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(From Verses Written in a Letter)
* * * * * THE FIRES of Vesta’s temple sleep, | |
| That crowns the perforated steep; | |
| But the dim world of pagan lore | |
| The museful soul entrances o’er: | |
| With shiver pierce we Neptune’s cave, | 5 |
| In grim recess doth Sibyl rave, | |
| Sharp tossing back with gloomy ire | |
| Her tresses scorched by eye of fire. | |
| And, but for gaudy, whitewashed cell, | |
| Where folks their wayside prayers may tell, | 10 |
| Where Virgin, daubed on plastered wall, | |
| Smiles from behind wax tapers small, | |
| And but for Cross, that meek sign, fraught | |
| With wondrous truths, to man since taught, | |
| Enthusiastic, one might feign | 15 |
| A life mid the old gods again, | |
| Beneath the jocund sway of Pan, | |
| And all the marbled dreams of man. | |
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| See there arise in memory’s pride, | |
| Bosomed upon the far hillside | 20 |
| The villa-homes of mirth and song, | |
| Once filled by many a courtly throng; | |
| Where Time, some idle feathers shed, | |
| Sits spell-bound dreaming o’er the dead: | |
| Catullus! Horace! Patron sweet! | 25 |
| Whom their bright strains were wont to greet, | |
| Mecænas! by what wondrous doom | |
| Those gay retreats live now your tomb, | |
| More durable than kings have made, | |
| With sceptred glories bright inlaid. * * * * * | 30 |
| Through Adrian’s palace let us stray, | |
| And mark each slippery wall’s decay, | |
| The crumbling bath, the cellar bare, | |
| The hueless fresco rotting there; | |
| Whilst strange, exotic plants are found | 35 |
| Neglected shooting from the ground; | |
| Ere yet those halls of rich delight | |
| Were finished in the sun’s proud light | |
| By their Imperial lord’s command, | |
| From every distant conquered land, | 40 |
| And Eastern shore, luxurious brought;— | |
| O lesson strangely, simply taught! | |
| Nature to them, in sport and glee, | |
| New slender life doth still decree, | |
| Art’s stern magnificence around | 45 |
| Falls silent, tomb-like, to the ground. * * * * * | |
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