The sun tho' thron'd on heav'n's meridian height,
Burns red and rayless thro' that sickly night.
Each bosom felt at once the shudd'ring thrill.
At once the music stopped. The song was still.
None in that cloud's portentous shade might trace
The fearful changes of another's face;

But thro' that horrid stillness each could hear
His neighbour's throbbing heart beat high with fear.
A moment's pause succeeds. Then wildly rise
Grief's sobbing plaints and terror's frantic cries.
The gates recoil; and tow'rds the narrow pass,
In wild confusion rolls the living mass.
Death-when thy shadowy sceptre waves away
From his sad couch the pris'ner of decay.

Tho' friendship view the close with glist'ning eye,
And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh,
By torture rack'd, by kindness sooth'd in vain,
The soul still clings to being and to pain;
But when have wilder terrors cloth'd thy brow,
Or keener torments edg'd thy dart than now;
When with thy regal honours vainly strove
The laws of nature and the power of Love?
On mothers, babes in vain for mercy call,
Beneath the feet of brothers, brothers fall.
Behold the dying wretch in vain upraise
Tow'rds yonder well-known face the accusing gaze.
See, trampl'd to the earth, th' expiring maid
Clings round her lover's feet, and shrieks for aid.
Vain is th' imploring glance, the frenzy'd cry;
All, all is fear;-to succour is to die.
Saw ye how wild, how red, how broad a light
Burst on the darkness of that mid-day night;
As fierce Vesuvius scatter'd o'er the vale

His drifted flames, and sheets of burning hail;
Shook hell's wan light'ning from his blazing cone,
And gilded heav'n with meteors not its own.
The morn all blushing rose; but sought in vain
The snowy villas and the flow'ry plain;
The purple hills, with marshall'd vineyards gay,
The domes that sparkled in the sunny ray,
Where art or nature late had deck'd the scene
With blazing marble or with spangled green,
There, streak'd by many a fiery torrent's bed
A boundless waste of hoary ashes spread.

Along that dreary waste where lately rung The festal lay which smiling virgins sung; Where rapture echoed from the warbling lute, And the gay dance resounded, all is muteMute! Is it Fancy shapes that warbling sound Which faintly murmured from the blasted ground: Or live there still, who, breathing in the tomb, Curse the dark refuge which delays their doom, In massive vaults, on which th' incumbent plain And ruin'd city heap their weight in vain ?

Oh! who may sing that hour of mortal strife When Nature calls on Death, yet clings to life? Who paint the wretch that draws sepulchral breath, A living pris'ner in the house of death,

Pale as the corpse which loads the fun'ral pile,
With face convuls'd that writhes a ghastly smile.
Behold him, speechless, move with hurry'd pace
Incessant, round his dungeon's cavern'd space,
Now shriek in terror, and now groan in pain
Gnaw his white lips, and strike his burning brain,
Till Fear o'erstrained in stupor dies away,

And Madness wrests her victim from dismay.

His arms sink down; his wild and stony eye
Glares without sight on blackest vacancy.

He feels not, sees not; wrapped in senseless trance,
His soul is still and listless as his glance.
One cheerless blank, one rayless mist is there,
Thoughts, senses, passions, live not with despair.
Haste, Famine, haste, to urge the destin'd close
And lull the horrid scene to stern repose.
Yet ere, dire Fiend, thy ling'ring tortures cease,
And all lie hush'd in still sepulchral peace.
Those caves shall wilder, darker deeds behold
Than e'er the voice of song or fable told,
Whate'er dismay may prompt, or madness dare
Feasts of the grave, and banquets of despair,-
Hide, hide the scene; and o'er the blasting sight
Fling the dark veil of ages and of night.

Go, seek Pompeii now;-with pensive tread,
Roam thro' the silent city of the dead;
Explore each spot, where still in ruin grand
Her shapeless piles, and tott'ring columns stand,
Where the pale ivy's clasping wreaths o'ershade
The ruin'd temple's moss clad colonnade,

Fear not-No sign of death thine eyes shall scare,
No, all is beauty, verdure, fragrance there;

A gentle slope includes the fatal ground

With od'rous shrubs and tufted myrtles crowned;
Beneath, o'ergrown with grass or wreath'd with flowers,

Lie tombs and temples, columns, baths and towers-
As if in mock'ry Nature seems to dress

In all her charms the beauteous wilderness,
And bids her gayest flow'rets twine and bloom

In sweet profusion o'er a city's tomb.

With roses here she decks th' untrodden path,
With lilies fringes, there the stately bath,

*

The Acanthus spreading foliage, here she weaves
Round the gay capital which mocks its leaves,
There hangs the sides of every mould'ring room
With tap'stry from her own fantastic loom,
Wallflow'rs and weeds, whose glowing hues supply
With simple grace the purple's Tyrian dye.
The ruined city sleeps in fragrant shade,
Like the pale corpse of some Athenian maid,†
Whose marble arms, cold brows and snowy neck,
The fairest flowers of fairest climates deck,

Meet types of her whose form their wreaths array,
Of radiant beauty and of swift decay.

