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(From Italy)
ONCE did I linger there alone till day | |
| Closed, and at length the calm of twilight came, | |
| So grateful, yet so solemn! At the fount, | |
| Just where the three ways meet, I stood and looked | |
| (’T was near a noble house, the house of Pansa), | 5 |
| And all was still as in the long, long night | |
| That followed, when the shower of ashes fell, | |
| When they that sought Pompeii sought in vain; | |
| It was not to be found. But now a ray, | |
| Bright and yet brighter, on the pavement glanced, | 10 |
| And on the wheel-track worn for centuries, | |
| And on the stepping-stones from side to side, | |
| O’er which the maidens with their water-urns | |
| Were wont to trip so lightly. Full and clear | |
| The moon was rising, and at once revealed | 15 |
| The name of every dweller and his craft; | |
| Shining throughout with an unusual lustre, | |
| And lighting up this City of the Dead. | |
| Mark where within, as though the embers lived, | |
| The ample chimney-vault is dun with smoke. | 20 |
| There dwelt a miller; silent and at rest | |
| His mill-stones now. In old companionship | |
| Still do they stand as on the day he went, | |
| Each ready for its office,—but he comes not. | |
| And there, hard by (where one in idleness | 25 |
| Has stopt to scrawl a ship, an armed man; | |
| And in a tablet on the wall we read | |
| Of shows erelong to be) a sculptor wrought, | |
| Nor meanly; blocks, half chiselled into life, | |
| Waiting his call. Here long, as yet attests | 30 |
| The trodden floor, an olive-merchant drew | |
| From many an earthen jar, no more supplied; | |
| And here from his a vintner served his guests | |
| Largely, the stain of his o’erflowing cups | |
| Fresh on the marble. On the bench, beneath, | 35 |
| They sate and quaffed and looked on them that passed, | |
| Gravely discussing the last news from Rome. | |
| But lo, engraven on a threshold-stone, | |
| That word of courtesy so sacred once, | |
| “Hail!” At a master’s greeting we may enter. | 40 |
| And lo, a fairy-palace! everywhere, | |
| As through the courts and chambers we advance, | |
| Floors of mosaic, walls of arabesque, | |
| And columns clustering in Patrician splendor. | |
| But hark, a footstep! may we not intrude? | 45 |
| And now, methinks, I hear a gentle laugh, | |
| And gentle voices mingling as in converse! | |
| And now a harp-string as struck carelessly, | |
| And now—along the corridor it comes,— | |
| I cannot err,—a filling as of baths! | 50 |
| Ah, no, ’t is but a mockery of the sense, | |
| Idle and vain! We are but where we were; | |
| Still wandering in a City of the Dead! | |
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