Leaves midnight to the golden stars, or wan Climbs with diminished beams the azure steep; Or whether clouds sail o'er the inverse deep, Piloted by the many-wandering blast, And the rare stars rush through them, dim and fast. All this is beautiful in every land. But what see you beside? A shabby stand A wretched woman reeling by, whose curse, Mixed with the watchman's, partner of her trade, You must accept in place of serenade, I see a chaos of green leaves and fruit Of the living stems who feed them, in whose bowers There sleep in their dark dew the folded flowers. A meteor tamed, a fixed star gone astray Rude but made sweet by distance, and a bird I'll have Next winter you must pass with me. With everything belonging to them fair! Though we eat little flesh and drink no wine, Feasting on which we will philosophise. And we'll have fires out of the Grand-Duke's wood, To thaw the six weeks' winter in our blood. Of thought-entangled descant! As to nerves— Sweet meeting by sad parting to renew :- ODE TO NAPLES. EPODE I. α. I STOOD within the city disinterred; And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals The oracular thunder penetrating shook glowed The isle-sustaining ocean-food, A plane of light between two heavens of azure. Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre, Of whose pure beauty Time, as if his pleasure Were to spare Death, had never made erasure; But every living lineament was clear As in the sculptor's thought, and there The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy, and pine, Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, Seemed only not to move and grow Because the crystal silence of the air Weighed on their life, even as the Power divine Which then lulled all things brooded upon mine. EPODE II. α. Then gentle winds arose, With many a mingled close Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen. And where the Baian ocean Welters, with air-like motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, It bore me (like an angel, o'er the waves I sailed where ever flows A spirit of deep emotion From the unknown graves Of the dead kings of melody. Of some ethereal host; Louder and louder, gathering round, there Over the oracular woods and divine sea STROPHE I. a. NAPLES! thou heart of men which ever pantest Naked beneath the lidless eye of heaven! Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea,—they round thee, even As Sleep round Love, are driven ! |