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XIX.

PÆSTUM.

Save the shrill-voiced cicala flitting round

On the rough pediment to sit and sing;

Or the green lizard rustling through the grass,

THEY stand between the mountains and the sea; And up the fluted shaft with short quick motion,

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.
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;

And here the accuser stood, and there the accused;
And here the judges sate, 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 From Mount Alburnus to the Tyrrhene sea, While, by some spell render'd invisible, Or, if approach'd, approach'd by him alone Who saw as though he saw not, they remain'd As in the darkness of a sepulchre, 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; 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, 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.

The air is sweet with violets, running wild (171)
'Mid broken friezes and fallen capitals;
Sweet as when Tully, writing down his thoughts,
Those thoughts so precious and so lately lost, (172)

(Turning to thee, divine Philosophy,
Ever at hand to calm his troubled soul)
Sail'd slowly by, two thousand years ago,
For Athens; when a ship, if north-east winds
Blew from the Pastan gardens, slack'd her course.

On as he moved along the level shore, These temples, in their splendor eminent Mid arcs and obelisks, and domes and towers, Reflecting back the radiance of the west, Well might He dream of Glory!--Now, coil'd up, The serpent sleeps within them; the she-wolf 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

1 The temples of Pæstum are three in number; and have marvived, nearly nine centuries, the total destruction of the city. Tradition is silent concerning them; but they must have existed now between two and three thousand years. 2 Spartacus. See Plutarch in the life of Crassus.

To vanish in the chinks that Time has 'made.

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Walls of some capital city first appear'd, Half razed, half sunk, or scatter'd 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? As if the spoiler had fallen back in fear, And, turning, left them to the elements.

"T is said a stranger in the days of old
(Some say a Dorian, some a Sybarite;
But distant things are ever lost in clouds),
"T is said a stranger came, and, with his plow,
Traced out the site; and Posidonia rose, (173)
Severely great, Neptune the tutelar God;
A Homer's language murmuriug in her streets,
And in her haven many a mast from Tyre.
Then came another, an unbidden guest.

He knock'd and enter'd with a train in arms;
And all was changed, her very name and language!
The Tyrian merchant, shipping at his door
Ivory and gold, and silk, and frankincense,
Sail'd as before, but sailing, cried "For Pæstum !"
And now a Virgil, now an Ovid sung
Pastum's twice-blowing roses; while, within,
Parents and children mourn'd-and, every year,
('T was on the day of some old festival)
Talk'd in the ancient tongue of things gone by.
Met to give way to tears, and once again,
At length an Arab climb'd the battlements,

Slaying the sleepers in the dead of night;

2

And from all eyes the glorious vision fled!
Leaving a place lonely and dangerous,
Where whom the robber spares, a deadlier foe3
Strikes at unseen-and at a time when joy
Opens the heart, when summer-skies are blue,
And the clear air is soft and delicate;
For then the demon works-then with that air
The thoughtless wretch drinks in a subtle poison
Lulling to sleep; and, when he sleeps, he dies.

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XX.

MONTE CASSINO.

"WHAT hangs behind that curtain?" (174)

"Wouldst thou learn?

If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. "Tis by some
Believed to be his master-work, who look'd
Beyond the grave, and on the chapel-wall,

As though the day were come, were come and past,
Drew the Last Judgment.'-But the Wisest err.
He who in secret wrought, and gave it life,
For life is surely there and visible change, (175)
Life, such as none could of himself impart,
(They who behold it, go not as they came,
But meditate for many and many a day)
Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much;
But what we know, we will communicate.
"T is in an ancient record of the House;
And may it make thee tremble, lest thou fall!

Once on a Christmas-eve-ere yet the roof Rung with the hymn of the Nativity, There came a stranger to the convent-gate, And ask'd admittance; ever and anon, As if he sought what most he fear'd to find, Looking behind him. When within the walls, These walls so sacred and inviolable, Still did he look behind him; oft and long, With haggard eye and curling, quivering lip, Catching at vacancy. Between the fits, For here, 't is said, he linger'd while he lived, He would discourse, and with a mastery, A charm by none resisted, none explain'd, Unfelt before; but when his cheek grew pale, All was forgotten. Then, howe'er employed, He would break off, and start as if he caught A glimpse of something that would not be gone; And turn and gaze, and shrink into himself, As though the Fiend was there, and, face to face, Scowl'd o'er his shoulder.

