Lo, Nemi! (1) navell'd in the woody hills So far, that the uprooting wind which tears The oak from his foundation, and which spills The ocean o'er its boundary, and bears Its foam against the skies, reluctant spares The oval mirror of thy glassy lake;
And, calm as cherish'd hate, its surface wears A deep cold settled aspect nought can shake, All coil'd into itself and round, as sleeps the snake.
And near Albano's scarce divided waves
Shine from a sister valley; and afar
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war, "Arms and the Man," whose re-ascending star Rose o'er an empire : but beneath thy right Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight
The Sabine farm was till'd, the weary bard's delight. (*)
But I forget. - My Pilgrim's shrine is won,
And he and I must part, so let it be, His task and mine alike are nearly done; Yet once more let us look upon the sea The midland ocean breaks on him and me, And from the Alban Mount we now behold
Our friend of youth, that ocean, which when we Beheld it last by Calpe's rock unfold
Those waves, we follow'd on till the dark Euxine roll'd
Upon the blue Symplegades: long years - Long, though not very many, since have done Their work on both; some suffering and some tears Have left us nearly where we had begun : Yet not in vain our mortal race hath run, We have had our reward and it is here; That we can yet feel gladden'd by the sun, And reap from earth, sea, joy almost as dear As if there were no man to trouble what is clear.
(1) The village of Nemi was near the Arician retreat of Egeria, and, from the shades which embosomed the temple of Diana, has preserved to this day its distinctive appellation of The Grove. Nemi is but an evening's ride from the comfortable inn of Albano.
(2) See" Historical Notes," at the end of this Canto, No. XXXI.
Oh! that the Desert were my dwelling-place, With one fair Spirit for my minister, That I might all forget the human race, And, hating no one, love but only her! Ye Elements !-in whose ennobling stir I feel myself exalted Can not ye
Accord me such a being? Do I err
In deeming such inhabit many a spot?
Though with them to converse can rarely be our lot.
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society, where none intrudes, By the deep Sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
B, mature dora
not leach aond
M. is a wild lawn Caspe compassion
From these our interviews, in which I stealno varing From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet can not all conceal (don human
Rolf on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fets sweep over thee in vain ;
Mar marks the earth with ruin his control
; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own, When, for moment, like a drop of rain, He smks into thy depths with bubbling groan, Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths,
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 thunderstrike 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 wasted them 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 rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form 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 C
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 wanton'd, 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.
My task is done my song hath ceased
my theme 'The spell should break of this protracted dream. The torch shall be extinguish'd which hath lit My midnight lamp-and what is writ, is writ, — Would it were worthier! but I am not now That which I have been - and my visions flit Less palpably before me and the glow Which in my spirit dwelt is fluttering, faint, and low.
Has died into an echo; it is fit
Farewell! a word that must be, and hath been A sound which makes us linger; - yet - farewell! Ye! who have traced the Pilgrim to the scene Which is his last, if in your memories dwell A thought which once was his, if on ye swell A single recollection, not in vain
He wore his sandal-shoon, and scallop-shell; Farewell! with him alone may rest the pain, If such there were — - with you, the moral of his straini
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