ANGEL or demon! thou—whether of light | |
| The minister, or darkness—still dost sway | |
| This age of ours; thine eagle’s soaring flight | |
| Bears us, all breathless, after it away. | |
| The eye that from thy presence fain would stray | 5 |
| Shuns thee in vain; thy mighty shadow thrown | |
| Rests on all pictures of the living day, | |
| And on the threshold of our time alone, | |
| Dazzling, yet sombre, stands thy form, Napoleon! | |
| |
| Thus, when the admiring stranger’s steps explore | 10 |
| The subject-lands that ’neath Vesuvius be, | |
| Whether he wind along the enchanting shore | |
| To Portici from fair Parthenope, | |
| Or, lingering long in dreamy revery, | |
| O’er loveliest Ischia’s od’rous isle he stray, | 15 |
| Wooed by whose breath the soft and am’rous sea | |
| Seems like some languishing sultana’s lay, | |
| A voice for very sweets that scarce can win its way: | |
| |
| Him, whether Pæstum’s solemn fane detain, | |
| Shrouding his soul with meditation’s power; | 20 |
| Or at Pozzuoli, to the sprightly strain | |
| Of tarantella danced ’neath Tuscan tower, | |
| Listening, he while away the evening hour; | |
| Or wake the echoes, mournful, lone, and deep, | |
| Of that sad city, in its dreaming bower | 25 |
| By the volcano seized, where mansions keep | |
| The likeness which they wore at that last fatal sleep; | |
| |
| Or be his bark at Posilippo laid, | |
| While as the swarthy boatman at his side | |
| Chants Tasso’s lays to Virgil’s pleasèd shade,— | 30 |
| Ever he sees throughout that circuit wide, | |
| From shaded nook or sunny lawn espied, | |
| From rocky headland viewed, or flow’ry shore, | |
| From sea and spreading mead alike descried, | |
| The Giant Mount, tow’ring all objects o’er, | 35 |
| And black’ning with its breath th’ horizon evermore! | |
| |
