Far, vague, and dim,
The mountains swim;
While on Vesuvius' misty brim
With outstretched hands,
The gray smoke stands
O'erlooking the volcanic lands.
Here Ischia smiles
O'er liquid miles;
And yonder, bluest of the isles,
Calm Capri waits,
Her sapphire gates
Beguiling to her bright estates.
I heed not, if
My rippling skiff
Float swift or slow from cliff to cliff:
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Under the walls of Paradise.
Under the walls
Where swells and falls
The Bay's deep breast at intervals, At peace I lie,
Blown softly by,
A cloud upon the liquid sky.
The day so mild,
Is Heaven's own child,
With Earth and Ocean reconciled;
The airs I feel
Around me steal
Are murmuring to the murmuring keel.
Over the rail
My hand I trail
Within the shadow of the sail;
A joy intense
The cooling sense
Glides down my drowsy indolence.
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Where summer sings and never dies;
O'erveiled with vines,
She glows and shines
Among her future oil and wines.
Her children, hid
The cliffs amid,
Are gambolling with the gambolling kid;
Or down the walls
With tipsy calls,
Laugh on the rocks like water-falls.
The fisher's child,
With tresses wild,
Unto the smooth, bright sand beguiled,
With glowing lips
Sings as she skips,
Or gazes at the far-off ships.
Yon deep bark goes
Where traffic blows,
From lands of sun to lands of snows;
This happier one,
From lands of snow to lands of sun.
O happy ship,
To rise and dip,
With the blue crystal at your lip!
O happy crew,
My heart with you
Sails, and sails, and sings anew!
No more, no more
The worldly shore
Upbraids me with its loud uproar !
With dreamful eyes
My spirit lies
Two thousand years roll backward, and we stand, Like those so long within that awful place, Immovable, nor asking, Can it be?
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 look'd,
('Twas near a noble house, the house of Pansa),
And all was still as in the long, long night
That follow'd, 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,
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 reveal'd
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.
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
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
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,
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.
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?
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!
Ah, no, 'tis 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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