Then guide me where the wandering moon
Rests on Mæcenas' wall,
And echoes at night's solemn noon
In Tivoli's soft shades attune
The peaceful waterfall.
Again they float before my sight,
The bower, the flood, the glade;
Again on yon romantic height
The Sybil's temple towers in light,
Above the dark cascade.
Down the steep cliff I wind my way
Along the dim retreat,
And, 'mid the torrents' deafening bray,
Dash from my brow the foam away,
Where clashing cataracts meet.
And now I leave the rocks below,
And issuing forth from night,
View on the flakes that sun-ward flow,
A thousand rainbows round me glow,
And arch my way with light.
Again the myrtles o'er me breathe,
Fresh flowers my path perfume,
Round cliff and cave wild tendrils wreathe,
And from the groves that bend beneath
Low trail their purple bloom.
Thou grove, thou glade of Tivoli,
Dark flood, and rivulet clear,
That wind, where'er you wander by,
A stream of beauty on the eye,
Of music on the ear:
And thou, that when the wandering moon Illumed the rocky dell,
Did'st to my charmed ear attune
The echoes of Night's solemn noon,
Spirit unseen! farewell!
Farewell!-o'er many a realm I go,
My natal isle to greet,
Where summer sunbeams mildly glow, And sea-winds health and freshness blow O'er Freedom's hallow'd seat.
Yet there, to thy romantic spot
Shall Fancy oft retire,
And hail the bower, the stream, the grot, Where Earth's sole Lord the world forgot, And Horace smote the lyre.
THE GROTTO OF EGERIA.
Can I forget that beauteous day,
When, shelter'd from the burning beam,
First in thy haunted grot I lay,
And loosed my spirit to its dream,
Beneath the broken arch, o'erlaid
With ivy, dark with many a braid
That clasp'd its tendrils to retain
The stone its roots had writhed in twain?
No zephyr on the leaflet play'd,
No bent grass bow'd its slender blade,
The coiled snake lay slumber-bound;
All mute, all motionless around,
Save, livelier, while others slept,
The lizard on the sunbeam leapt,
And louder, while the groves were still,
The unseen cigali, sharp and shrill,
As if their chirp could charm alone
Tired noontide with its unison.
Stranger! that roam'st in solitude!
Thou, too, 'mid tangling bushes rude,
Seek in the glen, yon heights between,
A rill more pure than Hippocrene,
That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that fill'd its marble bed.
Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling through weeds and stones its way There, when o'erpower'd at blaze of day, Nature languishes in light,
Pass within the gloom of night,
Where the cool grot's dark arch o'ershades
Thy temples, and the waving braids
Of many a fragrant brier that weaves
Its blossom through the ivy leaves.
Thou, too, beneath that rocky roof,
Where the moss mats its thickest woof,
Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall
Regular, at interval,
Drop after drop, one after one,
Making music on the stone,
While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent nymph away.
Thou, too, if ere thy youthful ear
Thrill'd the Latian lay to hear,
Lull'd to slumber in that cave,
Shalt hail the nymph that held the wave;
A goddess, who there deign'd to meet
A mortal from Rome's regal seat,
And, o'er the gushing of her fount,
Mysterious truths divine to earthly ear recount.
Each stone whereon thy swarms in sunbeams sleep, Sprung from the riven womb of central night;
Where'er thou turn'st thy sight,
Round thee thy earth, thy sea, thy every isle,
One element of fire.-On yonder brow
The blazing flood, that drank the deep below,
Tower'd in its rage o'er Epomeo's pile;
The blast sulphureous from Agnano flows,
And green Astroni's woods the crater's womb enclose.
Ask of yon palace, round whose marble crest
The sea-winds softly breathe;
On what foundation based, securely rest
The pillars of its strength?-Securely rest!
On Herculaneum-on a sea of fire,
Whose deluge swept the revellers from earth
In madness of their mirth:
Their gods, their arts, their science, swept away.
Their winding-sheet a flame; and on their grave,
Where never earth-worm pierced th' unyielding clay, And banqueted on death, the lava lay;
Nor aught remain'd for future time to trace
Save when relentless toil forced up to light
Through the rent rock, whose subterranean bed
Dissevers day from night,
The living from the dead,
Th' equestrian statue, and the fire-bound scroll:
Or, where the torrent, as it ceased to roll,
Slow hardening on a Hebe's living breast,
In the eternal stone that beauteous mould imprest.
Rest, Wanderer, rest! all nature sleeps:
'Tis noon-tide's slumberous hour:
O'er the smooth rock no lizard creeps,
No serpent stirs the bower;
And curtain'd in the blushing rose,
The bees their wearied wings repose.
The bird, at rest, forgets her song,
No cloud through heaven's blue zone
Strays while the noon-sun moves along,
And walks in light alone:
A quiet stills the world of waves,
And sea-nymphs sleep in coral caves.
Then lay thee on my lap to rest,
While lazy suns wheel by,
There dream of her thou fanciest,
And wake, and find her nigh:
And I will lead thee to a grove
Where hangs a lute attuned by love.
That lute by Love to me was lent,
Sweet notes, and sad, there dwell;
Sweet as his voice that wins assent,
Sad as his breathed farewell:
Yet-in its sadness, moving more
Than all that won thy smile before.
Athens of Italy! where Dante's urn?
Was thine the gate that on the Exile closed?
The gate that never witness'd his return?
Not on thy lap his brow in death reposed:
Not, where his cradle rock'd, Death seal'd his eyes; Beneath Ravenna's soil Hetruria's glory lies.
Yet-when o'er stranger earth the Exile stray'd
His thoughts alone had rest
In the loved spot that first his foot had press'd.
His spirit linger'd where the boy had play'd,
And join'd the counsels where the man bore part.
And could his lofty soul have stoop'd to shame,
There had the Eld in peace his breath resign'd.
But to harsh exile with unbending mind
Went Dante, went the muse, went deathless fame;
And his pure soul, where'er the wanderer trod,
Dwelt communing with God.
What recks it that thy sons, in after age,
When centuries had seen his stranger tomb,
Reversed the Exile's doom?
That Florence tore the record from her page,
And woo'd the remnant of his ancient race
To greet their native place?—
They may return, and in their birth-place die,
Shrouded in still obscurity:
But sooner shall the Appennine
On Arno's vale recline,
And Arno's crystal current cease to flow,
Ere that again in man a Dante's genius glow.
I knew a gentle maid: I ne'er shall view
Her like again and yet the vulgar eye
Might pass the charms I traced, regardless by:
For pale her cheek, unmark'd with roseate hue,
Nor beam'd from her mild eye a dazzling glance,
Nor flash'd her nameless graces on the sight:
Yet Beauty never woke such pure delight.
Fine was her form, as Dian's in the dance:
Her voice was music, in her silence dwelt
Expression, every look instinct with thought:
Though oft her mind, by youth to rapture wrought,
Struck forth wild wit, and fancies ever new,
The lightest touch of woe her soul would melt:
And on her lips, when gleam'd a lingering smile,
Pity's warm tear gush'd down her cheek the while:
Thy like, thou gentle maid! I ne'er shall view.
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