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(From Ruins of Many Lands) MUSING and slow, we pass Avernos tide, | |
Hells entrance feigned, where phantoms wail and glide; | |
But fairer scenes are near,we climb yon hill, | |
Where Taste at Natures charms might drink her fill, | |
Posilipo, oerlooking shore and sea, | 5 |
And Loves own city, bright Parthenope. | |
Glorious that landscape spreads around, below, | |
In hues of heaven all earth appears to glow; | |
Through vales of flowers the wild bee blithely wings, | |
Mid orange-groves the soft-plumed mavis sings. | 10 |
Kissing the shores, and stretching far away, | |
One sheet of sapphire spreads the isle-gemmed bay. | |
Vines clad the mountains, myrtles fringe the wave, | |
And harp-like music whispers from each cave: | |
The very winds seem born of joy and love, | 15 |
And earth laughs up to laughing skies above. | |
O lovely land! when banished angels flew | |
From Edens bowers, and bade our world adieu, | |
The heavenly strangers dropped their parting tear, | |
And stamped their smiles, and left their footprints here! | 20 |
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Yet t is not Natures beauties, glowing round, | |
Lend the chief charm to this enchanted ground, | |
But brilliant memories of long-vanished years, | |
The priceless lore which hallows and endears. | |
Each ruin tells a tale; rock, grove, and stream, | 25 |
The classic haunt of some bright spirit seem. | |
What rises near?a fabric lone and gray, | |
That boasts no pillars rich, no friezes gay; | |
An ilex bends above its moss-clad walls, | |
In long festoons the dark green ivy falls, | 30 |
And pale-eyed flowers, like watching vestals, bloom, | |
Kneel, stranger, kneel! that cell is Virgils tomb! | |
Ay, doubt not, though thou findst nor urn nor bust, | |
That slumbers there the immortal poets dust; | |
Gaze on his laurelled brow with Fancys eye, | 35 |
And hear his harp amid the ruins sigh. | |
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