Most devout he was; Most unremitting in the Services; Then, only then, untroubled, unassail'd; And, to beguile a melancholy hour, Would sometimes exercise that noble art He learnt in Florence; with a master's hand, As to this day the Sacristy attests, Painting the wonders of the Apocalypse.

At length he sunk to rest, and in his cell
Left, when he went, a work in secret done,
The portrait, for a portrait it must be,

That hangs behind the curtain. Whence he drew,
None here can doubt: for they that come to catch
The faintest glimpse-to catch it and be gone,
Gaze as he gazed, then shrink into themselves,
Acting the self-same part. But why 't was drawn,
Whether in penance, to atone for Guilt,
Or to record the anguish Guilt inflicts,
Or haply to familiarize his mind

With what he could not fly from, none can say,
For none could learn the burden of his soul."

1 Michael Angelo.

XXI.

THE HARPER.

It was a Harper, wandering with his harp,
His only treasure; a majestic man,

By time and grief ennobled, not subdued;
Though from his height descending, day by day,
And, as his upward look at once betray'd,
Blind as old Homer. At a fount he sate,
Well-known to many a weary traveller;
His little guide, a boy not seven years old,
But grave, considerate beyond his years,
Sitting beside him. Each had ate his crust
In silence, drinking of the virgin-spring;
And now in silence, as their custom was,
The sun's decline awaited.

But the child
Was worn with travel. Heavy sleep weigh'd down
His eye-lids; and the grandsire, when we came,
Embolden'd by his love and by his fear,
His fear lest night o'ertake them on the road,
Humbly besought me to convey them both
A little onward. Such small services
Who can refuse?-Not I; and him who can,
Blest though he be with every earthly gift,
I cannot envy. He, if wealth be his,
Knows not its uses. So from noon till night,
Within a crazed and tatter'd vehicle, (176)
That yet display'd, in old emblazonry,

A shield as splendid as the Bardi wear; (177)
We, lumber'd on together; the old man
Beguiling many a league of half its length,
When question'd the adventures of his life,
And all the dangers he had undergone;
His shipwrecks on inhospitable coasts,
And his long warfare.

They were bound, he said,
To a great fair at Reggio; and the boy,
Believing all the world were to be there,
And I among the rest, let loose his tongue,
And promised me much pleasure. His short trance,
Short as it was, had, like a charmed cup,
Restored his spirit, and, as on we crawl'd,
Slow as the snail (my muleteer dismounting,
And now his mules addressing, now his pipe,
And now Luigi) he pour'd out his heart,
Largely repaying me. At length the sun
Departed, setting in a sea of gold;
And, as we gazed, he bade me rest assured
That like the setting would the rising be.

Their harp-it had a voice oracular, And in the desert, in the crowded street, Twanged shrill and clear, o'er hill and dale they Spoke when consulted. If the treble chord

went,

The grandsire, step by step, led by the child;
And not a rain-drop from a passing cloud
Fell on their garments. Thus it spoke to-day;
Inspiring joy, and, in the young one's mind,
Brightening a path already full of sunshine.

XXII.

THE FELUCA.

DAY glimmer'd; and beyond the precipice (Which my mule follow'd as in love with fear,

Or as in scorn, yet more and more inclining
To tempt the danger where it menaced most),
A sea of vapor roll'd. Methought we went
Along the utmost edge of this, our world;
But soon the surges fled, and we descried
Nor dimly, though the lark was silent yet,
Thy gulf, La Spezzia. Ere the morning-gun,
Ere the first day-streak, we alighted there;
And not a breath, a murmur! Every sail
Slept in the offing. Yet along the shore
Great was the stir; as at the noontide hour,
None unemploy'd. Where from its native rock
A streamlet, clear and full, ran to the sea,
The maidens knelt and sung as they were wont,
Washing their garments. Where it met the tide,
Sparkling and lost, an ancient pinnace lay
Keel-upward, and the fagot blazed, the tar
Fumed from the caldron; while, beyond the fort
Whither I wander'd, step by step led on,
The fishers dragg'd their net, the fish within
At every heave fluttering and full of life,
At every heave striking their silver fins
'Gainst the dark meshes.

