| |
| MIDWAY betwixt the present and the past, | |
| Naples and Pæstum, look! Sorrento lies: | |
| Ulysses built it, and the Sirens cast | |
| Their spell upon the shore, the sea, the skies. | |
| |
| If thou hast dreamed, in any dream of thine, | 5 |
| How Paradise appears, or those Elysian | |
| Immortal meadows which the gods assign | |
| Unto the pure of heart,—behold thy vision! | |
| |
| These waters, they are blue beyond belief, | |
| Nor hath green England greener fields than these: | 10 |
| The sun,—’t is Italy’s; here winter ’s brief | |
| And gentle visit hardly chills the breeze. | |
| |
| Here Tasso dwelt, and here inhaled with spring | |
| The breath of passion and the soul of song. | |
| Here young Boccaccio plumed his early wing, | 15 |
| Thenceforth to soar above the vulgar throng. | |
| |
| All charms of contrast—every nameless grace | |
| That lives in outline, harmony, or hue— | |
| So heighten all the romance of the place, | |
| That the rapt artist maddens at the view, | 20 |
| |
| And then despairs, and throws his pencil by, | |
| And sits all day and looks upon the shore | |
| And the calm ocean with a languid eye, | |
| As though to labor were a law no more. | |
| |
| Voluptuous coast! no wonder that the proud | 25 |
| Imperial Roman found in yonder isle | |
| Some sunshine still to gild Fate’s gathering cloud, | |
| And lull the storm of conscience for a while. | |
| |
| What new Tiberius, tired of lust and life, | |
| May rest him here to give the world a truce,— | 30 |
| A little truce from perjury and strife, | |
| Justice adulterate and power’s misuse? | |
| |
| Might the gross Bourbon,—he that sleeps in spite | |
| Of red Vesuvius ever in his eye, | |
| Yet, if he wake, should tremble at its light, | 35 |
| As ’t were Heaven’s vengeance, promised from on high,— | |
| |
| Or that poor gamester, of so cunning play, | |
| Who, up at last, in Fortune’s fickle dance, | |
| Aping the mighty in so mean a way, | |
| Makes now his dice the destinies of France,— | 40 |
| |
| Might they, or any of Oppression’s band, | |
| Sit here and learn the lesson of the scene, | |
| Peace might return to many a bleeding land, | |
| And men grow just again, and life serene. | |
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