--As some grave Tyrian trader, from the sea,
Descried at sunrise an emerging prow
Lifting the cool-haired creepers stealthily,
The fringes of a southward-facing brow 5
Among the Aegean isles;
And saw the merry Grecian coaster come,
Freighted with amber grapes, and Chian wine,
Green bursting figs, and tunnies steeped in brine-- 9
And knew the intruders on his ancient home,
The young light-hearted masters of the waves--
And snatched his rudder, and shook out more sail;
And day and night held on indignantly
O'er the blue Midland waters with the gale,
Betwixt the Syrtes and soft Sicily, 15
To where the Atlantic raves
Outside the western straits; and unbent sails
There, where down cloudy cliffs, through sheets of foam,
Shy traffickers, the dark Iberians come;
And on the beach undid his corded bales. 20
M. ARNOLD.
FAREWELL TO MALTA
Adieu, ye joys of La Valette!
Adieu, sirocco, sun, and sweat!
Adieu, thou palace rarely entered!
Adieu, ye mansions where--I've ventured!
Adieu, ye cursed streets of stairs! 5
(How surely he who mounts you swears!)
Adieu, ye merchants often failing!
Adieu, thou mob for ever railing!
Adieu, ye packets--without letters!
Adieu, ye fools--who ape your betters! 10
Adieu, thou damned'st quarantine,
That gave me fever, and the spleen!
Adieu, that stage which makes us yawn, Sirs,
Adieu, his Excellency's dancers!
Adieu to Peter--whom no fault's in, 15
But could not teach a colonel waltzing;
Adieu, ye females fraught with graces!
Adieu, red coats, and redder faces!
Adieu, the supercilious air
Of all that strut 'en militaire!' 20
I go--but God knows when, or why,
To smoky towns and cloudy sky,
To things (the honest truth to say)
As bad--but in a different way.
Farewell to these, but not adieu, 25
Triumphant sons of truest blue!
While either Adriatic shore,
And fallen chiefs, and fleets no more,
And nightly smiles, and daily dinners,
Proclaim you war and woman's winners. 30
Pardon my muse, who apt to prate is,
And take my rhyme--because 'tis 'gratis'.
And now, O Malta! since thou'st got us,
Thou little military hothouse!
I'll not offend with words uncivil, 35
And wish thee rudely at the Devil,
But only stare from out my casement,
And ask, for what is such a place meant?
Then, in my solitary nook,
Return to scribbling, or a book, 40
Or take my physic while I'm able
(Two spoonfuls hourly by the label),
Prefer my nightcap to my beaver,
And bless the gods I've got a fever.
LORD BYRON.
TO E[DWARD] L[EAR], ON HIS TRAVELS IN GREECE
Illyrian woodlands, echoing falls
Of water, sheets of summer glass,
The long divine Peneian pass,
The vast Akrokeraunian walls,
Tomohrit, Athos, all things fair, 5
With such a pencil, such a pen,
You shadow forth to distant men,
I read and felt that I was there:
And trust me while I turned the page,
And tracked you still on classic ground, 10
I grew in gladness till I found
My spirits in the golden age.
For me the torrent ever poured
And glistened--here and there alone
The broad-limbed Gods at random thrown 15
By fountain-urns;--and Naiads oared
A glimmering shoulder under gloom
Of cavern pillars; on the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell;
And many a slope was rich in bloom 20
From him that on the mountain lea
By dancing rivulets fed his flocks,
To him who sat upon the rocks,
And fluted to the morning sea.
LORD TENNYSON.
HELLAS
It is not only that the sun
Loves best these southern lands,
It is not for the trophies won
Of old by hero hands,
That nature wreathed in softer smiles 5
Was here the bride of art;
A closer kinship claims these isles,
The love-land of the heart.
It is because the poet's dream
Still haunts each happy vale, 10
That peopled every grove and stream
To fit his fairy tale.
There may be greener vales and hills
Less bare to shelter man;
But still they want the naiad rills, 15
And miss the pipe of Pan.