Soon a boatman's shout
Re-echoed; and red bonnets on the beach,
Waving, recall'd me. We embark'd and left
That noble haven, where, when Genoa reign'd,
A hundred galleys shelter'd-in the day,
When lofty spirits met, and, deck to deck,
Doria, Pisani (178) fought; that narrow field
Ample enough for glory. On we went,
Raffling with many an oar the crystalline sea, (179)
On from the rising to the setting sun,
In silence-underneath a mountain-ridge,
Cntamed, untamable, reflecting round
The saddest purple; nothing to be seen
Of life or culture, save where, at the foot,
Some village and its church, a scanty line,
Athwart the wave gleam'd faintly. Fear of ill
Narrow'd our course, fear of the hurricane,
And that yet greater scourge, the crafty Moor,
Who, like a tiger prowling for his prey,
Springs" and is gone, and on the adverse coast
Where Tripoli and Tunis and Algiers
Forge fetters, and white turbans on the mole
Gather, whene'er the Crescent comes display'd
Over the Cross) his human merchandise
To many a curious, many a cruel eye
Exposes. Ah, how oft where now the sun
Slept on the shore, have ruthless cimeters
Flash'd through the lattice, and a swarthy crew
Dragg'd forth, ere-long to number them for sale,
Ere-long to part them in their agony,

Should have the power, the will to make this world A dismal prison-house, and life itself,

Life in its prime, a burden and a curse

To him who never wrong'd them! Who that breathes
Would not, when first he heard it, turn away
As from a tale monstrous, incredible?
Surely a sense of our mortality,

A consciousness how soon we shall be gone,
Or, if we linger-but a few short years-
How sure to look upon our brother's grave,
Should of itself incline to pity and love,
And prompt us rather to assist, relieve,
Than aggravate the evils each is heir to.

At length the day departed, and the moon
Rose like another sun, illumining
Waters and woods and cloud-capt promontories,
Glades for a hermit's cell, a lady's bower,
Scenes of Elysium, such as Night alone
Reveals below, nor often-scenes that fled
As at the waving of a wizard's wand,
And left behind them, as their parting gift,
A thousand nameless odors. All was still;
And now the nightingale her song pour'd forth
In such a torrent of heart-felt delight,
So fast it flow'd, her tongue so voluble,
As if she thought her hearers would be gone
Ere half was told. "Twas where in the north-west,
Still unassail'd and unassailable,
Thy pharos, Genoa, first display'd itself,
Burning in stillness on its craggy seat;
That guiding star, so oft the only one,
When those now glowing in the azure vault,
Are dark and silent. "Twas where o'er the sea,
For we were now within a cable's length,
Delicious gardens hung; green galleries,
And marble terraces in many a flight,
And fairy-arches flung from cliff to cliff,
Wildering, enchanting; and, above them all,
A Palace, such as somewhere in the East,
In Zenastan or Araby the blest,

Among its golden groves and fruits of gold,
And fountains scattering rainbows in the sun,
Rose, when Aladdin rubb'd the wondrous lamp;
Such, if not fairer; and, when we shot by,
A scene of revelry, in long array
The windows blazing. But we now approach'd
A City far-renown'd;' and wonder ceased.

XXIII. GENOA.

THIS house was Andrea Doria's. Here he lived; (181)

Parent and child! How oft where now we rode (180) And here at eve relaxing, when ashore,

Over the billow, has a wretched son,

Or yet more wretched sire, grown grey in chains,
Labor'd, his hands upon the oar, his eyes
Upon the land-the land, that gave him birth;
And, as he gazed, his homestall through his tears
Fondly imagined; when a Christian ship
Of war appearing in her bravery,

A voice in anger cried, "Use all your strength!"

But when, ah when, do they that can, forbear To crush the unresisting? Strange, that men, Creatures so frail, so soon, alas' to die,

Held many a pleasant, many a grave discourse (182)
With them that sought him, walking to and fro
As on his deck. "T is less in length and breadth
Than many a cabin in a ship of war;
But 'tis of marble, and at once inspires
The reverence due to ancient dignity.

He left it for a better; and 't is now
A house of trade, (183) the meanest merchandise
Cumbering its floors. Yet, fallen as it is,

1 Genoa.

"Tis still the noblest dwelling-even in Genoa!
And hadst thou, Andrea, lived there to the last,
Thou hadst done well; for there is that without,
That in the wall, which monarchs could not give,
Nor thou take with thee, that which says aloud,
It was thy Country's gift to her Deliverer.

"Tis in the heart of Genoa (he who comes,
Must come on foot) and in a place of stir;
Men on their daily business, early and late,
Thronging thy very threshold. But when there,
Thou wert among thy fellow-citizens,

Thy children, for they hail'd thee as their sire;
And on a spot thou must have loved, for there,
Calling them round, thou gavest them more than life,
Giving what, lost, makes life not worth the keeping.
There thou didst do indeed an act divine;
Nor couldst thou leave thy door or enter in,
Without a blessing on thee.

