SORRENTO

SORRENTO

SORRENTO! Bright star! Land
Of myrtle and vine,
I come from a far land
To kneel at thy shrine;
Thy brows wear a garland,
O, weave one for mine!

Her mirror thy city

Fair finds in the sea,A youth sings a pretty

Song, tempered with glee,—

The mirth and the ditty

Are mournful to me.

Ah, sea boy, how strange is
The carol you sing!

Let Psyche, who ranges

The gardens of Spring, Remember the changes

December will bring.

FREDERICK LOCKER.

SORRENTO

MIDWAY betwixt the present and the past,
Naples and Pæstum, look! Sorrento lies:
Ulysses built it, and the Syrens cast

Their spell upon the shore, the sea, the skies.
If thou hast dreamed, in any dream of thine,
How Paradise appears, or those Elysian
Immortal meadows which the gods assign
Unto the pure of heart,-behold thy vision!

These waters, they are blue beyond belief,
Nor hath green England greener fields than
these:

The sun, 't is Italy's; here winter's brief
And gentle visit hardly chills the breeze.

Here Tasso dwelt, and here inhaled with spring
The breath of passion and the soul of song.
Here young Boccaccio plumed his early wing,
Thenceforth to soar above the vulgar throng.
All charms of contrast-every nameless grace
That lives in outline, harmony, or hue-
So heighten all the romance of the place,
That the rapt artist maddens at the view,

And then despairs, and throws his pencil by,
And sits all day and looks upon the shore
And the calm ocean with a languid eye,

As though to labour there were a law no more.

Voluptuous coast! no wonder that the proud
Imperial Roman found in yonder isle

Some sunshine still to gild Fate's gathering cloud,
And lull the storm of conscience for a while.

What new Tiberius, tired of lust and life,
May rest him here to give the world a truce,—
A little truce from perjury and strife,

Justice adulterate and power's misuse?

Might the gross Bourbon, he that sleeps in spite. Of red Vesuvius ever in his eye,

Yet, if he wake, should tremble at its light,

As 't were heaven's vengeance, promised from on high,

Or that poor gamester, of so cunning play,
Who, up at last, in Fortune's fickle dance,
Aping the mighty in so mean a way,

Makes now his dice the destinies of France,

Might they, or any of Oppression's band,

Sit here and learn the lesson of the scene, Peace might return to many a bleeding land, And men grow just again, and life serene. THOMAS WILLIAM PARSONS.

WRITTEN IN TASSO'S HOUSE AT
SORRENTO

O LEONORA, here thy Tasso dwelt,
Secure, ere yet thy beauty he had seen:
Here with bright face and unterrestrial mien
He walked, ere yet thy shadow he had felt.
From that green rock he watched the sunset melt,
On through the waves; yon cavern was his screen,
When first those hills, which gird the glowing

scene,

Were thronged with heavenly warriors, and he knelt

To hail the vision! Syren baths to him

Were nothing; Pagan grot, or classic fane,
Or glistening pavement seen through billows dim.
Far, far o'er these he gazed on Judah's plain;
And more than manhood wrought was in the

boy,

Why did the stranger meddle in his joy?

AUBREY DE VERE.

SORRENTO

THE midnight, thick with cloud,

Hangs o'er the city's jar,

The spirit's shell is in the crowd,
The spirit is afar;

Far, where in shadowy gloom
Sleeps the dark orange grove,
My sense is drunk with its perfume,
My heart with love.

The slumberous, whispering sea
Creeps up the sands to lay

Its sliding bosom fringed with pearls
Upon the rounded bay.

List! all the trembling leaves

Are rustling overhead,

Where purple grapes are hanging dark
On the trellised loggia spread.

Far off, a misted cloud,

Hangs fair Inarimé.

The boatman's song from the lighted boat

Rises from out the sea.

We listen, then thy voice

Pours forth a honeyed rhyme;

Ah! for the golden nights we passed

In our Italian time.

There is the laugh of girls

That walk along the shore, The marinaio calls to them As he suspends his oar. Vesuvius rumbles sullenly, With fitful lurid gleam,