There may be other isles as fair
And summer seas as blue,
But then Odysseus touched not there
Nor Argo beached her crew. 20
The Nereid-haunted river shore,
The Faun-frequented dell,
Possess me with their magic more
Than sites where Caesars fell:
And where the blooms of Zante blow 25
Their incense to the waves;
Where Ithaca's dark headlands show
The legendary caves;
Where in the deep of olive groves
The summer hardly dies; 30
Where fair Phaeacia's sun-brown maids
Still keep their siren eyes;
Where Chalcis strains with loving lips
Towards the little bay,
The strand that held the thousand ships, 35
The Aulis of delay;
Where Oeta's ridge of granite bars
The gate Thermopylae,
Where huge Orion crowned with stars
Looks down on Rhodope; 40
Where once Apollo tended flocks
On Phera's lofty plain,
Where Peneus cleaves the stubborn rocks
To find the outer main;
Where Argos and Mycenae sleep 45
With all the buried wrong,
And where Arcadian uplands keep
The antique shepherd song,
There is a spirit haunts the place
All other lands must lack, 50
A speaking voice, a living grace,
That beckons fancy back.
Dear isles and sea-indented shore,
Till songs be no more sung,
The singers that have gone before 55
Will keep your lovers young:
And men will hymn your haunted skies,
And seek your holy streams,
Until the soul of music dies,
And earth has done with dreams. 60
SIR RENNELL RODD.
THE VIOLET CROWN
'Wherefore the "city of the violet crown"?'
One asked me, as the April sun went down
Behind the shadows of the Persian's mound,
The fretted crags of Salamis.
'Look round,
And see the question answered!'
For we were
Upon the summit of that battled square, 6
The rock of ruin, in whose fallen shrine
The world still worships what man made divine,
The maiden fane, that yet may boast the birth
Of half the immortalities of earth. 10
The last rays light the portal, a gold wave
Runs up the columns to the architrave,
Lingers about the gable and is gone:--
Parnes, Hymettus, and Pentelicon
Show shadowy violet in the after-rose, 15
Cithaeron's ridge and all the islands close
The mountain ring, like sapphires o'er the sea,
And from this circle's heart aetherially
Springs the white altar of the land's renown,
A marble lily in a violet crown. 20
And fairer crown had never queen than this
That girds thee round, far-famed Acropolis!
So of these isles, these mountains, and this sea,
I wove a crown of song to dedicate to thee.
SIR RENNELL RODD.
ATHENS
The nodding promontories and blue isles,
And cloud-like mountains, and dividuous waves
Of Greece, basked glorious in the open smiles
Of favouring heaven: from their enchanted caves
Prophetic echoes flung dim melody 5
On the unapprehensive wild.
The vine, the corn, the olive wild,
Grew, savage yet, to human use unreconciled;
And like unfolded flowers beneath the sea,
Like the man's thought dark in the infant's brain, 10
Like aught that is which wraps what is to be,
Art's deathless dreams lay veiled by many a vein
Of Parian stone; and yet a speechless child,
Verse murmured, and Philosophy did strain
Her lidless eyes for thee; when o'er the Aegean main 15
Athens arose: a city such as vision
Builds from the purple crags and silver towers
Of battlemented cloud, as in derision
Of kingliest masonry: the ocean-floors
Pave it; the evening sky pavilions it; 20
Its portals are inhabited
By thunder-zoned winds, each head
Within its cloudy wings with sun-fire garlanded,--
A divine work! Athens, diviner yet,
Gleamed with its crest of columns, on the will
Of man, as on a mount of diamond, set; 26
For thou wert, and thine all-creative skill
Peopled, with forms that mock the eternal dead
In marble immortality, that hill
Which was thine earliest throne and latest oracle.
Within the surface of Time's fleeting river 31
Its wrinkled image lies, as then it lay
Immovably unquiet, and for ever
It trembles, but it cannot pass away!
P. B. SHELLEY.
PARNASSUS
Oh, thou Parnassus! whom I now survey,
Not in the frenzy of a dreamer's eye,
Not in the fabled landscape of a lay,
But soaring snow-clad through thy native sky,
In the wild pomp of mountain majesty! 5
What marvel if I thus essay to sing?
The humblest of thy pilgrims passing by
Would gladly woo thine Echoes with his string,
Though from thy heights no more one Muse will wave her wing.