Advance and wander on thro' crumbling halls,

Thro' prostrate gates and ivy'd pedestals,
Arches, whose echoes now no chariots rouse;

Tombs, on whose summits goats undaunted browse.

See, where yon ruin'd wall on earth reclines,
Thro' weeds and moss, the half-seen painting shines,
Still vivid 'midst the dewy cowslips glows,

Or blends its colours with the blushing rose.
Thou lovely, ghastly scene of fair decay,

In beauty awful, and midst horrors gay.
Renown more wide, more bright shall gild thy name
Than thy wild charms or fearful doom could claim.

The capital of the Corinthian pillars is carved, as is well known, in imitation of the Acanthus. M. de Chateaubriand, as I have found since this poem was written, has employed the same image in his travels.

It is the custom of modern Greeks to adorn their corpses profusely with flowers

Immortal spirits, in whose deathless song
Latium and Athens yet their reign prolong,

And from their thrones of fame and empire hurl'd,
Still sway the sceptre of the mental world.

You, in whose breasts the flame of Pindus beamed,
Whose copious lips with rich persuasion stream'd,
Whose minds unravell'd nature's mystic plan,

Or traced the mazy Labyrinth of man.

Bend, glorious spirits from your blissful bowers,
And broider'd couches of unfading flowers,
While round your locks the Elysian garlands blow,
With sweeter odours and with brighter glow.
Once more, immortal shades, atoning fame,
Repairs the honours of such glorious name.
Behold Pompeii's op'ning vaults restore
The long-lost treasures of your ancient lore,
The vestal radiance of poetic fire,
The stately buskin and the tuneful lyre.
The wand of eloquence whose magic sway
The sceptres and the swords of earth obey,
And every mighty spell whose strong control
Could nerve or melt, could fire or soothe the soul.
And thou, sad City, raise thy drooping head,
And share the honours of the glorious dead.
Had Fate repriev'd thee till the frozen North
Pour'd in wild swarms its hoarded millions forth,
Til blazing cities mark'd where Alboïn trod,

Or Europe quak'd beneath the "scourge of God."*
No lasting wreath had grac'd thy fun'ral pall,

No fame redeem'd the horrors of thy fall.

Now shall thy deathless mem'ry live entwined

With all that conquers, rules, or charms the mind,
Each lofty thought of poet or of sage,

Each grace of Virgil's lyre or Tully's page.

Like theirs whose genius consecrates thy tomb,

Thy fame shall snatch from time a greener bloom,

Shall spread where'er the Muse has reared her throne,

And live renown'd in accents yet unknown.

Earth's utmost bounds shall join the glad acclaim,

And distant Camus bless Pompeii's name.

The well-known name of Attila.

II.

EVENING.

A POEM WHICH OBTAINED THE CHANCELLOR'S MEDAL AT
CAMBRIDGE COMMENCEMENT, JULY 1821.

FAIR hour of Poesy's and Passion's dreams,
Of sweetest breezes, and of purest beams,
Rich clouds, and twinkling stars, and balmy dews,
Come, loveliest theme, and be thyself my muse;
Breathe o'er the lay which fondly tells thy praise,
The splendour of thine own voluptuous rays,
The colours of thy bright and varying skies,
The music of thine airy melodies.
For I have loved thee, Evening-I have felt
My soul beneath thy gentle influence melt,
Which lends to every scene and every tone
A mild and pensive softness all its own.
The shadows lengthen'd by the sloping light,
The gleam which lingers on the purple height,
The gale that whispers through the cool arcade,
Form'd by the dark green chestnut's massy shade,
The lake, which burns one sheet of yellow fire;
The knell resounding from the distant spire,
The echoes which the circling hills prolong,
The rapture of the wild bird's piercing song.
Ev'n the rich music of the mellow horn,
Which swells so jocund on the breeze of morn
The blithest sounds, the gayest forms receive
A tinge of sadness from the spells of Eve.
The spirit of sweet melancholy floats
O'er all her scenes, and thrills in all her notes,
Breathes in the fragrant languor of her sigh,
Weeps in her dews, and blushes in her sky.

How sweet it is at that enchanting hour,
When earth is fresh with April's sunny shower,

To wander thro' some green and quiet lane,

O'erhung with briers and wild flowers moist with rain,

And view the Sun descending to his rest,

Lead his bright triumph down the gorgeous west,

Amidst the glories of that radiant sky,

Dun wreaths of cloud, with crimson dappled lie,

THE