Who, scoffing long, relenting late, Was to a statue turned.
Whilst yet soft pity she repelled,
Whilst yet she steeled her heart in pride, From her friezed window she beheld, Aghast, the lifeless suicide;
Around his lily neck was tied
What freed his spirit from her chains,
And purchased with a few short sighs
For her immortal agonies,
Imperishable pains.
Then first she felt her bosom bleed
With love and pity; vain distress!
O, what deep rigors must succeed
This first sole touch of tenderness!
Her eyes grow glazed and motionless,
Nailed on his wavering corse, each bone
Hardening in growth, invades her flesh,
Which, late so rosy, warm, and fresh,
Now stagnates into stone.
From limb to limb the frosts aspire,
Her vitals curdle with the cold;
The blood forgets its crimson fire,
The veins that e'er its motion rolled;
Till now the virgin's glorious mould
Was wholly into marble changed,
On which the Salaminians gazed,
Less at the prodigy amazed
Than of the crime avenged.
Then tempt not thou Fate's angry arms
By cruel frown or icy taunt,
But let thy perfect deeds and charms
To poets' harps, divinest, grant
Themes worthy their immortal vaunt;
Else must our weeping strings presume
To celebrate in strains of woe
The justice of some signal blow
That strikes thee to the tomb.
Garcilaso de la Vega. Tr. J. H. Wiffen.
With the distaff in your hand,
Whose silver flax threads curl
Like the white waves on the sand;
In this narrow, dingy street,
On the dark and steep hillside,
In this hovel, can such sweet
And romantic beauty hide?
Spinning through the sunny day,
Underneath the old church-tower,
The waves of Naples Bay
Have not nursed a fairer flower.
You will ne'er that bay forget
Wheresoe'er you may be borne ;
It sparkles in your eye of jet,
Its pride is in your scorn.
Singing down the narrow street,
In the sultry, silent hours,
Unconsciously your naked feet
Tread on shells and withered flowers:
Every day the picture fair,
For which distant poets sigh,
Is drawn upon the summer air,
Before your careless eye.
And you watch the sails that bask
In the sunshine, as they go,
But your fancy will not ask
Of your future's weal or woe,
More than of the distant port
To which drift those fading sails,
Or if the voyage be long or short,
Or calm, or vexed with gales.
Handsome Naples girl!
In the dark street high and lone,
While the waves below you sweep and curl,
You shall be wooed and won.
In long tribes of fishermen,
Shall float on Naples bay
The blood that crimsons the brown cheek
I look upon to-day.
ELIGHTFUL city of Parthenope,
Still the soft airs that fan thee seem enchanted; By song and beauty crescent shores still haunted
Along thy bright bay, once the siren's sea!
Well I remember, gazing now on thee,
The wishful dreams, with which my childhood panted,
Of charms, in volumes of dumb Latin vaunted,
Or vowelled in rich Italian melody.
From Capri's rocky isle, where ruins gray
The memory of the first proud Cæsars rear
To where Misenum overlooks the bay, -
Rome's galley-navy used to anchor near,
The shades of yore, the lights of yesterday,
Hallow each wall and wave and headland here!
THINK not, when I gaze upon thy bay,
That clasps, as with a lover's arms, the sea
Tripping to kiss the curved shore smilingly,
O Naples, of thy charms, though poets say,
"See Naples, and in death then pass away."
I have no eye nor ear but for the glee,
The tide, the bustle, the activity,
Thronging thy streets, as 't were a festive day.
To me, an exile, for how many a year,
In deathlike India, thou art as the gate
Of life, or morning's advent after night;
As welcome as to Dante was the light,
When issuing from the realms of woful fate,
He saw the blessed stars once more appear.
John Bruce Norton.
Naples, the Bay.
SONG OF THE SEA.
HAVE swung for ages to and fro;
I have striven in vain to reach thy feet, O garden of joy! whose walls are low, And odors are so sweet.
I palpitate with fitful love;
I sigh and sing with changing breath;
I raise my hands to heaven above,
I smite my shores beneath!
In vain, in vain! while far and fine,
To curb the madness of my sweep,
Runs the white limit of a line
I may not overleap.
Once thou wert sleeping on my breast,
Till fiery Titans lifted thee From the fair silence of thy rest,
Out of the loving sea.
And I swing eternal to and fro;
I strive in vain to reach thy feet,
O garden of joy! whose walls are low,
And odors are so sweet!
Rossiter W. Raymond.
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