Oft have I dreamed of Thee! whose glorious name
Who knows not, knows not man's divinest lore: 11
And now I view thee, 'tis, alas! with shame
That I in feeblest accents must adore.
When I recount thy worshippers of yore
I tremble, and can only bend the knee; 15
Nor raise my voice, nor vainly dare to soar,
But gaze beneath thy cloudy canopy
In silent joy to think at last I look on Thee!
LORD BYRON.
CORINTH
Many a vanished year and age,
And tempest's breath, and battle's rage,
Have swept o'er Corinth; yet she stands,
A fortress formed to Freedom's hands.
The whirlwind's wrath, the earthquake's shock, 5
Have left untouched her hoary rock,
The keystone of a land, which still,
Though fallen, looks proudly on that hill,
The landmark to the double tide
That purpling rolls on either side, 10
As if their waters chafed to meet,
Yet pause and crouch beneath her feet.
But could the blood before her shed,
Since first Timoleon's brother bled,
Or baffled Persia's despot fled, 15
Arise from out the earth which drank
The stream of slaughter as it sank,
That sanguine ocean would o'erflow
Her isthmus idly spread below:
Or could the bones of all the slain, 20
Who perished there, be piled again,
That rival pyramid would rise
More mountain-like, through those clear skies,
Than yon tower-capped Acropolis,
Which seems the very clouds to kiss. 25
LORD BYRON.
CORINNA TO TANAGRA
FROM ATHENS
Tanagra! think not I forget
Thy beautifully-storied streets;
Be sure my memory bathes yet
In clear Thermodon, and yet greets
The blithe and liberal shepherd-boy, 5
Whose sunny bosom swells with joy
When we accept his matted rushes
Upheaved with sylvan fruit; away he bounds and blushes.
A gift I promise: one I see
Which thou with transport wilt receive, 10
The only proper gift for thee,
Of which no mortal shall bereave
In later times thy mouldering walls,
Until the last old turret falls;
A crown, a crown from Athens won, 15
A crown no God can wear, beside Latona's son.
There may be cities who refuse
To their own child the honours due,
And look ungently on the Muse;
But ever shall those cities rue 20
The dry, unyielding, niggard breast,
Offering no nourishment, no rest,
To that young head which soon shall rise
Disdainfully, in might and glory, to the skies.
Sweetly where caverned Dirce flows 25
Do white-armed maidens chant my lay,
Flapping the while with laurel-rose
The honey-gathering tribes away;
And sweetly, sweetly Attic tongues
Lisp your Corinna's early songs; 30
To her with feet more graceful come
The verses that have dwelt in kindred breasts at home.
O let thy children lean aslant
Against the tender mother's knee,
And gaze into her face, and want 35
To know what magic there can be
In words that urge some eyes to dance,
While others as in holy trance
Look up to heaven: be such my praise!
Why linger? I must haste, or lose the Delphic bays.
W. S. LANDOR.
WARING
What's become of Waring
Since he gave us all the slip,
Chose land-travel or seafaring,
Boots and chest or staff and scrip,
Rather than pace up and down 5
Any longer London-town?
Ichabod, Ichabod,
The glory is departed!
Travels Waring East away?
Who, of knowledge, by hearsay, 10
Reports a man upstarted
Somewhere as a God,
Hordes grown European-hearted,
Millions of the wild made tame
On a sudden at his fame? 15
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
Or who, in Moscow, toward the Czar,
With the demurest of footfalls
Over the Kremlin's pavement, bright
With serpentine and syenite, 20
Steps, with five other Generals
That simultaneously take snuff,
For each to have pretext enough
To kerchiefwise unfold his sash
Which, softness' self, is yet the stuff 25
To hold fast where a steel chain snaps,
And leave the grand white neck no gash?
Waring, in Moscow, to those rough
Cold northern natures borne, perhaps,
Like the lambwhite maiden dear 30
From the circle of mute kings
Unable to repress the tear,
Each as his sceptre down he flings,
To Dian's fane at Taurica,
Where now a captive priestess, she alway 35
Mingles her tender grave Hellenic speech
With theirs, tuned to the hailstone-beaten beach,
As pours some pigeon, from the myrrhy lands
Rapt by the whirlblast to fierce Scythian strands
Where breed the swallows, her melodious cry 40
Amid their barbarous twitter?
