A MEDIEVAL CITY. 124 At my feet the city slumbered. From its chimneys here and there, Wreaths of snow-white smoke ascending, vanished, ghostlike, into air. Not a sound rose from the city at that early morning hour, But I heard a heart of iron beating in the ancient tower. From their nests beneath the rafters sang the swallows wild and high; And the world, beneath me sleeping, seemed more distant than the sky. Then most musical and solemn, bringing back the olden times, Like the psalms from some old cloister, when the nuns sing in the choir; And the great bell tolled among them, like the chanting of a friar. Visions of the day departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain; I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old; Lombard and Venetian merchants with deep-laden argosies; Then the sound of drums aroused me. The awakened city's roar Chased the phantoms I had summoned back into their graves once more. Hours had passed away like minutes; and, before I was aware, LONGFELLOW. NAPLES. A CITY ON THE SEA. ROBE of sunlight hung o'er all thy bowers, Myriads of forms were glancing in the light, Bright pennons glittered in the noon-tide ray, Alas! that man should mar a scene like this, With vain aspirings after perfect bliss ; Some bright, ideal, ever distant good For which he'll barter kindred, home, and blood! ANONYMOUS. NAPLES. APLES! thou heart of man which ever pantest Elysian City, which to calm enchantest The mutinous air and sea! they round thee, even Metropolis of a ruined Paradise Long lost, late won, and yet but half regained! Bright altar of the bloodless sacrifice, 125 126 AN ANCIENT CITY. Which armed Victory offers up unstained To Love, the flower-enchained! Thou which wert once and then did cease to be, From Freedom's form divine, From Nature's inmost shrine, Strip every impious gawd, rend error veil by veil: O'er falsehood's fallen state, Sit thou sublime, unawed; be the Destroyer pale! And wingéd word let sail, Freighted with truth even from the throne of God: Be thine. All hail! SHELLEY. AN ANCIENT CITY. N thought I saw the palace domes of Tyre, The singing-girl with flower-wreathed instrument; AN ANCIENT CITY. And kings to her on embassy were sent. I saw with gilded prow and silken sail, Her ships, that of the sea had government. Oh, gallant ships! 'gainst you what might prevail ! She stood upon her rock, and in her pride Of strength and beauty, waste and woe defied. I looked again-I saw a lonely shore, A rock amid the waters, and a waste Of trackless sand :—I heard the black sea's roar, Like one perplexed with an uncertainty. Awhile he looked upon the sea, and then Upon a book as if it might supply The thing he lacked :-he read and gazed again; Yet as if unbelief so on him wrought, He might not deem this shore, the shore he sought. Again, I saw him come :-'twas eventide; The sun shone on the rock amid the sea; The fisher safely put into the bay, And pushed his boat ashore ;-then gathered he His nets, and hasting up the rocky way, 127 Spread them to catch the warm sun's evening ray. Ruin and silence in her courts are met, MARY HOWITT. BABEL. ORTH walked the king upon the terraced height Beating its walls, and clad with many a sail. For the great house of my unbounded realm, And for the honour of my majesty?" Oh, 'twas a glorious scene! Throughout the earth Lay one wide solitude. Babel arose, sole city of the earth, Sole home of man, the mother of all realms, And through its wide, fair streets, and on its roofs, And up its marble flight of many steps |