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A Rhapsody, Written at Naples
MINE are these waves, and mine the twilight depths | |
| O’er which they roll, and all these tufted isles | |
| That lift their backs like dolphins from the deep, | |
| And all these sunny shores that gird us round! | |
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| Listen! O, listen to the sea-maid’s shell; | 5 |
| Ye who have wandered hither from far climes, | |
| (Where the coy Summer yields but half her sweets) | |
| To breathe my bland, luxurious airs, and drink | |
| My sunbeams! and to revel in a land | |
| Where Nature, decked out like a bride to meet | 10 |
| Her lover, lays forth all her charms, and smiles | |
| Languidly bright, voluptuously gay, | |
| Sweet to the sense, and tender to the heart. | |
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| Listen! O, listen to the sea-maid’s shell; | |
| Ye who have fled your natal shores in hate | 15 |
| Or anger, urged by pale disease, or want, | |
| Or grief, that, clinging like the spectre bat, | |
| Sucks drop by drop the life-blood from the heart, | |
| And hither come to learn forgetfulness | |
| Or to prolong existence! ye shall find | 20 |
| Both,—though the spring Lethean flow no more, | |
| There is a power in these entrancing skies | |
| And murmuring waters and delicious airs, | |
| Felt in the dancing spirits and the blood, | |
| And falling on the lacerated heart | 25 |
| Like balm, until that life becomes a boon, | |
| Which elsewhere is a burthen and a curse. | |
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| Hear then, O, hear the sea-maid’s airy shell; | |
| Listen, O listen! ’t is the siren sings,— | |
| The spirit of the deep,—Parthenope,— | 30 |
| She who did once i’ the dreamy days of old | |
| Sport on these golden sands beneath the moon, | |
| Or poured the ravishing music of her song | |
| Over the silent waters, and bequeathed | |
| To all these sunny capes and dazzling shores | 35 |
| Her own immortal beauty and her name. | |
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