In Russia? Never! Spain were fitter!
Ay, most likely 'tis in Spain
That we and Waring meet again
Now, while he turns down that cool narrow lane
Into the blackness, out of grave Madrid 45
All fire and shine, abrupt as when there's slid
Its stiff gold blazing pall
From some black coffin-lid.
'When I last saw Waring....' 50
(How all turned to him who spoke--
You saw Waring? Truth or joke?
In land-travel, or sea-faring?)
'We were sailing by Triest,
Where a day or two we harboured: 55
A sunset was in the West,
When, looking over the vessel's side,
One of our company espied
A sudden speck to larboard.
And, as a sea-duck flies and swims 60
At once, so came the light craft up,
With its sole lateen sail that trims
And turns (the water round its rims
Dancing, as round a sinking cup)
And by us like a fish it curled, 65
And drew itself up close beside,
Its great sail on the instant furled,
And o'er its planks, a shrill voice cried
(A neck as bronzed as a Lascar's),
"Buy wine of us, you English brig? 70
Or fruit, tobacco and cigars?
A pilot for you to Triest?
Without one, look you ne'er so big,
They'll never let you up the bay!
We natives should know best." 75
I turned, and "Just those fellows' way",
Our captain said, "The 'long-shore thieves
Are laughing at us in their sleeves."
'In truth, the boy leaned laughing back;
And one, half-hidden by his side 80
Under the furled sail, soon I spied,
With great grass hat and kerchief black,
Who looked up with his kingly throat,
Said somewhat, while the other shook
His hair back from his eyes to look 85
Their longest at us; then the boat,
I know not how, turned sharply round,
Laying her whole side on the sea
As a leaping fish does; from the lee,
Into the weather, cut somehow 90
Her sparkling path beneath our bow;
And so went off, as with a bound,
Into the rosy and golden half
Of the sky, to overtake the sun
And reach the shore, like the sea-calf 95
Its singing cave; yet I caught one
Glance ere away the boat quite passed,
And neither time nor toil could mar
Those features: so I saw the last
Of Waring!'--You? Oh, never star 100
Was lost here, but it rose afar!
Look East, where whole new thousands are!
In Vishnu-land what Avatar?
R. BROWNING.
ON THE RHINE
Vain is the effort to forget.
Some day I shall be cold, I know,
As is the eternal moon-lit snow
Of the high Alps, to which I go
But ah, not yet! not yet! 5
Vain is the agony of grief.
'Tis true, indeed, an iron knot
Ties straitly up from mine thy lot,
And were it snapt--thou lov'st me not!
But is despair relief? 10
Awhile let me with thought have done;
And as this brimmed unwrinkled Rhine
And that far purple mountain line
Lie sweetly in the look divine
Of the slow-sinking sun; 15
So let me lie, and calm as they
Let beam upon my inward view
Those eyes of deep, soft, lucent hue--
Eyes too expressive to be blue,
Too lovely to be grey. 20
Ah Quiet, all things feel thy balm!
Those blue hills too, this river's flow,
Were restless once, but long ago.
Tamed is their turbulent youthful glow:
Their joy is in their calm. 25
M. ARNOLD.
THE CASTLED CRAG OF DRACHENFELS
The castled crag of Drachenfels
Frowns o'er the wide and winding Rhine,
Whose breast of waters broadly swells
Between the banks which bear the vine,
And hills all rich with blossomed trees, 5
And fields which promise corn and wine,
And scattered cities crowning these,
Whose far white walls along them shine,
Have strewed a scene, which I should see
With double joy wert _thou_ with me. 10
And peasant girls, with deep blue eyes
And hands which offer early flowers,
Walk smiling o'er this paradise;
Above, the frequent feudal towers
Through green leaves lift their walls of grey; 15
And many a rock which steeply lowers,
And noble arch in proud decay,
Look o'er this vale of vintage-bowers;
But one thing want these banks of Rhine,--
Thy gentle hand to clasp in mine! 20
I send the lilies given to me;
Though long before thy hand they touch,
I know that they must withered be,
But yet reject them not as such;
For I have cherished them as dear, 25
Because they yet may meet thine eye,
And guide thy soul to mine even here,
When thou behold'st them drooping nigh,
And know'st them gathered by the Rhine,
And offered from my heart to thine! 30
The river nobly foams and flows,
The charm of this enchanted ground,
And all its thousand turns disclose
Some fresher beauty varying round:
The haughtiest breast its wish might bound 35
Through life to dwell delighted here:
Nor could on earth a spot be found
To nature and to me so dear,
Could thy dear eyes in following mine
Still sweeten more these banks of Rhine! 40
LORD BYRON.
