Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, ed. Poems of Places: An Anthology in 31 Volumes.
Italy: Vols. XI–XIII. 1876–79. | | | | Appendix: Cuma (Cumæ) | | Cumæ | | Nicholas Michell (1807–1880) |
| | (From Ruins of Many Lands)
THOU breeze! why bear the violet’s rich perfume? | |
| Ye birds! why soar and sing on wanton plume? | |
| Through the long grass why flow, ye crystal streams? | |
| And why, thou sun! pour down thy gladdening beams? | |
| Cimmerian darkness here its cloud should spread, | 5 |
| And silence claim this City of the Dead. | |
| Cumæ! that lives in Virgil’s matchless lay, | |
| Mother of states ere Rome commenced her sway! | |
| Who braved Etruria’s might, and dared the power | |
| Of Afric’s chief in Carthage’ proudest hour; | 10 |
| Where are her busy forums, merchant-fleets, | |
| Her mustering armies, and her crowded streets? | |
| Where her bronzed shrine that gleamed along the wave, | |
| And, more than all, her Sibyl’s mystic cave? | |
| Pride of Campania! daughter of the sea! | 15 |
| Gone is her wealth, and bowed her majesty; | |
| Where once her palace shone, her towers arose, | |
| Turf wraps the soil, a shadowy forest grows! | |
| There, blent with weeds, the wild-flower wastes its breath, | |
| And beasts and reptiles halve the spot with Death. | 20 | | | |
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