HE who sets sail from NAPLES, when the wind
Blows fragrance from PosILIPO, may soon,
Crossing from side to side that beautiful lake,
Land underneath the cliff where, once among
The children gathering shells along the shore,
One laughed and played, unconscious of his fate;1
His to drink deep of sorrow, and, through life,
To be the scorn of them that knew him not,
Trampling alike the giver and his gift,
The gift a pearl precious, inestimable,
A lay divine, a lay of love and war,

To charm, ennoble, and, from age to age,
Sweeten the labour when the oar was plied
Or on the ADRIAN or the TUSCAN sea.

There would I linger-then go forth again,

And hover round that region unexplored,

1 Tasso. Sorrento, his birthplace, is on the south side of the Gulf of Naples.

Where to SALVATOR (when, as some relate,
By chance or choice he led a bandit's life,
Yet oft withdrew, alone and unobserved,
To wander through those awful solitudes)
Nature revealed herself. Unveiled she stood,
In all her mildness, all her majesty,

As in that elder time ere Man was made.

There would I linger-then go forth again ;
And he who steers due east, doubling the cape,
Discovers, in a crevice of the rock,
The fishing-town, AMALFI. Haply there
A heaving bark, an anchor on the strand,
May tell him what it is; but what it was,
Cannot be told so soon.1

The time has been,

When on the quays along the SYRIAN coast,

'Twas asked and eagerly, at break of dawn,
"What ships are from AMALFI ?" when her coins,
Silver and gold, circled from clime to clime;
From ALEXANDRIA Southward to SENNAAR,
And eastward, through DAMASCUS and CABUL
And SAMARCAND, to thy great wall, CATHAY.

Then were the nations by her wisdom swayed;
And every crime on every sea was judged
According to her judgments. In her port

Prows, strange, uncouth, from NILE and NIGER met,
People of various feature, various speech;
And in their countries many a house of prayer,

And many a shelter, where no shelter was,
And many a well, like JACOB's in the wild,
Rose at her bidding. Then in PALESTINE,
By the wayside, in sober grandeur stood

A Hospital, that, night and day, received

1 "Amalfi fell after three hundred years of prosperity; but the poverty of one thousand fishermen is yet dignified by the remains of an arsenal, a cathedral, and the palaces of royal merchants."—GIBEON.

The pilgrims of the West; and, when 'twas asked,
"Who are the noble founders?" every tongue
At once replied, "The merchants of AMALFI."
That Hospital, when GODFREY scaled the walls,
Sent forth its holy men in complete steel;
And hence, the cowl relinquished for the helm,
That chosen band, valiant, invincible,

So long renowned as champions of the Cross,
In RHODES, in MALTA.

For three hundred years

There, unapproached but from the deep, they dwelt ;
Assailed for ever, yet from age to age
Acknowledging no master. From the deep

They gathered in their harvests; bringing home,
In the same ship, relics of ancient GREECE,
That land of glory where their fathers lay,
Grain from the golden vales of SICILY,1
And INDIAN spices. Through the civilized world
Their Credit was ennobled into Fame;

And, when at length they fell, they left mankind.
A legacy, compared with which the wealth

Of Eastern kings-what is it in the scale?
The mariner's compass.

They are now forgot,

And with them all they did, all they endured,
Struggling with fortune. When SICARDI stood

On his high deck, his falchion in his hand,

And, with a shout like thunder, cried, "Come forth,
And serve me in SALERNO!" forth they came,

Covering the sea, a mournful spectacle ;

The women wailing, and the heavy oar

Falling unheard. Not thus did they return,2

The tyrant slain; though then the grass of years

Grew in their streets.

1 There is at this day in Syracuse a street called "La Strada degli Amalfitani." 2 In the year 839. See MURATORI: Art. Chronici Amalphitani Fragmenta.

There now to him who sails

Under the shore, a few white villages
Scattered above, below, some in the clouds,
Some on the margin of the dark blue sea

And glittering through their lemon-groves, announce
The region of AMALFI. Then, half-fallen,

A lonely watch-tower on the precipice,

Their ancient landmark, comes. Long may it last;
And to the seaman in a distant age,

Though now he little thinks how large his debt,
Serve for their monument! 1

1 By degrees, says Giannone, they made themselves famous through the world. The Tarini Amalfitani were a coin familiar to all nations; and their maritime code regulated everywhere the commerce of the sea. Many churches in the East were by them built and endowed; by them was founded in Palestine that most renowned military Order of St. John of Jerusalem; and who does not know that the mariner's compass was invented by a citizen of Amalfi?

"Glorious was their course,

And long the track of light they left behind them."

MONTE CASSINO.1

"WHAT hangs behind that curtain ?"—" Wouldst thou learn?

If thou art wise, thou wouldst not. 'Tis by some
Believed to be His master-work, who looked
Beyond the grave, and on the chapel wall,

2

As tho' the day were come, were come and past,
Drew the Last Judgment. But the Wisest err.
He who in secret wrought, and gave it life,
For life is surely there and visible change,3
Life, such as none could of himself impart,
(They who behold it, go not as they came,
But meditate for many and many a day)
Sleeps in the vault beneath. We know not much;
But what we know, we will communicate.

'Tis in an ancient record of the House;

And may it make thee tremble, lest thou fall!

Once on a Christmas-eve-ere yet the roof

Rung with the hymn of the Nativity,

There came a stranger to the convent-gate,

1 The abbey of Monte Cassino is the most ancient and venerable house of the Benedictine Order It is situated within fifteen leagues of Naples on the inland road to Rome; and no house is more hospitable.

2 Michael Angelo.

3 There are many miraculous pictures in Italy; but none, I believe, were ever before described as malignant in their influence.-At Arezzo in the church of St. Angelo there is indeed over the great altar a fresco painting of the Fall of the Angels, which has a singular story belonging to it. It was painted in the fourteenth century by Spinello Aretino, who has there represented Lucifer as changed into a shape so monstrous and terrible, that he is said in that very shape to have haunted the artist in his dreams and to have hastened his death; crying, night after night, "Where hast thou seen me in a shape so monstrous?" In the upper part St. Michael is seen in combat with the dragon: the fatal transformation is in the lowe part of the picture. --VASARI.