'UP THE RHINE'
Why, Tourist, why
With Passport have to do?
Pr'ythee stay at home and pass
The Port and Sherry too.
Why, Tourist, why 5
Embark for Rotterdam?
Pr'ythee stay at home and take
Thy Hollands in a dram.
Why, Tourist, why
To foreign climes repair? 10
Pr'ythee take thy German Flute,
And breathe a German air.
Why, Tourist, why
The Seven Mountains view?
Any one at home can tint 15
A hill with Prussian Blue.
Why, Tourist, why
To old Colonia's walls?
Sure, to see a _Wrenish_ Dome,
One needn't leave St. Paul's. 20
T. HOOD.
COLOGNE
In Koehln, a town of monks and bones,
And pavements fanged with murderous stones,
And rags, and hags, and hideous wenches;
I counted two and seventy stenches,
All well defined, and several stinks! 5
Ye Nymphs that reign o'er sewers and sinks,
The river Rhine, it is well known,
Doth wash your city of Cologne;
But tell me, Nymphs, what power divine
Shall henceforth wash the river Rhine? 10
S. T. COLERIDGE.
THE PURSUIT OF LETTERS
The Germans for Learning enjoy great repute;
But the English make _Letters_ still more a pursuit;
For a Cockney will go from the banks of the Thames
To Cologne for an _O_ and to Nassau for M's.
T. HOOD.
FROM 'DOVER TO MUNICH'
Farewell, farewell! Before our prow
Leaps in white foam the noisy channel;
A tourist's cap is on my brow,
My legs are cased in tourist's flannel:
Around me gasp the invalids-- 5
(The quantity to-night is fearful)
I take a brace or so of weeds,
And feel (as yet) extremely cheerful.
The night wears on:--my thirst I quench
With one imperial pint of porter; 10
Then drop upon a casual bench--
(The bench is short, but I am shorter)--
Place 'neath my head the _havre-sac_
Which I have stored my little all in,
And sleep, though moist about the back, 15
Serenely in an old tarpaulin.
Bed at Ostend at 5 a.m.
Breakfast at 6, and train 6.30,
Tickets to Koenigswinter (mem.
The seats objectionably dirty). 20
And onward through those dreary flats
We move, with scanty space to sit on,
Flanked by stout girls with steeple hats,
And waists that paralyse a Briton;--
By many a tidy little town, 25
Where tidy little Fraus sit knitting,
(The men's pursuits are, lying down,
Smoking perennial pipes, and spitting;)
And doze, and execrate the heat,
And wonder how far off Cologne is, 30
And if we shall get aught to eat,
Till we get there, save raw polonies;
Until at last the 'grey old pile'
Is seen, is past, and three hours later
We're ordering steaks, and talking vile 35
Mock-German to an Austrian waiter.
* * * * *
On, on the vessel steals;
Round go the paddle wheels,
And now the tourist feels
As he should; 40
For king-like rolls the Rhine,
And the scenery's divine,
And the victuals and the wine
Rather good.
From every crag we pass 'll 45
Rise up some hoar old castle;
The hanging fir-groves tassel
Every slope;
And the vine her lithe arm stretches
O'er peasants singing catches-- 50
And you'll make no end of sketches,
I should hope.
We've a nun here (called Therese),
Two couriers out of place,
One Yankee with a face 55
Like a ferret's:
And three youths in scarlet caps
Drinking chocolate and schnapps--
A diet which perhaps
Has its merits. 60
And day again declines:
In shadow sleep the vines,
And the last ray through the pines
Feebly glows,
Then sinks behind yon ridge; 65
And the usual evening midge
Is settling on the bridge
Of my nose.
