Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps Thy current's calmness; oft from out it leaps The finny darter with the glittering scales, Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps, While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails
Down where the shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
The Greek statues at Florence are then inimitably described, after which the poet visits Rome, and revels in the ruins of the Palatine and Coliseum, and the glorious remains of ancient art. We give two of these portraitures:
Or view the Lord of the unerring bow, The God of life, and poesy, and light- The Sun in human limbs arrayed, and brow All radiant from his triumph in the fight; The shaft hath just been shot-the arrow bright With an immortal's vengeance; in his eye And nostril beautiful disdain, and might And majesty, flash their full lightnings by, Developing in that one glance the Deity.
But in his delicate form-a dream of Love, Shaped by some solitary nymph, whose breast Longed for a deathless lover from above, And maddened in that vision--are expressed All that ideal beauty ever blessed
The mind within its most unearthly mood, When each conception was a heavenly guest- A ray of immortality-and stood
Starlike, around, until they gathered to a god!
The Gladiator.
I see before me the gladiator lie:
He leans upon his hand; his manly brow Consents to death, but conquers agony.
And his drooped head sinks gradually low:
And through his side the last drops. ebbing slow
From the red gash, fall heavy, one by one,
Like the first of a thunder-shower; and now
The arena swims around him; he is gone,
Fre ceased the inhuman shout which hailed the wretch who won.
He heard it, but he heeded not; his eyes Were with his heart, and that was far away: He recked not of the life he lost, nor prize, But where his rude but by the Danube lay; There were his young barbarians all at play. There was their Dacian mother-he, their sire, Butchered to make a Roman holiday.
All this rushed with his blood. Shall he expire, And unavenged? Arise, ye Goths, and glut your ire!
The poem concludes abruptly with an apostrophe to the sea, his 'joy of youthful sports,' and a source of lofty enthusiasm and pleasure in his solitary wanderings on the shores of Italy and Greece.
Apostrophe to the Ocean.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,] There is a rapture ou the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not inan the less, but nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal
Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain ; Man marks the earth with rain-his control Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for a moment, like a drop of rain, He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan- Without a grave, unknelled, uncofined, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields Are not a spoil for him-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields For earth's destruction thou dost all despise, Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray, And howling to his gods, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay,
And dashest him again to earth: there let him lay.
The armaments which thunder-strike the walls, Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake, And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war:
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee- Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters washed them power while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thou; Unchangeable save to thy wild waves' play. Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow: Such as creation's dawn beheld, thou róllest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's fōrig Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving, boundless, endless, and sublime- The image of Eternity-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime
The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone.
And I have loved thee, Ocean! and my joy Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be Borne. like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy I wantoned with thy breakers-they to me Were a delight; and if the freshening sea Made them a terror-'twas a pleasing fear; For I was as it were a child of thee," And trusted to thy billows far and near,
And laid my hand upon thy mane-as I do here.
An Italian Evening on the Banks of the Brenta. From Childe
The moon is up, and yet it is not night- Sunset divides the sky with her-a sca Of glory streams along the alpine height Of blue Friuli's mountains: heaven is free From clouds, but of all colours seems to be Melted to one vast Iris of the west, Where the day joins the past eternity, While on the other hand, meek Dian's crest Floats through the azure air-an island of the blest.
A single star is at her side, and reigns
With her o'er half the lovely heaven; but still Yon sunny sca heaves brightly, and remains Rolled o'er the peak of the far Rhætian hill, As day and night contending were, until Nature reclaimed her order: gently flows The deep-dyed Prenta, where their hues instil The odorous purple of a new-born rose,
Which streams upon her stream, and glassed within it glows.
Filled with the face of heaven, which, from afar,
Comes down upon the waters; all its hues,
From the rich sunset to the rising star,
Their magical variety diffuse:
And now they change; a paler shadow strews
Its mantle o'er the mountains; parting day
Dies like the dolphin, whom each pang imbues With a new colour as it gasps away,
The last still loveliest, till-'tis gone-and all is gray.
