30.

Blest and thrice blest the Roman
Who sees Rome's brightest day,
Who sees that long victorious pomp
Wind down the Sacred Way,
And through the bellowing Forum,
And round the Suppliant's Grove,
Up to the everlasting gates
Of Capitolian Jove.

31.

Then where, o'er two bright havens, The towers of Corinth frown; Where the gigantic King of day

On his own Rhodes looks down;

Where soft Orontes murmurs
Beneath the laurel shades;
Where Nile reflects the endless length
Of dark-red colonnades;
Where in the still deep water,

Sheltered from waves and blasts,
Bristles the dusky forest

Of Byrsa's thousand masts; Where fur-clad ers wander Amidst the Northern ice; Where through the sand of morning-land The camel bears the spice; Where Atlas flings his shadow Far o'er the Western foam, Shall be great fear on all who hear The mighty name of Rome."

On! land to Memory and to Freedom dear, Land of the melting lyre and conquering spear, Land of the vine-clad hill, the fragrant grove, Of arts and arms, of Genius and of Love, Hear, fairest Italy. Though now no more The glittering eagles awe the Atlantic shore, Nor at thy feet the gorgeous Orient flings The blood-bought treasures of her tawny Kings, Though vanished all that formed thine old renown, The laurel garland, and the jewelled crown, The avenging poniard, the victorious sword, Which reared thine empire, or thy rights restored, Yet still the constant Muses haunt thy shore, And love to linger where they dwelt of yore. If e'er of old they deigned, with favouring smile, To tread the sea-girt shores of Albion's isle, To smooth with classic arts our rugged tongue, And warm with classic glow the British song, Oh! bid them snatch their silent harps which wave On the lone oak that shades thy Maro's grave," And sweep with magic hand the slumbering strings, To fire the poet.-For thy clime he sings, Thy scenes of gay delight and wild despair, Thy varied forms of awful and of fair.

How rich that climate's sweets, how wild its

storms,

What charms array it, and what rage deforms, Well have they mouldering walls, Pompeii, known, Decked in those charms, and by that rage o'erthrown.

Sad City, gayly dawned thy latest day,
And poured its radiance on a scene as gay.
The leaves scarce rustled in the sighing breeze;
In azure dimples curled the sparkling seas,
And as the golden tide of light they quaffed,
Campania's sunny meads and vineyards laughed,
While gleamed each lichened oak and giant pine
On the far sides of swarthy Apennine.

Then mirth and music through Pompeii rung;
Then verdant wreaths on all her portals hung;
Her sons with solemn rite and jocund lay,
Hailed the glad splendours of that festal day.
With fillets bound the hoary priests advance,
And rosy virgins braid the choral dance.
The rugged warrior here unbends awhile
His iron front, and deigns a transient smile;
There, frantic with delight, the ruddy boy
Scarce treads on earth, and bounds and laughs with
joy.

From every crowded altar perfumes rise
In billowy clouds of fragrance to the skies.
The milk-white monarch of the herd they lead,
With gilded horns, at yonder shrine to bleed;
And while the victim crops the broidered plain,
And frisks and gambols towards the destined fane,
They little deem that like himself they stray
To death, unconscious, o'er a flowery way;

Heedless, like him, the impending stroke await, And sport and wanton on the brink of fate.

What 'vails it that where yonder heights aspire, With ashes piled, and scathed with rills of fire, Gigantic phantoms dimly seem to glide, In misty files, along the mountain's side, To view with threatening scowl your fated lands, And toward your city point their shadowy hands? In vain celestial omens prompted fear, And nature's signal spoke the ruin near. In vain through many a night ye viewed from far 'The meteor flag of elemental war Unroll its blazing folds from yonder height, In fearful sign of earth's intestine fight. In vain Vesuvius groaned with wrath supprest, And muttered thunder in his burning breast. Long since the Eagle from that flaming peak Hath soared with screams a safer nest to seek. Awed by the infernal beacon's fitful glare, The howling fox hath left his wonted lair; Nor dares the browsing goat in venturous leap To spring, as erst, from dizzy steep to steep.Man only mocks the peril. Man alone Defies the sulphurous flame, the warning groan. While instinct, humbler guardian, wakes and saves, Proud reason sleeps, nor knows the doom it braves. But see the opening theatre invites The fated myriads to its gay delights. In, in, they swarm, tumultuous as the roar Of foaming breakers on a rocky shore. The enraptured throng in breathless transport views The gorgeous temple of the Tragic Muse. There, while her wand in shadowy pomp arrays Ideal scenes, and forms of other days, Fair as the hopes of youth, a radiant band, The sister arts around her footstool stand, To deck their Queen, and lend a milder grace To the stern beauty of that awful face. Far, far, around the ravished eye surveys The sculptured forms of Gods and heroes blaze. Above the echoing roofs the peal prolong Of lofty converse, or melodious song, While, as the tones of passion sink or swell, Admiring thousands own the moral spell, Melt with the melting strains of fancied wo, With terror sicken, or with transport glow.

