Were silent with love, as you now, Its mother's face with heaven's collected Apollo, tears, With envy of my sweet pipings. When the low wind, its playmate's voice, And bulrushes, and reeds of such deep See, the bounds of the air are shaken— see the light, and I hear the sound; I'll sail on the flood of the tempest dark, Within my hand, and then, elate With the calm within and the light and gay, I hastened to the spot whence I had come, That I might there present it!-oh! to whom? THE TWO SPIRITS: AN ALLEGORY First Spirit O THOU, who plumed with strong desire Bright are the regions of the air, The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals Thrill through those roofless halls; The oracular thunder penetrating shook The listening soul in my suspended blood; I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke I felt, but heard not:-through white columns glowed The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood, 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 1 The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baie with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of No storm can overwhelm; From the unknown graves Of the dead kings of Melody.3 Shadowy Aornos darkened o'er the helm The horizontal ether; heaven stript bare Its depths over Elysium, where the prow Made the invisible water white as snow; Of some ethereal host; of the majestic feelings permanently connected Over the oracular woods and divine sea with the scene of this animating event. 2 Pompeii. 3 Homer and Virgil. As sleep round Love, are driven ! Metropolis of a ruined Paradise Be thou like the imperial Basilisk Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on oppression, till at that dread risk Aghast she pass from the Earth's disk: Long lost, late won, and yet but half Fear not, but gaze-for freemen mightier regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, Which armed Victory offers up unstained To Love, the flower-enchained ! Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free, If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail, Hail, hail, all hail! Though from their hundred gates the Didst With hurried legions move! throne of God: That wealth, surviving fate, Be thine.-All hail! From land to land re-echoed solemnly, To the cold Alps, eternal Italy 1 Ææa, the island of Circe. Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move For the high prize lost on Philippi's All things which live and are, within the shore: As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail! EPODE I B Hear ye the march as of the Earth-born Forms Arrayed against the ever-living Gods? Italian shore; Who spreadest heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, sur round it; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor, Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison From the Earth's bosom chill; The crash and darkness of a thousand O bid those beams be each a blinding |