Midnight Ecene in Rome.-From Manfred.”»
The stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. Beautiful! I linger yet with nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face
Than that of man; and in her starry shade
Of dim and solitary loveliness,
I learned the language of another worla.
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 all-mighty Rome: The trees which grew along the broken arches 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 Caesars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly,
Of distant sentinels the fitful song Began 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 Cresars dwelt, 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 gladiator's bloody circus stands A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsar'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, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries; Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place 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!
The following extracts are from 'Don Juan:' The Shipwreck.
"Twas twilight, and the sunless day went down Over the waste of waters; like a veil
Which, if withdrawn, would but disclose the frown Of one whose hate is masked but to assail. Thus to their hopeless eyes the night was shewn, And grimly darkled o'er the faces pale, And the dim desolate deep: twelve days had Fear Been their familiar, and now Death was here. . . .
Then rose from sea to sky the wild farewell
Then shrieked the timid, and stood still the brave- Then some leaped overboard with dreadful yell, As eager to anticipate their grave;
And the sea yawned around her like a hell,
And down she sucked with her the whirling wave, Like one who grapples with his enemy,
And strives to strangle him before he die.
And first one universal shriek there rushed, Louder than the loud ocean, like a crash Of echoing thunder; and then all was hushed, Save the wild wind and the remorseless dash Of billows; but at intervals there gushed, Accompanied with a convulsive splash,
A solitary shriek, the bubbling cry
Of some strong swimmer in is agony....
There were two fathers in this ghastly crew,
And with them their two sons, of whom the one
Was more robust and hardy to the view;
But he died early; and when he was gone,
His nearest messmate told his sire, who threw
One glance on him, and said: Heaven's will be done!
I can do nothing; and he saw him thrown
Into the deep without a tear or groan.
The other father had a weaklier child, Of a soft cheek, and aspect delicate; But the boy bore up long, and with a mild And patient spirit held aloof his fate; Little he said. and now and then he smiled, As if to win a part from off the weight He saw increasing on his father's heart, With the deep deadly thought that they must part. And o'er him bent his sire, and never raised
His eyes from off his face, but wiped the foam From his pale lips, and ever on him gazed:
And when the wished for shower at length was come, And the boy's eyes, which the dull film half glazed, Brightened, and for a moment seemed to roam, He squeezed from out a rag some drops of rain Into his dying child's mouth; but in vain!
The boy expired-the father held the clay, And looked upon it long; and when at last Death left no doubt, and the dead burden lay Stiff on his heart, and pulse and hope were past, He watched it wistfully, until away
"Twas borne by the rude wave wherein 'twas cast; Then he himself sunk down all dumb and shivering, And gave no sign of life, save his limbs quivering.
Her brow was overhung with coins of gold That sparkled o'er the auburn of her hair; Her clustering hair, whose longer locks were rolled In braids behind; and though her stature were Even of the highest for a female mould,
They nearly reached her heels; and in her air There was a something which bespoke command, As one who was a lady in the land.
Her hair, I said, was auburn; but her eyes
Were black as death, their lashes the same hue, Of downcast length, in whose silk shadow lies Deepest attraction; for when to the view Forth from its raven fringe the full glance flies,
Ne'er with such force the swiftest arrow flew: "Tis as the snake late coiled, who pours his length, And hurls at once his venom and his strength.
Her brow was white and low; her cheek's pure dye,! Like twilight, rosy still with the set sun; Short upper lip-sweet lips! that make us sigh Ever to have seen such; for she was one
Fit for the model of a statuary
(A race of mere impostors when all's doneI've seen much finer women, ripe and real, Than all the nonsense of their stone ideal).
Haidee visits the shipwrecked Don Juan.
And down the cliff the island virgin came, And near the cave her quick light footsteps drew, While the sun smiled on her with his first flame, And young Aurora kissed her lips with dew. Taking her for her sister; just the same
Mistake you would have made on seeing the two,
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