Thou art now
Again among them. Thy brave mariners,
They who had fought so often by thy side,
Staining the mountain-billows, bore thee back;
And thou art sleeping in thy funeral-chamber.

Where, when the south-wind blows, and clouds on
clouds

Gather and fall, the peasant freights his bark,
Mindful to migrate when the king of floods
Visits his humble dwelling, and the keel,
Slowly uplifted over field and fence,
Floats on a world of waters-from that low,
That level region, where no Echo dwells,
Or, if she comes, comes in her saddest plight,
Hoarse, inarticulate on to where the path
Is lost in rank luxuriance, and to breathe
Is to inhale distemper, if not death;
Where the wild-boar retreats, when hunters chafe,
And, when the day-star flames, the buffalo-herd,
Afflicted, plunge into the stagnant pool,
Nothing discern'd amid the water-leaves,
Save here and there the likeness of a head,
Savage, uncouth; where none in human shape
Come, save the herdsman, levelling his length
Of lance with many a cry, or, Tartar-like,
Urging his steed along the distant hill
As from a danger. There, but not to rest,
I travell❜d many a dreary league, nor turn'd
|(Ah then least willing, as who had not been?)
When in the South, against the azure sky,

Thine was a glorious course; but couldst thou Three temples rose in soberest majesty,

there,

Clad in thy cere-cloth-in that silent vault,
Where thou art gather'd to thy ancestors-
Open thy secret heart and tell us all,
Then should we hear thee with a sigh confess,
A sigh how heavy, that thy happiest hours
Were pass'd before these sacred walls were left,
Before the ocean-wave thy wealth reflected, (184)
And pomp and power drew envy, stirring up
The ambitious man,' that in a perilous hour
Fell from the plank. (185)

A FAREWELL.2

AND now farewell to Italy-perhaps
For ever! Yet, methinks, I could not go,
I could not leave it, were it mine to say,
"Farewell for ever!"

Many a courtesy,
That sought no recompense, and met with none
But in the swell of heart with which it came,
Have I experienced; not a cabin-door,
Go where I would, but open'd with a smile;
From the first hour, when, in my long descent,
Strange perfumes rose, as if to welcome me,
From flowers that minister'd like unseen spirits;
From the first hour, when vintage-songs broke forth,
A grateful earnest, and the Southern lakes,
Dazzlingly bright, unfolded at my feet;
They that receive the cataracts, and ere-long
Dismiss them, but how changed-onward to roll
From age to age in silent majesty,

Blessing the nations, and reflecting round
The gladness they inspire.

Gentle or rude,
No scene of life but has contributed
Much to remember-from the Polesine,

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The wondrous work of some heroic race.*

But now a long farewell! Oft, while I live,
If once again in England, once again
In my own chimney-nook, as Night steals on,
With half-shut eyes reclining, oft, methinks,
While the wind blusters and the pelting rain
Clatters without, shall I recall to mind
The scenes, occurrences, I met with here,
And wander in Elysium; many a note
Of wildest melody, magician-like,
Awakening, such as the Calabrian horn,
Along the mountain-side, when all is still,
Pours forth at folding-time; and many a chant,
Solemn, sublime, such as at midnight flows
From the full choir, when richest harmonies
Break the deep silence of thy glens, La Cava;
To him who lingers there with listening ear,
Now lost and now descending as from Heaven!

NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS.

Note 1, page 40, col. 2.

As on that Sabbath-eve when he arrived. "J'arrive essoufflé, tout en nage; le cœur me bat, je vois de loin les soldats à leur poste; j'accours, je crie d'une voix étouffee. Il étoit trop tard."-See Les Confessions, L. 1. The street, in which he was born, is called Rue Rousseau.

Note 2, page 40, col. 2.

He sate him down and wept-wept till the morning. "Lines of eleven syllables occur almost in every page of Milton; but though they are not unpleasing, they ought not to be admitted into heroic poetry; since the

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narrow limits of our language allow us no other distinction of epic and tragic measures."-JOHNSON.

Note 7, page 42, col. 1.

St. Bruno's once

It is remarkable that he used them most at last. In the Paradise Regained they occur oftener than in the Paradise Lost, in the proportion of ten to one; and let it be remembered that they supply us with another close, another cadence; that they add, as it "In this year the canon died, and, as all believed, were, a string to the instrument; and, by enabling the in the odor of sanctity: for who in his life had been Poet to relax at pleasure, to rise and fall with his so holy, in his death so happy? But false are the subject, contribute what is most wanted, compass, judgments of men; as the event showeth. For when

The Grande Chartreuse. It was indebted for its foundation to a miracle; as every guest may learn there from a little book that lies on the table in his cell, the cell allotted to him by the fathers.

variety.