And keen's the air and cold,
And the sheep are in the fold, 70
And Night walks sable-stoled
Through the trees;
And on the silent river
The floating starbeams quiver;--
And now, the saints deliver 75
Us from fleas.
* * * * *
Avenues of broad white houses,
Basking in the noontide glare;--
Streets, which foot of traveller shrinks from,
As on hot plates shrinks the bear;-- 80
Elsewhere lawns, and vistaed gardens,
Statues white, and cool arcades,
Where at eve the German warrior
Winks upon the German maids;--
Such is Munich:--broad and stately, 85
Rich of hue, and fair of form;
But, towards the end of August,
Unequivocally _warm_.
C. S. CALVERLEY.
NUREMBERG
In the valley of the Pegnitz, where across broad meadow-lands
Rise the blue Franconian mountains, Nuremberg, the ancient, stands.
Quaint old town of toil and traffic, quaint old town of art and song,
Memories haunt thy pointed gables, like the rooks that round them throng:
Memories of the Middle Ages, when the emperors, rough and bold, 5
Had their dwelling in thy castle, time-defying, centuries old;
And thy brave and thrifty burghers boasted, in their uncouth rhyme,
That their great imperial city stretched its hand through every clime.
In the court-yard of the castle, bound with many an iron band,
Stands the mighty linden planted by Queen Cunigunde's hand; 10
On the square the oriel window, where in old heroic days
Sat the poet Melchior singing Kaiser Maximilian's praise.
Everywhere I see around me rise the wondrous world of Art:
Fountains wrought with richest sculpture standing in the common mart;
And above cathedral doorways saints and bishops carved in stone, 15
By a former age commissioned as apostles to our own.
In the church of sainted Sebald sleeps enshrined his holy dust,
And in bronze the Twelve Apostles guard from age to age their trust;
In the church of sainted Lawrence stands a pix of sculpture rare,
Like the foamy sheaf of fountains, rising through the painted air. 20
Here, when Art was still religion, with a simple, reverent heart,
Lived and laboured Albrecht Duerer, the Evangelist of Art;
Hence in silence and in sorrow, toiling still with busy hand,
Like an emigrant he wandered, seeking for the Better Land.
_Emigravit_ is the inscription on the tombstone where he lies; 25
Dead he is not, but departed,--for the artist never dies.
Fairer seems the ancient city, and the sunshine seems more fair,
That he once has trod its pavement, that he once has breathed its air!
Through these streets so broad and stately, these obscure and
dismal lanes,
Walked of yore the Master-singers, chanting rude poetic strains. 30
From remote and sunless suburbs came they to the friendly guild,
Building nests in Fame's great temple, as in spouts the swallows build.
As the weaver plied the shuttle, wove he too the mystic rhyme,
And the smith his iron measures hammered to the anvil's chime;
Thanking God, whose boundless wisdom makes the flowers of poesy bloom
In the forge's dust and cinders, in the tissues of the loom. 36
Here Hans Sachs, the cobbler-poet, laureate of the gentle craft,
Wisest of the Twelve Wise Masters, in huge folios sang and laughed.
But his house is now an ale-house, with a nicely sanded floor,
And a garland in the window, and his face above the door; 40
Painted by some humble artist, as in Adam Puschman's song,
As the old man grey and dove-like, with his great beard white and long.
And at night the swart mechanic comes to drown his cark and care,
Quaffing ale from pewter tankards, in the master's antique chair.
Vanished is the ancient splendour, and before my dreamy eye 45
Wave these mingled shapes and figures, like a faded tapestry.
Not thy Councils, not thy Kaisers, win for thee the world's regard;
But thy painter, Albrecht Duerer, and Hans Sachs thy cobbler-bard.
Thus, O Nuremberg, a wanderer from a region far away,
As he paced thy streets and court-yards, sang in thought his careless lay:
Gathering from the pavement's crevice, as a floweret of the soil, 51
The nobility of labour,--the long pedigree of toil.
H. W. LONGFELLOW.
AGED CITIES