No track of men, no footsteps to and fro, Lead to her gates. The path lies o'er the Sea, Invisible; and from the land we went,
As to a floating City, steering in, And gliding up her streets as in a dream, So smoothly, silently, - by many a dome Mosque-like, and many a stately portico, The statues ranged along an azure sky; By many a pile in more than Eastern splendor, Of old the residence of merchant kings; The fronts of some, though Time had shattered them,
Still glowing with the richest hues of art, As though the wealth within them had run o'er. A few in fear,
Flying away from him whose boast it was That the grass grew not where his horse had trod,
Gave birth to Venice. Like the waterfowl, They built their nests among the ocean waves; And where the sands were shifting, as the wind Blew from the north, the south; where they that
Had to make sure the ground they stood upon, Rose, like an exhalation, from the deep, A vast Metropolis, with glittering spires, With theaters, basilicas adorned; A scene of light and glory, a dominion, That has endured the longest among men.
And whence the talisman by which she rose Towering? 'T was found there in the barren
Want led to Enterprise; and, far or near, Who met not the Venetian?- now in Cairo; Ere yet the Califa came, listening to hear Its bells approaching from the Red Sea coast; Now on the Euxine, on the Sea of Azoph, In converse with the Persian, with the Russ, The Tartar; on his lowly deck receiving Pearls from the gulf of Ormus, gems from Bagdad, Eyes brighter yet, that shed the light of love From Georgia, from Circassia. Wandering round, When in the rich bazaar he saw, displayed, Treasures from unknown climes, away he went, From the well-head supplying all below; And, traveling slowly upward, drew erelong Making the Imperial City of the East Herself his tributary.
She who had stood yet longer than the longest Of the Four Kingdoms, who, as in an Ark, Had floated down amid a thousand wrecks, Uninjured, from the Old World to the New.
I AM in Rome! Oft as the morning ray Visits these eyes, waking at once I cry, Whence this excess of joy? What has befallen
And from within a thrilling voice replies, Thou art in Rome! A thousand busy thoughts Rush on my mind, a thousand images ; And I spring up as girt to run a race!
Thou art in Rome! the City that so long Reigned absolute, the mistress of the world; The mighty vision that the prophets saw,
THE stars are forth, the moon above the tops Of the snow-shining mountains. - Beautiful!
I linger yet with Nature, for the night Hath been to me a more familiar face Than that of man; and in her starry shade Of dim and solitary loveliness
I learned the language of another world. I do remember me, that in my youth, When I was wandering, - upon such a night I stood within the Coliseum's wall, Midst the chief relics of almighty Rome. The trees which grew along the broken arches Waved dark in the blue midnight, and the stars Shone through the rents of ruin; from afar The watch-dog bayed beyond the Tiber; and More near, from out the Cæsars' palace came The owl's long cry, and, interruptedly, Of distant sentinels the fitful song
And trembled; that from nothing, from the Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
The lowliest village (what but here and there A reed-roofed cabin by a river-side ?) Grew into everything; and, year by year, Patiently, fearlessly working her way O'er brook and field, o'er continent and sea, Not like the merchant with his merchandise, Or traveler with staff and scrip exploring, But hand to hand and foot to foot through hosts, Through nations numberless in battle array, Each behind each, each, when the other fell, Up and in arms, at length subdued them all.
THE GRECIAN TEMPLES AT PESTUM.
IN Pæstum's ancient fanes I trod, And mused on those strange men of old, Whose dark religion could infold So many gods, and yet no God!
Did they to human feelings own, And had they human souls indeed, Or did the sternness of their creed Frown their faint spirits into stone?
The southern breezes fan my face ;- I hear the hum of bees arise, And lizards dart, with mystic eyes, That shrine the secret of the place!
These silent columns speak of dread, Of lovely worship without love; And yet the warm, deep heaven above Whispers a softer tale instead!
ROSSITER W. RAYMOND.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach Appeared to skirt the horizon, yet they stood Within a bowshot, where the Cæsars dwelt, And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst A grove which springs through leveled battle- ments,
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths. Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth ;- But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands, A noble wreck in ruinous perfection, While Caesar's chambers and the Augustan halls Grovel on earth in indistinct decay. - And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon All this, and cast a wide and tender light, Which softened down the hoar austerity Of rugged desolation, and filled up, As 't were anew, the of centuries, gaps Leaving that beautiful which still was so, And making that which was not, till the place Became religion, and the heart ran o'er With silent worship of the great of old !- The dead, but sceptered sovereigns, who still rule Our spirits from their urns.
ARCHES on arches! as it were that Rome, Collecting the chief trophies of her line, Would build up all her triumphs in one dome, Her Coliseum stands; the moonbeams shine As 't were its natural torches, for divine Should be the light which streams here, to illume This long-explored, but still exhaustless, mine
On the arena void, seats crushed, walls bowed, And galleries, where my steps seem echoes strangely loud.
A ruin, yet what ruin! from its mass Walls, palaces, half-cities, have been reared; Yet oft the enormous skeleton ye pass, And marvel where the spoil could have appeared. Hath it indeed been plundered, or but cleared? Alas! developed, opens the decay, When the colossal fabric's form is neared; It will not bear the brightness of the day, have Which streams too much on all years, man, reft away.
But when the rising moon begins to climb Its topmost arch, and gently pauses there; When the stars twinkle through the loops of time,
And the low night-breeze waves along the air The garland-forest, which the gray walls wear, Like laurels on the bald first Cæsar's head; When the light shines serene, but doth not glare,
Then in this magic circle raise the dead; Heroes have trod this spot, - 't is on their dust ye tread.
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