Oh! for a voice like that which pealed of old Through Salem's cedar courts and shrines of gold, And in wild accents round the trembling dome Proclaimed the havoc of avenging Rome; While every palmy arch and sculptured tower Shook with the footsteps of the parting power. Such voice might check your tears, which idly streami For the vain phantoms of the poet's dream.

[cloud

[height,

Might bid those terrors rise, those sorrows flow;
For other perils, and for nearer wo.
The hour is come. Even now the sulphurous
Involves the city in its funeral shroud,
And far along Campania's azure sky
Expands its dark and boundless canopy.
The Sun, though throned on heaven's meridian
Burns red and rayless through that sickly night.
Each bosom felt at once the shuddering 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 through 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 towards the narrow pass
In wild confusion rolls the iving mass.
Death-when thy shadowy sceptre waves away
From his sad couch the prisoner of decay,
Though friendship view the close with glistening eye,
And love's fond lips imbibe the parting sigh,
By torture racked, by kindness soothed in vain,
The soul still clings to being and to pain.
But when have wilder terrors clothed thy brow,
Or keener torments edged thy dart than now,
When with thy regal horrors vainly strove
The law 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
Towards yonder well-known face the accusing gaze;
See trampled to the earth the expiring maid
Clings round her lover's feet, and shrieks for aid.
Vain is the imploring glance, the frenzied 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 scattered o'er the vale
Her drifted flames and sheets of burning hail,
Shook hell's wan lightnings from his blazing cone,
And gilded heaven with meteors not its own?

The morn all blushing rose; but sought in vain
The snowy villas and the flowery plain,
The purpled hills with marshalled vineyards gay,
The doines that sparkled in the sunny ray.
Where art or nature late hath deck'd the scene
With blazing marble or with spangled green,
There, streaked 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 mute.Mute!-Is it Fancy shapes that wailing sound Which faintly murmurs 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 the incumbent plain And ruined 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 prisoner in the house of Death? Pale as the corpse which loads the funeral pile, With face convulsed that writhes a ghastly smile, Behold him speechless move with hurried pace, Incessant, round his dungeon's caverned space, Now shrink 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 destined close, And lull the horrid scene to stern repose.

Yet ere, dire Fiend, thy lingering tortures cease, And all be hushed 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 through the silent city of the dead. Explore each spot, where still, in ruin grand, Her shapeless piles and tottering columns stand, Where the pale ivy's clasping wreaths o'ershade The rained temple's moss-clad colonnade, Or violets on the hearth's cold marble wave, And muse in silence on a people's grave.

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 odorous shrubs and tufted myrtles crowned:
Beneath, o'ergrown with grass, or wreathed with
flowers,

Lie tombs and temples, columns, baths, and towers.
As if, in mockery, Nature seems to dress
In all her charms the beauteous wilderness,
And bids her gayest flowerets twine and bloom
In sweet profusion o'er a city's tomb.
With roses here she decks the 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 mouldering room.
With tapestry from her own fantastic loom,
Wallflowers 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,t
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 through crumbling halls,
Through prostrate gates and ivied pedestals,
Arches, whose echoes now no chariots rouse,
Tombs, on whose summits goats undaunted browse.
See where yon ruined wall on earth reclines,
Through 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

Immortal spirits, in whose deathless song Latium and Athens yet their reign prolong, And from their thrones of fame and empire hurled, Still sway the sceptre of the mental world, You in whose breasts the flames of Pindus beamed, Whose copious lips with rich persuasion streamed, Whose minds unravelled nature's mystic plan, Or traced the mazy labyrinth of man: Bend, glorious spirits, from your blissful bowers, And broidered 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 each glorions name. Behold Pompeii's opening vaults restore The long-lost treasures of your ancient lore, The vestal radiance of poetic fire, The stately buskin and the tuneful lyre,

* The capital of the Corinthian pillar is carved, as in well known, in imitation of the acanthus. Mons, de Chateaubriand, as I have found since this Poem was written, has employed the same image in his Travels. + It is the custom of the modern Greeks to adorn corpses profusely with flowers