"Paused in yon waves her mighty horns to wet, How in those beams we walk'd, half resting on the sea? 'Tis just one year-sure thou dost not forget

66 Then Plato's words of light in thee and me Linger'd like moonlight in the moonless east For we had just then read-thy memory

"Is faithful now-the story of the feast; And Agathon and Diotima seem'd

From death and [

] released.

FRAGMENT III.

'TWAS at the season when the Earth upsprings
From slumber, as a sphered angel's child,
Shadowing its eyes with green and golden wings,

Stands up before its mother bright and mild,
Of whose soft voice the air expectant seems-
So stood before the sun, which shone and smiled

To see it rise thus joyous from its dreams,
The fresh and radiant Earth. The hoary grove
Wax'd green-and flowers burst forth like starry beams;—
The grass in the warm sun did start and move,
And sea-buds burst under the waves serene :-
How many a one, though none be near to love,
Loves then the shade of his own soul, half seen
In any mirror-or the spring's young minions,
The winged leaves amid the copses green;-

How many a spirit then puts on the pinions
Of fancy, and outstrips the lagging blast,
And his own steps-and over wide dominions

Sweeps in his dream-drawn chariot, far and fast,

More fleet than storms-the wide world shrinks below, When winter and despondency are past.

'Twas at this season that Prince Athanase

Past the white Alps-those eagle-baffling mountains
Slept in their shrouds of snow ;-beside the ways
The waterfalls were voiceless-for their fountains
Were changed to mines of sunless crystal now,
Or by the curdling winds—like brazen wings
Which clanged along the mountain's marble brow,
Warp'd into adamantine fretwork, hung
And fill'd with frozen light the chasm below.

FRAGMENT IV.

THOU art the wine whose drunkenness is all
We can desire, O Love! and happy souls,
Ere from thy vine the leaves of autumn fall,
Catch thee, and feed from their o'erflowing bowls
Thousands who thirst for thy ambrosial dew;
Thou art the radiance which where ocean rolls
Invest[est] it; and when [the] heavens are blue
Thou fillest them; and when the earth is fair
The shadow of thy moving wings imbue

Its deserts and its mountains, till they wear
Beauty like some bright robe ;-thou ever soarest
Among the towers of men, and as soft air

In spring, which moves the unawaken'd forest,
Clothing with leaves its branches bare and bleak,
Thou floatest among men ; and aye implorest

That which from thee they should implore :-the weak
Alone kneel to thee, offering up the hearts

The strong have broken-yet where shall any seek
A garment whom thou clothest not?

Marlow, 1817.

ODE TO NAPLES.*

EPODE I. a.

STOOD within the city disinterr'd ;†

And heard the autumnal leaves like light footfalls "Of spirits passing through the streets; and heard The Mountain's slumberous voice at intervals

Thrill through those roofless halls;

The oracular thunder penetrating shook

The listening soul in my suspended blood;
I felt that Earth out of her deep heart spoke-
I felt, but heard not:-through white columns glow'd
The isle-sustaining Ocean-flood,

A plane of light between two Heavens of azure:
Around me gleam'd many a bright sepulchre
Of whose pure beauty, Time, as if his pleasure
Were to spare Death, had never made erasure;
But every living lineament was clear

As in the sculptor's thought; and there
The wreaths of stony myrtle, ivy and pine,

Like winter leaves o'ergrown by moulded snow,
Seem'd only not to move and grow

Because the crystal silence of the air

Weigh'd on their life; even as the Power divine
Which then lull'd all things, brooded upon mine.

EPODE II. a.

Then gentle winds arose

With many a mingled close

* The Author has connected many recollections of his visit to Pompeii and Baie with the enthusiasm excited by the intelligence of the proclamation of a Constitutional Government at Naples. This has given a tinge of picturesque and descriptive imagery to the introductory Epodes which depicture these scenes, and some of the majestic feelings permanently connected with the scene of this animating event.-Author's Note.

+ Pompeii.

Of wild Æolian sound and mountain odour keen ; And where the Baian ocean

Welters with air-like motion,

Within, above, around its bowers of starry green,
Moving the sea flowers in those purple caves
Even as the ever stormless atmosphere
Floats o'er the Elysian realm,

It bore me like an Angel, o'er the waves
Of sunlight, whose swift pinnace of dewy air
No storm can overwhelm ;

I sail'd, where ever flows
Under the calm Serene
A spirit of deep emotion
From the unknown graves

Of the dead kings of Melody.*
Shadowy Aornos darken'd o'er the helm
The horizontal æther; heaven stript bare
Its depths over Elysium, where the prow
Made the invisible water white as snow;
From that Typhæan mount, Inarime

There stream'd a sunlike vapour, like the standard Of some ethereal host;

Whilst from all the coast,

Louder and louder, gathering round, there wander'd Over the oracular woods and divine sea Prophesyings which grew articulate

They seize me-I must speak them-be they fate!

STROPHE ɑ. I.

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 !

* Homer and Virgil.

Metropolis of a ruin'd Paradise

Long lost, late won, and yet but half regain'd! Bright Altar of the bloodless sacrifice,

Which armed Victory offers up unstain'd

To Love, the flower-enchain'd!

Thou which wert once, and then didst cease to be,
Now art, and henceforth ever shalt be, free,
If Hope, and Truth, and Justice can avail,
Hail, hail, all hail!

STROPHE B. 2.

Thou youngest giant birth

Which from the groaning earth

Leap'st, clothed in armour of impenetrable scale!
Last, of the Intercessors !

Who 'gainst the Crown'd Transgressors

Pleadest before God's love! Array'd 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.

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 their's have been-devour'd 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;