Louder and louder, gathering round, there wan

dered

Over the oracular woods and divine sea

Prophesyings which grew articulate.

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

III

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
To Love, the flower-enchained!

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!

IV

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 poison! Bid the Earth's plenty kill!

Bid thy bright Heaven above,

Whilst light and darkness bound it,
Be their tomb who planned

To make it ours and thine!

Or, with thine harmonising ardours fill
And raise thy sons, as o'er the prone horizon
Thy lamp feeds every twilight wave with fire!
Be man's high hope and unextinct desire
The instrument to work thy will divine!
Then clouds from sunbeams, antelopes from leop-
ards,

And frowns and fears from thee,
Would not more swiftly flee,

Than Celtic wolves from the Ausonian shepherds.
Whatever, Spirit, from thy starry shrine

Thou yieldest or withholdest, O, let be

This city of thy worship, ever free!

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

STANZAS

WRITTEN IN DEJECTION NEAR NAPLES

THE sun is warm, the sky is clear,

The waves are dancing fast and bright,
Blue isles and snowy mountains wear

The purple noon's transparent might;
The breath of the moist earth is light,
Around its unexpanded buds;
Like many a voice of one delight,

The winds, the birds, the ocean floods,
The city's voice itself is soft like solitude's.

I see the deep's untrampled floor

With green and purple sea-weeds strown;

I see the waves upon the shore,

Like light dissolved in star-showers, thrown; I sit upon the sands alone,

The lightning of the noontide ocean

Is flashing round me, and a tone

Arises from its measured motion,

How sweet! did any heart now share in my emotion.

Alas! I have nor hope nor health,

Nor peace within nor calm around, Nor that content surpassing wealth, The sage in meditation found,

And walked with inward glory crowned,

Nor fame, nor power, nor love, nor leisure. Others I see whom these surround;

Smiling they live, and call life pleasure; To me that cup has been dealt in another measure.

Yet now despair itself is mild,

Even as the winds and waters are;
I could lie down like a tired child,
And weep away the life of care
Which I have borne, and yet must bear,
Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warm air

My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.

Some might lament that I were cold,
As I when this sweet day is gone,
Which my lost heart, too soon grown old,
Insults with this untimely moan;
They might lament, for I am one

Whom men love not,—and yet regret,
Unlike this day, which, when the sun
Shall on its stainless glory set,

Will linger, though enjoyed, like joy in memory

yet.

PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY.

PALM SUNDAY: NAPLES

BECAUSE it is the day of Palms,

Carry a palm for me,

Carry a palm in Santa Chiara,

And I will watch the sea;

There are no palms in Santa Chiara

To-day or any day for me.

I sit and watch the little sail

Lean side-ways on the sea,

The sea is blue from here to Sorrento

And the sea-wind comes to me,

And I see the white clouds lift from Sorrento

And the dark sail lean upon the sea.

I have grown tired of all these things,
And what is left for me?

I have no place in Santa Chiara,
There is no peace upon the sea;
But carry a palm in Santa Chiara,
Carry a palm for me.

ARTHUR SYMONS.