestum with its ruins lies,
And its roses all in bloom
Seem to tinge the fatal skies
Of that lonely land of doom. 70
On his terrace, high in air,
Nothing doth the good monk care
For such worldly themes as these.
From the garden just below
Little puffs of perfume blow, 75
And a sound is in his ears
Of the murmur of the bees
In the shining chestnut-trees;
Nothing else he heeds or hears.
All the landscape seems to swoon 80
In the happy afternoon;
Slowly o'er his senses creep
The encroaching waves of sleep,
And he sinks as sank the town,
Unresisting, fathoms down, 85
Into caverns cool and deep!
Walled about with drifts of snow,
Hearing the fierce north wind blow,
Seeing all the landscape white,
And the river cased in ice, 90
Comes this memory of delight,
Comes this vision unto me
Of a long-lost Paradise
In the land beyond the sea.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
VIATOR
Nowhere I sojourn but I thence depart,
Leaving a little portion of my heart;
Then day-dreams make the heart's division good
With many a loved Italian solitude. 4
As sons the whole year scattered here and there
Gather at Christmas round their father's chair,
Prodigal memories tenderly come home--
Suns Neapolitan, white noons at Rome;
Watches that from the wreck'd Arena wall
Saw Alps and Plain deny the Sun in his fall, 10
And rosy gold upon Verona tarry.
O Cloister-Castle that the high winds harry,
Butting Saint Benet's tower and doubling short
To whisper with the rosebush in the Court! 14
How sweet the frogs by reedy Mantuan marges
Cried in the broken moonlight round the barges,
Where, glib decline of glass, the Mincio's march
Flaws in a riot at the Causeway arch!
How Cava from grey wall and silence green
Echoes the humming voice of the ravine, 20
The while a second spell the brain composes,
Fresh elder mixt with sun-dishevelled roses!
How that first sunbeam on Assisi fell
To wake Saint-Mary-of-the-Angels' bell,
Before the tides of noonday washed the pale 25
Mist-bloom from off the purple Umbrian vale!
Multitudinous colonies of my love!
But there's a single village dear above
Cities and scenes, a township of kind hearts,
The quick Boite laughs to and departs 30
Burying his snowy leaps in pools of green.
My tower that climbs to see what can be seen
Towards Three Crosses or the high Giau daisies,
Or where the great white highway southward blazes!
My sloping barley plots, my hayfield lawn 35
Breathing heavy and sweet, before the dawn
Shows up her pillared bulwarks one by one--
Cortina, open-hearted to the Sun!
Oft as the pilgrim spirit, most erect,
Dares the poor dole of _Here_ and _Now_ reject, 40
The lust of larger things invades and fills--
The heart's homesickness for the hills, the hills!
J. S. PHILLIMORE.
FAREWELL TO ITALY
I leave thee, beauteous Italy! no more
From the high terraces, at even-tide,
To look supine into thy depths of sky,
Thy golden moon between the cliff and me,
Or thy dark spires of fretted cypresses 5
Bordering the channel of the milky-way.
Fiesole and Valdarno must be dreams
Hereafter, and my own lost Affrico
Murmur to me but in the poet's song.
I did believe (what have I not believed?), 10
Weary with age, but unopprest by pain,
To close in thy soft clime my quiet day
And rest my bones in the Mimosa's shade.
Hope! Hope! few ever cherisht thee so little;
Few are the heads thou hast so rarely raised; 15
But thou didst promise this, and all was well.
For we are fond of thinking where to lie
When every pulse hath ceast, when the lone heart
Can lift no aspiration ... reasoning
As if the sight were unimpaired by death, 20
Were unobstructed by the coffin-lid,
And the sun cheered corruption! Over all
The smiles of Nature shed a potent charm,
And light us to our chamber at the grave.
W. S. LANDOR.
MESSINA
'Homo sum; humani nil a me alienum puto.'
Why, wedded to the Lord, still yearns my heart
Towards these scenes of ancient heathen fame?
Yet legend hoar, and voice of bard that came
Fixing my restless youth with its sweet art,
And shades of power, and those who bore a part 5
In the mad deeds that set the world in flame,
So fret my memory here,--ah! is it blame?--
That from my eyes the tear is fain to start.
Nay, from no fount impure these drops arise;
'Tis but that sympathy with Adam's race 10
Which in each brother's history reads its own.
So let the cliffs and seas of this fair place
Be named man's tomb and splendid record stone,
High hope, pride-stained, the course without the prize.
J. H. NEWMAN.
TAORMINA
'And Jacob went on his way; and the angels of God met him.'
Say, hast thou tracked a traveller's round,
Nor visions met thee there,
Thou couldst but marvel to have found
This blighted world so fair?
And feel an awe within thee rise, 5
That sinful man should see
Glories far worthier Seraph's eyes
Than to be shared by thee?
Store them in heart! thou shalt not faint
'Mid coming pains and fears, 10
As the third heaven once nerved a Saint
For fourteen trial-years.
J. H. NEWMAN.
HOME-THOUGHTS, FROM THE SEA
Nobly, nobly Cape Saint Vincent to the North-west died away;
Sunset ran, one glorious blood-red, reeking into Cadiz Bay;
Bluish mid the burning water, full in face Trafalgar lay;
In the dimmest North-east distance, dawned Gibraltar grand and grey;
'Here and here did England help me: how can I help England?'--say, 5
Whoso turns as I, this evening, turn to God to praise and pray,
While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.
R. BROWNING.
GIBRALTAR
England, we love thee better than we know.--
And this I learned when, after wanderings long
'Mid people of another stock and tongue,
I heard again thy martial music blow,
And saw thy gallant children to and fro 5
Pace, keeping ward at one of those huge gates,
Which like twin giants watch the Herculean Straits.
When first I came in sight of that brave show,
It made the very heart within me dance,
To think that thou thy proud foot shouldst advance
Forward so far into the mighty sea. 11
Joy was it and exultation to behold
Thine ancient standard's rich emblazonry,
A glorious picture by the wind unrolled.
R. C. TRENCH.
GIBRALTAR
Seven weeks of sea, and twice seven days of storm
Upon the huge Atlantic, and once more
We ride into still water and the calm
Of a sweet evening, screened by either shore
Of Spain and Barbary. Our toils are o'er, 5
Our exile is accomplished. Once again
We look on Europe, mistress as of yore
Of the fair earth and of the hearts of men.
Ay, this is the famed rock which Hercules
And Goth and Moor bequeathed us. At this door
England stands sentry. God! to hear the shrill 11
Sweet treble of her fifes upon the breeze,
And at the summons of the rock gun's roar
To see her red coats marching from the hill!
W. S. BLUNT.
FROM 'THE SCHOLAR-GIPSY'