Shakspeare seems to have delighted in them, and in some of his soliloquies has used them four and five times in succession; an example I have not followed is mine. As in the following instance, where the subject is solemn beyond all others:

To be, or not to be, that is the question.
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And, by opposing, end them.

the hour of his funeral had arrived, when the mourners had entered the church, the bearers set down the bier, and every voice was lifted up in the Miserere, suddenly, and as none knew how, the lights were extinguished, the anthem stopt! A darkness succeeded, a silence as of the grave; and these words came in sorrowful accents from the lips of the dead. "I am summoned before a Just God!—A Just God judgeth me! I am condemned by a Just God!"

In the church, says the legend, "there stood a

They come nearest to the flow of an unstudied young man with his hands clasped in prayer, who eloquence, and should therefore be used in the drama; from that time resolved to withdraw into the desert. but why exclusively? Horace, as we learn from him- It was he whom we now invoke as St. Bruno."

self, admitted the Musa Pedestris in his happiest bours, in those when he was most at his ease; and we cannot regret her visits. To her we are indebted for more than half he has left us; nor was she ever at his elbow in greater dishabille, than when he wrote the celebrated Journey to Brundusium.

Note 3, page 41, col. 1.

-like him of old.

The Abbot of Clairvaux. "To admire or despise St. Bernard as he ought," says Gibbon," the reader, like myself, should have before the windows of his library that incomparable landscape."

Note 4, page 41, col. 1.

That winds beside the mirror of all beauty. There is no describing in words; but the following lines were written on the spot, and may serve perhaps to recall to some of my readers what they have seen in this enchanting country.

I love to watch in silence till the Sun

Sets; and Mont Blanc, array'd in crimson and gold,
Flings his broad shadow half across the Lake;
That shadow, though it comes through pathless tracts
Of ether, and o'er Alp and desert drear,
Only less bright, less glorious than himself.
But, while we gaze, 't is gone! And now he shines
Like burnish'd silver; all, below, the Night's.-
Such moments are most precious. Yet there are
Others, that follow them, to me still more so;
When once again he changes, once again
Clothing himself in grandeur all his own:
When, like a Ghost, shadowless, colorless,
He melts away into the Heaven of Heavens;
Himself alone reveal'd, all lesser things
As though they were not!

Note 5, page 41, col. 2.

Two dogs of grave demeanor welcomed me.

Berri, so remarkable for his sagacity, was dead. His skin is stuffed, and is preserved in the Museum of Berne.

Note 6, page 42, col. 1.

But the Bise blew cold.

Note 8, page 42, col. 1.

-that house so rich of old,

So courteous.

The words of Ariosto.

Ricca-e cortesa a chiunque vi venîa.
Milton was there at the fall of the leaf.

Note 9, page 42, col. 2.

Bread to the hungry.

They distribute, in the course of the year, from thirty to thirty-five thousand rations of food; receiving travellers of every description.-LE PERE BISELX,

Prieur.

Note 10, page 42, col. 2.

Dessaix, who turn'd the scale.

"Of all the generals I ever had under me, Dessaix possessed the greatest talents. He loved glory for itself." Note 11, page 43, col. 1.

And gather'd from above, below, around. The Author of Lalla Rookh, a Poet of such singular felicity as to give a lustre to all he touches, has written a song on this subject, called the Crystalhunters.

Note 12, page 43, col. 1.

-nor long before.

M. Ebel mentions an escape almost as miraculous. L'an 1790, le nommé Christian Boren, propriétaire de l'auberge du Grindelwald, eut le malheur de se jeter dans une fente du glacier, en le traversant avec un troupeau de moutons qu'il ramenoit des pâturages de Bâniseck. Heureusement qu'il tomba dans le voisinage du grand torrent qui coule dans l'intérieur, il en suivit le lit par-dessous les voûtes de glace, et arriva au pied du glacier avec un bras cassé. Cet homme est actuellement encore en vie."

Manuel du Voyageur. Art. Grindelwald.
Note 13, page 43, col. 2.

-a wondrous monument.

Almost every mountain of any rank or condition

The north-east wind. This description was writ- has such a bridge. The most celebrated in this coun

ten in June, 1816.

try is on the Swiss side of St. Gothard.

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