The horizontal æther; heaven stript bare There streamed a sunlit vapour, like the standard Of some ethereal host; Whilst from all the coast, Louder and louder, gathering round, there wandered Over the oracular woods and divine sea They seize me-I must speak them;-be they fate! STROPHE α. 1. NAPLES, thou Heart of men, which ever pantest Naked, beneath the lidless eye of heaven! Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even As sleep round Love, are driven- Metropolis of a ruined Paradise Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice, Which armed Victory offers up unstained Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be, If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail. STROPHE B. 2. Thou youngest giant birth, Which from the groaning earth Leapst, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale! Last of the intercessors Who 'gainst the Crowned Transgressors Pleadest before God's love! Arrayed in wisdom's mail, Wave thy lightning lance in mirth; Nor let thy high heart fail, Though from their hundred gates the leagued oppressors, With hurried legions move! Hail, hail, all hail! ANTISTROPHE α. 1. What though Cimmerian anarchs dare blaspheme Freedom and thee? thy shield is as a mirror To make their blind slaves see, and with fierce gleam To turn his hungry sword upon the wearer; A new Acteon's error Shall theirs have been-devoured by their own hounds! Be thou like the imperial basilisk, Killing thy foe with unapparent wounds! Gaze on oppression, till, at that dread risk Aghast, she pass from the Earth's disk; Fear not, but gaze-for freemen mightier grow, And slaves more feeble, gazing on their foe. If Hope, and Truth, and Justice may avail, Thou shalt be great.—All hail! ANTISTROPHE ß. 2. From Freedom's form divine, From Nature's inmost shrine, Strip every impious gaud, rend Error veil by veil : O'er Ruin desolate, O'er Falsehood's fallen state, Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale! And equal laws be thine, And winged words let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne of God; That wealth, surviving fate, be thine.-All hail! ANTISTROPHE α. y. Didst thou not start to hear Spain's thrilling paan Starts to hear thine! The Sea Which paves the desert streets of Venice, laughs The viper's † palsying venom, lifts her heel Eæa, the Island of Circe. The viper was the armorial device of the Visconti, tyrants of Milan. If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail, ANTISTROPHE ẞ. y. Florence! beneath the sun, Of cities fairest one, Blushes within her bower for Freedom's expectation. From eyes of quenchless hope As ruling once by power, so now by admiration,- From a remoter station For the high prize lost on Philippi's shore :— As then Hope, Truth, and Justice did avail, So now may Fraud and Wrong! O hail! Hear ye EPODE I. B. the march as of the Earth-born Forms Arrayed against the ever-living Gods? The crash and darkness of a thousand storms Bursting their inaccessible abodes See Of crags and thunder-clouds? yo the banners blazoned to the day, Inwrought with emblems of barbaric pride? Dissonant threats kill Silence far away, The Serene Heaven which wraps our Eden wide With iron light is dyed, The Anarchs of the North lead forth their legions ODE TO NAPLES. Like chaos o'er creation, uncreating; A hundred tribes nourished on strange religions Famished wolves that bide no waiting, On Beauty's corse to sickness satiatingThey come! The fields they tread look black and hoary With fire-from their red feet the streams run gory! EPODE 11. 3. Great Spirit, deepest Love! Which rulest and dost move All things which live and are, within the Italian shore; Who spreadest heaven around it, Whose woods, rocks, waves, surround it; Who sittest in thy star, o'er Ocean's western floor; Spirit of beauty! at whose soft command The sunbeams and the showers distil its foison From the Earth's bosom chill; O bid those beams be each a blinding brand Of lightning! bid those showers be dews of poi son! Bid the Earth's plenty kill! |