Like Cyclopses in Vulcan's sooty abysm, Beating their swords to ploughshares;—in a band The gaolers sent those of the liberal schism Free through the streets of Memphis ; much, I wis, To the annoyance of king Amasis. LXXVI. And timid lovers who had been so coy, They hardly knew whether they loved or not, Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy, To the fulfilment of their inmost thought; And when next day the maiden and the boy Met one another, both, like sinners caught, Blushed at the thing which each believed was done Only in fancy-till the tenth moon shone; LXXVII. And then the Witch would let them take no ill: She did unite again with visions clear LXXVIII. These were the pranks she played among the cities Of mortal men, and what she did to sprites And Gods, entangling them in her sweet ditties, To do her will, and show their subtle slights, I will declare another time; for it is A tale more fit for the weird winter nightsThan for these garish summer days, when we Scarcely believe much more than we can see. TO THE MOON. ART thou pale for weariness Of climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionless Among the stars that have a different birth, And ever-changing, like a joyless eye That finds no object worth its constancy? I STOOD within the city disinterred; † And heard the autumnal leaves like light foot falls Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The isle-sustaining Ocean flood, A plane of light between two heavens of azure: Around me gleamed many a bright sepulchre Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure Were to spare Death, bad never made erasure ; * The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baie with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes, which depicture the scenes and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.-Author's Note. † Pompeii. But every living lineament was clear As in the sculptor's thought; and there The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine, Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow, Seemed only not to move and grow Because the crystal silence of the air Weighed on their life; even as the power divine, Which then lulled all things, brooded upon mine. EPODE II. a. Then gentle winds arose, With many a mingled close Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen; And where the Baian ocean Welters with air-like motion, Within, above, around its bowers of starry green, It bore me; (like an Angel, o'er the waves I sailed where ever flows A spirit of deep emotion, Of the dead kings of melody.* * Homer and Virgil. The horizontal æther; heaven stript bare There streamed a sunlit vapour, like the standard Of some ethereal host; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea They seize me-I must speak them;-be they fate! STROPHE a. 1. NAPLES! thou Heart of men, which ever pantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, Which armed Victory offers up unstained Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, |