| |
| SEE how the peaceful ripple breaks | |
| In calmness on the verdant shore, | |
| While zephyr, gently breathing, wakes | |
| The slumbering spirit of each flower, | |
| Which glows in beauteous brilliancy, | 5 |
| Along the margin of the tide, | |
| And oft arrests the wandering eye, | |
| As o’er the waves we gently glide. | |
| |
| Let us unfold the swelling sail, | |
| Beneath the silent, silvery moon; | 10 |
| And catch the softly murmuring gale, | |
| Which breathes in midnight’s solemn noon. | |
| And thou, my friend, shalt guide us now | |
| Along the bosom of the bay, | |
| While seated on the lofty prow, | 15 |
| We mark the ripple, that our way | |
| Leaves on the waters, like the streak | |
| Of morning, on an Alpine height, | |
| When Sol’s first radiant daybeams break, | |
| In all the glow of infant light. | 20 |
| |
| What sounds resound along the shores! | |
| What echoes wake from off the seas! | |
| While music from Italian bowers | |
| Comes mingled with the evening breeze; | |
| The careless sailor floats along, | 25 |
| Slow wafted by the ebbing flood, | |
| And swells the chorus of the song, | |
| Which joyous peals from hill and wood. | |
| And laughing bands of youth are there, | |
| Who deftly dance to lightest measure, | 30 |
| And sea, and shore, and earth, and air, | |
| Resound to mellow notes of pleasure. | |
| |
| But, ah! ’t is past; a deeper brown | |
| Has tinged the foliage of the wood, | |
| Vesuvius’ mighty shadows frown | 35 |
| Majestically o’er the flood; | |
| The moon has set, and shadowy sleep | |
| Now holds dominion o’er mankind, | |
| Binding in slumber’s vision deep, | |
| The force of thought and power of mind. | 40 |
| |
| In shadowy grandeur, now appears | |
| The genius of the olden time, | |
| And marks the ravages of years | |
| In her once highly favor’d clime; | |
| Sad on the ruins of the past | 45 |
| Dark melancholy broods alone; | |
| Marking the wreck of temples vast, | |
| The ruin’d shrine and altar stone. | |
| |
| Fair land! where oft, in days of yore, | |
| The hymns of liberty were sung; | 50 |
| Thy boasted empire ’s now no more, | |
| Thy lyre of freedom all unstrung. | |
| But, still the spirit loves to tread | |
| Where sleep the great of ages ended, | |
| For, musing on thy mighty dead, | 55 |
| They seem with all thy scenery blended. | |
| They seem to whisper in thy trees, | |
| They seem to flit along thy mountains, | |
| They seem to float in evening’s breeze, | |
| They seem to haunt thy limpid fountains. | 60 |
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