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(From Ruins of Many Lands)
CROSS Adria’s gulf, and land where softly glide | |
| A stream’s crisp waves, to join blue Ocean’s tide; | |
| Still westward hold thy way, till Alps look down | |
| On old Verona’s walled and classic town. | |
| Fair is the prospect; palace, tower, and spire, | 5 |
| And blossomed grove, the eye might well admire; | |
| Heaven-piercing mountains capped with endless snow, | |
| Where winter reigns, and frowns on earth below; | |
| Old castles crowning many a craggy steep, | |
| From which in silver sounding torrents leap: | 10 |
| Southward the plain where Summer builds her bowers, | |
| And floats on downy gales the soul of flowers; | |
| Where orange-blossoms glad the honeyed bee, | |
| And vines in festoons wave from tree to tree; | |
| While, like a streak of sky from heaven let fall, | 15 |
| The deep blue river, glittering, winds through all; | |
| The woods that whisper to the zephyr’s kiss, | |
| Where nymphs might taste again Arcadian bliss; | |
| The sun-bright hills that bound the distant view, | |
| And melt like mists in skies of tenderest blue,— | 20 |
| All charm the ravished sense, and dull is he | |
| Who, cold, unmoved, such glorious scene can see. | |
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| Here did the famed Catullus rove and dream, | |
| And godlike Pliny drink of Wisdom’s stream; | |
| Wronged by his friends, and exiled by his foes, | 25 |
| Amid these vales did Dante breathe his woes, | |
| Raise demons up, call seraphs from the sky, | |
| And frame the dazzling verse that ne’er shall die. | |
| Here, too, hath Fiction weaved her loveliest spell, | |
| Visions of beauty float o’er crag and dell; | 30 |
| But chief we seem to hear at evening hour | |
| The sigh of Juliet in her starlit bower, | |
| Follow her form slow gliding through the gloom, | |
| And drop a tear above her mouldered tomb. | |
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| Sweet are these thoughts, and in such favored scene | 35 |
| Methinks life’s stormiest skies might grow serene, | |
| Care smooth her brow, the troubled heart find rest, | |
| And, spite of crime and passion, man be blest. | |
| But to our theme: The pilgrim comes to trace | |
| Verona’s ruins, not bright Nature’s face; | 40 |
| Be still, chase lightsome fancies, ere thou dare | |
| Approach yon pile, so grand yet softly fair; | |
| The mighty circle, breathing beauty, seems | |
| The work of genii in immortal dreams. | |
| So firm the mass, it looks as built to vie | 45 |
| With Alps’ eternal ramparts towering nigh. | |
| Its graceful strength each lofty portal keeps, | |
| Unbroken round the first great cincture sweeps; | |
| The marble benches, tier on tier, ascend, | |
| The winding galleries seem to know no end. | 50 |
| Glistening and pure, the summer sunbeams fall, | |
| Softening each sculptured arch and rugged wall. | |
| We tread the arena; blood no longer flows, | |
| But in the sand the pale-eyed violet blows, | |
| While ivy, covering many a bench, is seen, | 55 |
| Staining its white with lines of liveliest green,— | |
| Age-honoring plant! that weds not buildings gay, | |
| With love, still faithful, clinging to decay. | |
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